AMD Announces Radeon RX 7900 XTX / RX 7900 XT Graphics Cards - Linux Driver Support Expectations

[coder]

finally added tensor accelerators(AI accelerators) to their consumer cards.

Except they're not as much of a boost as Nvidia's were. 2.7x is significant, but when fp32 compute is 2.6x as fast, and overall performance is 1.7x as fast, it doesn't look great at all. I guess it would be a non-trivial win, if AI can run independently from their Wave32 compute, though I doubt it. If they're anything like Nvidia's Tensor "Cores", they'll still share the same register file and be driven by the same warp/wavefront that does normal SIMD compute.

[drakonas777]

During presentation Lisa said "AM4 is going to continue for long long time". I find it interesting to mention this just after emphasizing the longevity of AM5. Feels like either they are planning to maintain AM4 and ZEN3 as a budget platform far longer than I was expecting or some new SKUs are still coming for AM4. I'd love to see some ZEN3 IO + ZEN4c CCD stuff for example, with sane power limits and affordable price

[ctlansdown]

I'm looking forward to your testing!

[Hibbelharry]

[QUOTE=Danny3;n1355626]
For the same reasons a Windows user needs it for!

Except next to noone uses any of those panels, even in Windows.

Mostly useless bling bling.

Why should I be happy only with the 2 options provided by the desktop environment in its control panel?

Things should just work with no adjustments needed, thats convenience.

I bet some of them (like the GPU status, monitor info, link speed) could've been easily implemented on Linux too, if they wanted to!

Most of that information is there. Someone just needs to write a GUI for that...except noone seems to care at all.

[StillStuckOnSI]

For the same reasons a Windows user needs it for!
Why should I be happy only with the 2 options provided by the desktop environment in its control panel?
Windows users have too in their native control panel to change the resolution and refresh rate, like on Linux, but AMD has also created a dedicated control panel for the GPU where they can see the GPU status, temperatures, usages, fan speeds, display info, link speeds, enable / disable the Zero-RPM, enable a FPS limiter and many other things.

I bet some of them (like the GPU status, monitor info, link speed) could've been easily implemented on Linux too, if they wanted to!

I (and many others, judging by search results) have been using https://gitlab.com/corectrl/corectrl as of late. Hits most of your points, though beware of https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/1925 if you're running a new GPU with a slightly older kernel.

[Grim85]

For the same reasons a Windows user needs it for!
Why should I be happy only with the 2 options provided by the desktop environment in its control panel?
Windows users have too in their native control panel to change the resolution and refresh rate, like on Linux, but AMD has also created a dedicated control panel for the GPU where they can see the GPU status, temperatures, usages, fan speeds, display info, link speeds, enable / disable the Zero-RPM, enable a FPS limiter and many other things.

I bet some of them (like the GPU status, monitor info, link speed) could've been easily implemented on Linux too, if they wanted to!

There's community tools that do most of these things. I don't know which limited DE you are using - but KDE gives me res, overscan, rotation, scaling, RGB Range, VRR/Freesync. For fans etc I fireup corectrl.

I'm scratching my head on why you would need amd to make a control center when the work is already done. Have their limited linux developers focus on driver and hardware enablement in amdvlk and mesa/radv

[jamdox]

To an outsider like it it seems like there are several different drivers, or combination of drivers. Will I (most likely) need to upgrade to a newer kernel than what's included in Ubuntu 22.10 by default? What is "the RADV Vulkan driver". How does it relate to "RadeonSI Gallium3D", if at all? How do I figure out what I should use? Can both be installed at the same time? Do they provide the same functionality? Is RADV required for Vulkan? Does that driver also support OpenGL for all non-Vulkan titles? There's also something called AMDGPU and AMDGPU-PRO. How do they fit in with all this?

The kernel has the newer AMDGPU and older Radeon drivers, which work with older cards. Mesa is in userspace and just has RadeonSI for OpenGL. For Vulkan, we're back to choosing between AMDVLK and radeon-vulkan; these are also userspace with radeon-vulkan somehow being part of Mesa and AMDVLK being standalone. AMDVLK doesn't work well with Steam's DX12 compatibility layer, so use radeon-vulkan if you want better luck running 3D games in Steam. AMDGPU can be used with radeon-vulkan, although I'm not having luck running Civ 6 with this setup.

Well, ok, it "just works", only if your card is not too [old]. Otherwise, just upgrade or install AMDGPU-PRO.

Not my experience. Yes, old cards are another exception, though they don't necessarily need the closed drivers. But when it comes to Vulkan and Proton, it's definitely not "just use the newest thing" and "it just works".

[vegabook]

24GB, 61tflops FP32, for 1000 bucks. Very nice. Almost tempted...... Oh wait... ROCm 🔒🤮

[Venemo]

For the same reasons a Windows user needs it for!
Why should I be happy only with the 2 options provided by the desktop environment in its control panel?
Windows users have too in their native control panel to change the resolution and refresh rate, like on Linux, but AMD has also created a dedicated control panel for the GPU where they can see the GPU status, temperatures, usages, fan speeds, display info, link speeds, enable / disable the Zero-RPM, enable a FPS limiter and many other things.

I bet some of them (like the GPU status, monitor info, link speed) could've been easily implemented on Linux too, if they wanted to!

These are all implemented on Linux, there are several apps you can choose from.

[muncrief]

I am so glad that you put your obligation to your son above all else Michael. You only have a few years to truly make a lasting impression upon him, and delay is simply not possible.

As parents all the other things in our lives, that we once considered so critical, must be reevaluated and placed in new perspective. Your son will one day realize and recognize and love you even more for whatever sacrifices you make. I know, as my son is 29 now. And remembers that the only times I stopped working were to care and have fun with him.

Great review by the way, the new cards look awesome!