Radeon RX 480: RadeonSI Gallium3D vs. AMDGPU-PRO - Interesting CPU/Power Difference

[SaucyJack]

once again fglrx (or the "new" amd gpu pro) sucks

It handles shitty ports way better though.

[eydee]

It handles shitty ports way better though.

Well, it should without a question. It officially supports only 8 desktop GPUs the moment. That's Apple territory, almost like a console. Let's see how far it goes in 5 years, when it becomes a unified driver again, with a big, messy code base.

[dungeon]

Well, it should without a question. It officially supports only 8 desktop GPUs the moment. That's Apple territory, almost like a console. Let's see how far it goes in 5 years, when it becomes a unified driver again, with a big, messy code base.

Well it is sort of similar on WIndows, only selected hardware is supported with latest drivers (16.6.2)... Only dGPUs seems supported, as latest driver for Windows does not officialy support APUs at all ... last recommended driver for one group of APUs is 16.3.2 and for other group of APUs it stay at 15.12.

BTW, support for third group of hardware is dropped before that point (15.7.1), while 16.2.1 Beta continue to support those that are dropped

It more seems to me they are in somewhat reorganisation development mode regardless of OS, but even more i think of "it is what it is"

If i draw whole picture out if this i would conclude that currently majority of AMD users run different version of drivers (while one bugzilla per driver version is also needed) and only linux users have desire for one single version driver which support fully every single hardware and to work the same on 300 distros

[RussianNeuroMancer]

I guess bitcoin is an option although that doesn't really seem any more convenient (I don't think my cut-down Kaveri is an ideal mining rig).

Circle and Coinbase is easy way to buy it in US.

[sireangelus]

...maybe, just maybe, since the proprietary driver uses more optimizations, it has to use more cpu to compile them? . A though.

[dungeon]

...maybe, just maybe, since the proprietary driver uses more optimizations, it has to use more cpu to compile them? . A though.

Sort of, most perf profiles AMD's proprietary driver have are so called threaded optimization or threadedGL profiles... That is similar like nvidia's __GL_THREADED_OPTIMIZATIONS env variable and that uses more of CPU of course

[Luke]

Actually two issues exist with any usage of money over the Internet:
1: some folks (like myself) are unemployed and cannot subscribe to anything for that reason. Why do you think I am on 5 and 7 year old hardware?
2: Some of us have no credit cards or online currency of any kind (or experience working with same) and thus could not transmit the funds even if they were dropped in our laps.

This is a much broader issue than Phoronix, but there is the issue that a big site like Phoronix draws much of the traffic, comments, and discussion to itself. There is, however, a limit beyond which people will in fact fork much of the work of any website. Not all such examples are monetary. I still rememeber how Liveleak bascially was able to build their website on the business Youtube lost when they started taking down insurgent videos from Iraq during 2007. Michael SHOULD take all the breaks he needs, something this big is too much for one person. What requires caution is the whole "premium content" model. Doesn't really bother me much in this context but would be just the hook for someone setting up a rival website ("100% access all the time.")

Again I will say the distributed workload model has a lot going for it and Michael could look at it. Lots of this power-hogging, time intensive testing could be done by all the folks who have money to burn on buying this new hardware for their own use. A site whose "premium content" was only available to those who had contributed a designated amount of work rather than money would be rather interesting. The delayed-access model accomodates the edge case of someone setting up their very first high-power system: to get reviews they need to use hardware that's been out more than a week or two. POnce they've shared their results they get immediate access to some volume of newer reviews. They keep up by retesting as kernels and drivers change. Cards, CPU's etc keep getting updated test results as long as people keep using them.

Phoronix would have the existing userbase and sheer muscle to jump-start this sort of model. It would be rather like seeing Facebook put their support behind building up the distributed-served Diaspora social network after finding their existing server farms hopelessly overloaded.

Call this communism if you will, but keep in mind that the fatal flaw in large-society communism was the "central server" model of their governments that were supposed to manage the whole mess. Tribal societies were always de facto "communist" but with distributed rather than centralized power.

[baka0815]

Thanks for the test Michael and thanks for the info via RSS feed that the articles is now open for all.

It's a good way to make some money, at least I can accept that without problems!

[AndyChow]

Actually two issues exist with any usage of money over the Internet:
1: some folks (like myself) are unemployed and cannot subscribe to anything for that reason. Why do you think I am on 5 and 7 year old hardware?
2: Some of us have no credit cards or online currency of any kind (or experience working with same) and thus could not transmit the funds even if they were dropped in our laps.

Maybe you should spend less time on this site and more time looking for a job. If you have no credit card or online currency, it's pretty amazing. It's like saying you don't have a cellphone or an email address.

Doesn't really bother me much in this context but would be just the hook for someone setting up a rival website ("100% access all the time.")

Yes, when people realize they can make LESS money than Michael, I'm sure they will jump on the opportunity! Remind me again why you are unemployed?

[duby229]

Actually two issues exist with any usage of money over the Internet:
1: some folks (like myself) are unemployed and cannot subscribe to anything for that reason. Why do you think I am on 5 and 7 year old hardware?
2: Some of us have no credit cards or online currency of any kind (or experience working with same) and thus could not transmit the funds even if they were dropped in our laps.

This is a much broader issue than Phoronix, but there is the issue that a big site like Phoronix draws much of the traffic, comments, and discussion to itself. There is, however, a limit beyond which people will in fact fork much of the work of any website. Not all such examples are monetary. I still rememeber how Liveleak bascially was able to build their website on the business Youtube lost when they started taking down insurgent videos from Iraq during 2007. Michael SHOULD take all the breaks he needs, something this big is too much for one person. What requires caution is the whole "premium content" model. Doesn't really bother me much in this context but would be just the hook for someone setting up a rival website ("100% access all the time.")

Again I will say the distributed workload model has a lot going for it and Michael could look at it. Lots of this power-hogging, time intensive testing could be done by all the folks who have money to burn on buying this new hardware for their own use. A site whose "premium content" was only available to those who had contributed a designated amount of work rather than money would be rather interesting. The delayed-access model accomodates the edge case of someone setting up their very first high-power system: to get reviews they need to use hardware that's been out more than a week or two. POnce they've shared their results they get immediate access to some volume of newer reviews. They keep up by retesting as kernels and drivers change. Cards, CPU's etc keep getting updated test results as long as people keep using them.

Phoronix would have the existing userbase and sheer muscle to jump-start this sort of model. It would be rather like seeing Facebook put their support behind building up the distributed-served Diaspora social network after finding their existing server farms hopelessly overloaded.

Call this communism if you will, but keep in mind that the fatal flaw in large-society communism was the "central server" model of their governments that were supposed to manage the whole mess. Tribal societies were always de facto "communist" but with distributed rather than centralized power.

OT: Centralized power mongering indeed toppled a number of societies throughout history. But I must say it is also equally true that centralized power mongering fostered some of the brightest era's in history. What we consider our modern era couldn't exist with anything less than something like 100 million people. I fully agree that people should be able to govern themselves at the state and local level. But there must be centralized federal government. Men need to be governed. Maybe not always wisely, but they need it anyway.