AMD Releases New "AMDGPU" Linux Kernel Driver & Mesa Support

[drSeehas]

It's never that simple. SI, CI, VI refer to chip families. Each chip in the family is a combination of hardware blocks (shaders (GFX), video decode (UVD), video encode (VCE), display (DCE), etc.) GCN refers to the instruction set on the GFX hardware block. The individual asics are a combination of hw blocks. For example, Carrizo and Tonga are in the VI family and both have GFX 8 (GCN 1.2 instruction set), but tonga has DCE 10 and UVD 5, while Carrizo has DCE11 and UVD 6. Iceland is also VI family, but does not have DCE or UVD or VCE. It's mainly just GFX (GFX 8). So chip families loosely apply to the GFX block version on the chip.

I never disputed SI, CI, VI and GCN Generations.
You both don't get my point: "GCN 1.x" is superfluous and redundant.
Or can anyone explain to me what "GCN 1.x" can express what can't be expressed by all the other names?

[dungeon]

I never disputed SI, CI, VI and GCN Generations.
You both don't get my point: "GCN 1.x" is superfluous and redundant.
Or can anyone explain to me what "GCN 1.x" can express what can't be expressed by all the other names?

Those naming are to describe per family what is the same on core graphic block of chips and if you also don't mind other block differences as Alex mentioned. One chip may also have ARM block, one does not, there are DCE diffs and UVD version diffs, etc... while core graphic might be all of the same capabilities .

But GCN 1.x or Gen X or xI naming or maketing naming or some internal naming - that is the same, as i said pick whatever you want there for particular situation people around tend to use

[agd5f]

I never disputed SI, CI, VI and GCN Generations.
You both don't get my point: "GCN 1.x" is superfluous and redundant.
Or can anyone explain to me what "GCN 1.x" can express what can't be expressed by all the other names?

It avoids the confusion with engineering family names (SI, CI, VI) and marketing family names which are similar to engineering family names, but often cross GFX version lines. E.g., marketing considers Hawaii to be Volcanic Islands, but from a hw perspective it's GCN 1.1 (GFX 7), not GCN 1.2 (GFX 8).

[drSeehas]

It avoids the confusion with engineering family names (SI, CI, VI) and marketing family names which are similar to engineering family names, but often cross GFX version lines. E.g., marketing considers Hawaii to be Volcanic Islands, but from a hw perspective it's GCN 1.1 (GFX 7), not GCN 1.2 (GFX 8).

My last try and then I give up:

Why avoids "GCN 1.x" confusion with engineering family names and marketing family names but the official "GCN Generation X" can't avoid confusion?
What is the raison d'?tre of the official "GCN Generation X" name?
Why not name it officially "GCN 1.x" but "GCN Generation X"?

[dungeon]

My last try and then I give up:

Why avoids "GCN 1.x" confusion with engineering family names and marketing family names but the official "GCN Generation X" can't avoid confusion?
What is then the raison d'?tre of the official "GCN Generation X" name?
Why not name it then officially "GCN 1.x" but "GCN Generation X"?

Why that is confusion for you? GCN 1.x point describe it, while in Gen(eration) number describe it - it is the same for me . And GCN 1.x naming is already in use:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Core_Next

Gen X is what Intel use, to raise confusion nVidia should use same naming as AMD for GPUs That will be even more confusion

And let guess AMD can switch to GCN 2.x naming once they change manufacturing process

[agd5f]

All of the GCN stuff is from marketing. Developers use the engineering families (NI, SI, CI, VI, etc.) or hw block versions (GFX 7, GFX 8, etc.). It's just mentioned here because lots of users see and use the various marketing naming and want to know what it corresponds to in the driver.

[drSeehas]

All of the GCN stuff is from marketing. ...

So we should avoid AMD GPUs because at AMD in 2015 marketing writes 300+ pages Graphics Core Next Architecture, Generation 3 Reference Guide for developers ... But maybe it is a counterfeit?

BTW: I think all of the "GCN 1.X" stuff is from outside AMD.

[dungeon]

You can't avoid it, people will often say i have problems with mine Intel HD graphics or Radeon R3

OK, just give me pciid

[agd5f]

So we should avoid AMD GPUs because at AMD in 2015 marketing writes 300+ pages Graphics Core Next Architecture, Generation 3 Reference Guide for developers ... But maybe it is a counterfeit?

The ISA document as written by engineering did not originally use the GCN Generation 3 nomenclature. It originally used the Volcanic Islands nomenclature, but that caused confusion with the Volcanic Islands marketing family which covers multiple generations of GFX hardware.

[dungeon]

BTW: I think all of the "GCN 1.X" stuff is from outside AMD.

Guessing, it might be that this article is godfather

for the sake of our sanity and for our discussions, in lieu of an official name from AMD we’re going to be retroactively renaming AMD’s GCN microarchitectures in order to quickly tell them apart. For the rest of this article and in future articles we will be referring to Southern Islands as GCN 1.0, while Bonaire’s microarchitecture will be GCN 1.1

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6837/amd-radeon-7790-review-feat-sapphire-the-first-desktop-sea-islands/2