Expected runtimes for Radeon HD7970

FalconFly
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RE: Due to the new CPU (AMD

Quote:
Due to the new CPU (AMD A10-6700), I hope I manage to bring both the HD7850 as well as the integrated GPU to work.

Turns out after a long night (I've sworn to NEVER install Vista again anywhere) that despite being called APU, AMD still doesn't treat it like that.
The AMD A10-6700's internal HD8670D does not cooperate with a HD7xxx Desktop Card and automatically shuts down.
Even when trying to force dual display with the old trick of an attached Monitor to the APU's Display output (manually enabled in BIOS) it is only recognized as a non-functioning "Standard VGA" in Device Manager and no Driver can be installed whatsoever. So you can't even use a 2nd Display unless you have the matching series HD6xxx Card in your System - how lame is that?

I thought AMD was smarter than that by now, they're still 100% 3D Gaming Crossfire-minded and did not even consider the option of having the APU in the System as a non-VGA, computation CoProcessor-type device regardless of primary Display adapter series installed (the way it should be) - even Windows would happily accept that without a hitch now.
These guys still have ALOT to learn ffs :p

Claggy
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Have a read of this:

Have a read of this: MultiMonitor Support and Windows Vista

With Vista, you can't mix GPUs from different vendors, you need Windows 7 or XP for that (I don't think that applies in your case, unless the discrete GPU is labelled as an ATI, and the APU as an AMD)

Claggy

FalconFly
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Yes, these were early issues

Yes, these were early issues (similar to multimonitor setups in WinXP or even earlier, plus the manufacturers preventing it in their Drivers) that shouldn't apply anymore to such an extend for similar devices.
Both devices are AMD VendorID and need the same Driver, so IMHO it should work at least for OpenCL applications or a 2nd Display (I fully understand the desire to prevent mismatched 3D Rendering devices of course).

I fired off a Note to AMD, although I have little hope they fix that issue anytime soon.

At least I got the System working, additionally using that APU would have been the icing on the cake ;)

ExtraTerrestrial Apes
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RE: I fired off a Note to

Quote:
I fired off a Note to AMD, although I have little hope they fix that issue anytime soon.


Thanks, that's the right thing to do. I recently tried to make Intel understand that their iGPU shouold be visible as OpenCL coprocessor, regardless of a display being attached. The support guy didn't even understand...

MrS

Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

FalconFly
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This is the reponse from AMD

This is the reponse from AMD :

Thank you for contacting AMD!

Please be advised that using an APU onboard graphics + a Radeon HD7850 is an unsupported configurations. Using GPUs in different product family under one motherboard was never a supported set-up. The drivers weren't design to be compatible with GPUs in different product family.

Crossfire works by having 2 identical cards ideally or atleast 2 cards in the same product family. So the minimum is a Radeon HD7850 + a radeon HD7870.

Dual Graphics is specific, and for the A10 APUs, only the Radeon HD6670 is compatible with the Radeon HD8670D. Otherwise if you wish to be a discrete card in the Radeon HD7000 series, you can but the onboard Radeon HD8670D will have to be disabled.

AMD Dual graphics:

http://www.amd.com/us/products/technologies/dual-graphics/Pages/dual-graphics.aspx

AMD Crossfire:

http://sites.amd.com/us/game/technology/Pages/crossfirex.aspx

I can understand your idea and the attempt in which you are trying to get these 2 GPUs to function together. However, unfortunately the driver design and set-up was never meant to be use this way.

I do not hear back from you, the service request will be permanently closed after 10 days. If more time is needed, please reply back to me before the 10 days expire. And I will ensure this service request remains open for you.

In order to update this service request, please respond, leaving the service request reference intact.

Best regards,

AMD Global Customer Care

--------------------------------------------------

Although I made crystal clear what I wanted and that it has nothing to do with Crossfire whatsoever, they as well have no clue what they're missing out.
Completely Crossfire / Dual Display / combined 3D performance minded, their thinking is so..... 2006.

So forget all that advertising, all those promises and plans about using the APU for general purpose processing etc... They completely dumped all of those plans, nothing of that will work unless you accidentally happen to have the matching discrete budget GPU in your System or run that APU solo.

Those APUs could have been great to compensate the AMD x86 core's FPU weakness... Now the OS is ready, the Software after years of development finally has catched up.... but now AMD craps out with a brainfart, having completely forgotten what APUs were originally all about.
I've been with AMD CPUs for over 15 years now, but they completely lost it, hard to comprehend what fools they are.

ExtraTerrestrial Apes
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Dear AMD Global Customer

Dear AMD Global Customer Care,

no, you do not understand what I want to do. It's NOT about Crossfire, Dual Graphics, Games, DirectX, OpenGL or even just making the GPUs work together.

All I (and others) want to do is to use them as OpenCL coprocessors, completely independent from each other. Just in the same way as we sometimes mix 5000, 6000 and 7000 series discrete GPUs, sometimes even with some nVidia or Intel thrown into the mix. Each GPU gets its own task, crunches it as soon as it can, returns the results and gets another one. You see? this has nothing to do with the other GPUs present in the system. And modern Windows' can handle different drivers for different GPUs just fine, we already know this from the discrete GPUs.

And I'm not asking for any kind of support for such configurations, right now the only thing I'm asking you to do is NOT TO FORBID IT! If you're worried about the relatively slow APU-GPUs slowing general OpenCL accelerated programs down you could easily implement an OpenCL option in your control panel where the user can choose which GPUs shall be usable for OpenCL. Deactivate the APU by default for this if you want to, but let us enable it. If you actually care about your customers and future sales.

Best regards,

... that's what I'd write them in return. If you don't want to I'd open a new ticket for it.

MrS

Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

FalconFly
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This was my reply

This was my reply :

Hi,

thanks for the quick response, the ticket can be closed then.

If I understand correctly, AMD has dropped all plans to have the APU contained GPUs operating as General Purpose Co-Processors.
All I would like to add is, that this is a major step backwards at a time where updated drivers could deliver what the APUs were always promised and originially developed for.
For me that means that an AMD APU has no usable extra value, since I (and many others with similar requirements) can never use it with an up-to-date discrete GPU - thus none will be purchased in the future.

I'm not 100% sure if that's what AMD originially had in mind, but if that's their decision there's nothing I can do about it.
The AMD APU could have made up for the AMD x86 core lacking alot of FPU performance compared to the intel CPUs, but I see that's not supposed to happen...

I never thought I would ever have to write this.... but that's another loyal (>15 yrs) CPU customer less for you guys :(

ExtraTerrestrial Apes
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Please post the reply, if you

Please post the reply, if you get any.

MrS

Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

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