How The AMD Polaris Open-Source Driver Performance Has Evolved Since Launch

[phoronix]

Phoronix: How The AMD Polaris Open-Source Driver Performance Has Evolved Since Launch

If you've been wondering how the AMDGPU+RadeonSI open-source driver stack has evolved since the hardware publicly launched, I ran some fresh benchmarks this weekend comparing my current driver numbers to that of my original Radeon RX 470 Linux review...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=RX-470-Comparison-To-Launch

[ElectricPrism]

Glad I left Maxwell for Polaris. AMD's future feels bright. Gaming on Wayland (Gnome Mutter) is a funny thing because I can't even tell a difference.

Framerates @ 1080p are high enough in all games for me.

[juno]

Thanks AMD!

[pal666]

bioshock improvement was not polaris-specific, though it was done by amd dev

[GreatEmerald]

Cool, nice to see that. Generally my 660 is starting to age now... 4x SGSSAA on 1080p is too hard for it. Also, I upgraded to it from a 4890 three years ago, and I bought that one four years before that, so it's almost time for another upgrade, hm. An RX 470 would be a good upgrade. But not quite yet, the prices are a bit too high at the moment. I'd estimate that it would make sense to upgrade in about two years. Maybe a full Zen system would be an option by then, hm.

[LinuxID10T]

Cool, nice to see that. Generally my 660 is starting to age now... 4x SGSSAA on 1080p is too hard for it. Also, I upgraded to it from a 4890 three years ago, and I bought that one four years before that, so it's almost time for another upgrade, hm. An RX 470 would be a good upgrade. But not quite yet, the prices are a bit too high at the moment. I'd estimate that it would make sense to upgrade in about two years. Maybe a full Zen system would be an option by then, hm.

I have seen multiple RX 470 cards on Newegg for $169. Definitely a good deal.

[Veerappan]

Cool, nice to see that. Generally my 660 is starting to age now... 4x SGSSAA on 1080p is too hard for it. Also, I upgraded to it from a 4890 three years ago, and I bought that one four years before that, so it's almost time for another upgrade, hm. An RX 470 would be a good upgrade. But not quite yet, the prices are a bit too high at the moment. I'd estimate that it would make sense to upgrade in about two years. Maybe a full Zen system would be an option by then, hm.

Unless you need to upgrade now for some game that doesn't run fast enough, I'd at least wait until Zen/Vega are out before making a decision.

[eydee]

Not much improvement except for Infinite. But this means initial support was good, which is a great thing.

In the meantime, Vega, where art thou?

[Adarion]

Does anybody in this world (besides Michael) ever use 3840 x 2160 screens right now? O.O

Anyway, all this is just a part of the improvements. If I look back at the days, there was radeonHD in the very beginning and it was then not much more than a VESA driver. Today we have launch day support with 2D, 3D and video acceleration, energy management and more. It has grown very beautifully.

[johanb]

In the meantime, Vega, where art thou?

As far as i remember they pushed it from a Q3 2016 release to a late 2016/early 2017 release, but that has been the case for a few months now so that's nothing new.