Open-Source RadeonSI Gallium3D vs. AMD Catalyst On Linux

More disappointing results for the open-source driver on the Radeon HD 7850/7950 graphics cards.

The Radeon HD 6950 graphics card performs excellent on R600g relative to the closed-source Catalyst driver. Meanwhile, RadeonSI has a long ways to go and I would be surprised if the gap is closed prior to next calendar year.

Hopefully these results answer some questions about the open-source vs. closed-source (Catalyst) driver performance of AMD Radeon HD 7000 series graphics cards on Linux. While the RadeonSI performance might be disappointing at this time, what is great to see is the Radeon HD 6950 performing much more competitively to the Catalyst driver. The R600g driver continues to mature and prove great competition to Catalyst, especially now with UVD video decoding and dynamic power management. Other areas still to reach parity is with OpenGL compliance and the OpenCL/GPGPU support still being raised.