Radeon Software 20.10 vs. Upstream Linux AMD Radeon OpenGL / Vulkan Performance
With last week's release of Radeon Software for Linux 20.10 as AMD's first packaged graphics driver update for Linux of 2020, here are some benchmarks showing how the performance compares to what is shipped by Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS as well as when using the newer Mesa and Linux kernel releases for the very latest open-source performance, including switching over to RADV+ACO for Vulkan gaming.
Today's AMD Radeon Linux graphics driver comparison is looking at:
Linux 5.3 + Mesa 19.2 - The out-of-the-box configuration shipped by Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS HWE (and Ubuntu 19.10) for the current default AMD Linux experience on this major distribution and also other stable distros from late 2019.
AMDGPU-PRO 20.10 - The stock install of the new Radeon Software for Linux 20.10 on Ubuntu 18.04.4 using the default components.
Linux 5.3 + Mesa 20.1-dev - Sticking to Ubuntu's default kernel but upgrading to Mesa 20.1-devel for the newest RadeonSI Gallium3D and RADV driver code via the Oibaf PPA.
Linux 5.7-rc2 + Mesa 20.1-dev - Besides riding the latest Mesa code, also moving to the latest development Linux kernel build for showing how the AMDGPU kernel driver improvements are helping AMD Linux gaming performance.
Linux 5.7-rc2 + Mesa 20.1-dev + ACO - For the Vulkan games, also running Linux 5.7 + Mesa 20.1 with the ACO compiler back-end enabled as the Valve-backed option for generally delivering even better performance.
With all those driver configurations, the graphics cards tested included the:
- Radeon RX 590
- Radeon RX Vega 64
- Radeon RX 5700 XT
- Radeon VII
Via the Phoronix Test Suite a wide range of OpenGL and Vulkan Linux gaming benchmarks were carried out across these various GPU and driver options. If you enjoy the daily Linux benchmarking on Phoronix with often content that cannot be found anywhere else, consider showing your support during COVID-19 due to the impact it's unfortunately had on the advertising industry and thus on our bottom line for being able to continue producing new content.