AMD Radeon HD 6xxx / 7xxx / GCN

I must admit,. still being able to run newer 3D-accelerated games (2014+) on Linux, at acceptable resolutions (720p/1080p), on a rather outdated (but not deprecated) AMD Radeon HD 66xx-series discrete GPU ('2012) is quite amazing.

Sure, there are hiccups with certain games (mostly b/c of the cross-platform game-engine selected for development), but they'll get ironed out (eventually...) I'm not worried ;)

And, yes... I realize certain games are optimized for Nvidia-cards, but AMD is finally catching up on driver-compatibility / -support and -optimization.

The open-source Linux-driver (Radeon Gallium3D) and the proprietary Linux-driver (Catalyst / "Omega") both showed amazing feature-progress and bug-fixing in 2014, and the Catalyst-driver even benchmarked better than the Windows-version: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_cat_winlin2014&num=1.

Performance and feature additions for 2014:

• OpenMAX / AMD video encode, UVD for older AMD GPUs.
• various new OpenGL extensions.
• continued work on OpenCL.
• power management improvements.
• ...and the start of open-source HSA.

The benefits are mostly for the newer HD 7xxx / GCN(GraphicsCoreNext)-series of GPU's, but, the driver-tests also showed the HD 6xxx-series (3+ years old) was still improving on both performance and bug-fixes.

From personal experience, gaming on the HD 6xxx-series is adequate for newer games (2013-2014+). But, if you want awesomesauce eyecandy graphics, tip: go for a higher series-range card.

I currently have a Sapphire Radeon HD 6670 1GB 64-bit GDDR5 PCIe-2.1 discrete graphics-card in my h3x4c0m box, and the card sports a GPU with a total of 480 stream-processors. I got the card b/c my deprecated Nvidia-card sported a whopping 48(!) CUDA-cores (lol), suffice to say; it should have been binned a long time ago, or at least moved over to a crap-box to act as a PVR or TV-tuner or something.

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If you are a hardcore ultra-gamer, stick with Nvidia. But, AMD is still catching up, so keep an eye out for them as they have proven (2014) their game on Linux, and maybe even accelerating even newer methods of both integrated graphics (APU+GPU) and discrete graphics (GPU) in the near future ;)

Phoronix article-links:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/14/12/27/2234222/phoronix-lauds-amds-open-source-radeon-driver-progress-for-2014?sdsrc=rel
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/15/01/03/1426208/amd-catalyst-linux-driver-catching-up-to-and-beating-windows?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

AMD + SoC + ARM

The previous post was about AMDs current bugdet-line mobile processors. Before that, I posted (in Norwegian) about their plans for future mobile solutions.

They are basing their new budget-line / mobile processors on the "Jaguar" microarchitecture (the pre-decessing C- and E-series are "Brazos" based), and will sport 64-bit dual- or quad-core ("Bobcat" x86-cores) with integrated Radeon 8000 graphics (80-core GPU), significantly outperforming any "Atom"-chips with integrated graphics from Intel.

The new "AMD Embedded G-series System-on-Chip" sets will be made in two versions (or architectures): x86 and ARM. Determining which architecture a chip is based on, is as easy as looking at the CPU-logo; the ARM-version will have an "A" in the lower right corner of the logo and the x86-version will have an "X" (as shown in the picture below).

AMDs "Embedded G-series SoC" seems to be direct competition against Intels "Atom" budget-line. CPU-vendor competitiveness is, as we all know (at least the one's paying attention), a good thing :-P

It will be exciting to see how the combination ARM+Radeon will operate and behave performance-wise :-) since I've been an avid embedded (ARM ) fan for years, it'll also be quite interesting to see AMD play with both CISC- and RISC-based designs in the same series.

AMD press-release:
http://www.amd.com/us/press-releases/Pages/amd-embedded-gseries-2013apr23.aspx

AMD, SoC og ARM.

AMDs nye satsing på bærbare enheter heter "AMD Embedded G-series System-on-Chip" (kort: SoC), basert på AMDs nye Jaguar mikroarkitektur.

AMDs pressemelding:
http://www.amd.com/us/press-releases/Pages/amd-embedded-gseries-2013apr23.aspx

Det er nok den nye strømgjerrige serien som skal konkurrere direkte med Intels "Atom"-serie (benyttet i NAS-bokser, nettbrett, mini-laptoper, osv.).

Brikkene skal lages i to arkitekturer: ARM og x86. Om brikken er ARM- eller x86-basert ses nede i høyre hjørne av logoen hvor det blir trykt en "A" for ARM, og en "X" for x86 (bildet ovenfor viser en x86-basert brikke). De vil også komme med to eller fire kjerner som vil kjøre på en klokkefrekvens mellom 1 til 2 GHz. Grafikkmessig stiller AMD seg bedre enn Intel. Disse brikkene har integrert GPU basert på Radeon 8000 som i følge AMD gir opptil 5 ganger bedre grafikkytelse enn tilsvarende "Atom"-prosessorer fra Intel.

Personlig liker jeg veldig at AMD leker med å blande CISC / RISC i en brikke-serie, og det vil bli voldsomt spennende å se hvordan brikke-kombinasjonen ARM / Radeon vil oppføre seg i bruk.

Hardware.no-artikkel:
http://www.hardware.no/artikler/dette-er-amds-nye-atom-konkurrent/132867