11–20 of 45 posts
Offtopic: Most might be thinking fully FLOSS is something that's only happened in software, or powerless hardware. But the thing is server and desktop grade powerful and fully FLOSS hardware with PCIe 4.0 and DDR4 ECC memory are available right now to customers and businesses. Not as powerful as AMD. AMD will never be open though. It's not x86. POWER9. FSF RYF certified. https://www.raptorcs.com/ #talos-workstation o…
> Graphics Core Next (GCN). This design would last for nearly 8 years […] still in use today as the integrated GPU
And in desktop GPUs.
The goddamn power of marketing! Even tech writers seem to assume that "RDNA" is some kind of revolutionary from-scratch change. It's still the same ISA!! Look at the drivers and compilers. It's simply the regular evolution, just with a rebrand.
(upd: even later in this article they do say it's "a significant reworking of GCN"… well, why did the first mention sound kinda like it wasn't acknowledging this?)
Offtopic: Most might be thinking fully FLOSS is something that's only happened in software, or powerless hardware. But the thing is server and desktop grade powerful and fully FLOSS hardware with PCIe 4.0 and DDR4 ECC memory are available right now to customers and businesses. Not as powerful as AMD. AMD will never be open though. It's not x86. POWER9. FSF RYF certified. https://www.raptorcs.com/ #talos-workstation o…
Any news or update on POWER10?
Offtopic: Most might be thinking fully FLOSS is something that's only happened in software, or powerless hardware. But the thing is server and desktop grade powerful and fully FLOSS hardware with PCIe 4.0 and DDR4 ECC memory are available right now to customers and businesses. Not as powerful as AMD. AMD will never be open though. It's not x86. POWER9. FSF RYF certified. https://www.raptorcs.com/ #talos-workstation o…
I like the idea of FSF-certified hardware, but aren't POWER9 machines ten times the price of the average desktop?
Offtopic: Most might be thinking fully FLOSS is something that's only happened in software, or powerless hardware. But the thing is server and desktop grade powerful and fully FLOSS hardware with PCIe 4.0 and DDR4 ECC memory are available right now to customers and businesses. Not as powerful as AMD. AMD will never be open though. It's not x86. POWER9. FSF RYF certified. https://www.raptorcs.com/ #talos-workstation o…
I like the idea of FSF-certified hardware, but aren't POWER9 machines ten times the price of the average desktop?
First you have to design an incredibly complex custom hardware processor to implement your ISA of choice with various speed optimisations. Then you have to convert it to a gate-level model and simulate it to make sure it's reliable.
Then you have to produce a physical/electromagnetic model which juggles capacitance, loading, switching transients, transmission line reflections, and interconnect length, and somehow still works for all possible conditions with good tolerances to maximise yield.
Then you have to handle all the visual/UV/soft X-ray optics, diffusion chemistry, and process management to build the wafers at scale.
It's not a particularly clean or sustainable industry. But even so - the finished chips are the absolute pinnacle of many simultaneous engineering and management disciplines.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like the idea of FSF-certified hardware, but aren't POWER9 machines ten times the price of the average desktop?
What 'smcl' commented, also all prices are in this link, scroll down: https://www.raptorcs.com/
Huh, TIL: the K6 came from an acquisition. > Graphics Core Next (GCN). This design would last for nearly 8 years […] still in use today as the integrated GPU And in desktop GPUs. The goddamn power of marketing! Even tech writers seem to assume that "RDNA" is some kind of revolutionary from-scratch change. It's still the same ISA!! Look at the drivers and compilers. It's simply the regular evolution, just with a rebra…
GCN 1.2 changed the opcodes from GCN 1.0. If the machine code doesn't line up anymore, is it really fare to call it the same ISA?
In the case of RDNA: its all 32-wide SIMD instead of 64-wide SIMD. That dramatic difference completely destroys the bpermute / permute / DPP assembly instructions (https://gpuopen.com/learn/amd-gcn-assembly-cross-lane-operat...), which have gone from 64-way permutes (in GCN) into 32-way permutes (in RDNA).
GCN 1.2 was already looking pretty different from GCN 1.0, I'd say RDNA absolutely deserves the name "new ISA".
After all, GCN 1.2 is about as similar to GCN 1.0 as 8080 was to 8086 (same assembly language and registers, but new opcodes). I think most people are willing to call 8080 and 8086 different ISAs.
RDNA is extremely different at a base level because of that 32x SIMD vs 64x SIMD.
It would be hard to come up with a corporate story that didn't have such missteps. Now, Samsung has licensed Radeons to be in their mobile SoCs.