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Re: graphics cards for serious (science) usage?

Cross-posted to 2 groups.

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On Wed, 2/5/2025 4:01 AM, David Chmelik wrote:
> Do any graphics processing unit (GPU) or display/video/graphics card 
> companies admit/market GPUs or cards to be used for serious reasons:  
> science operating systems (OS, UNIX/GNU/Linux) CUDA & OpenCL (I know they 
> do for ones more expensive than Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 OC, AMD Radeon RX 
> 7900 XTX & forthcoming 9000s, but asking about these & low-to-mid-range)?
> 
> We have AMD, ASUS, GigaByte, Nvidia hardware.  One or more companies won't 
> answer about CUDA & OpenCL nor safe temperature ranges nor configuration 
> software (either ASUS or GigaByte makes their own... the other doesn't nor 
> knows defaults) saying 'graphics cards are for gaming' (or that GPU 
> companies' software shows safe temperatures despite cards differ) which is 
> ridiculous: 'hardcore gamers' probably only use small percentage of 
> (powerful) graphics cards... first of all, they're for graphics 
> (computational geometry/graphics computer programming/science to make 
> games, (photo)graphics/art/computer-aided-design, video, etc. software) 
> but they won't say this first.  Now most (powerful) graphics cards (other 
> than fair number of average/office/non-gaming or casual/rare gaming usage) 
> may be in (UNIX/GNU/Linux) science (super)computers, whether modelling/
> research (like/using BOINC.Berkeley.edu), artificial intelligence (AI) or 
> small-to-medium science (AI) workstation P(S)C usage... and many still 
> cryptocurrency mining.  I'll call all this 'number-crunching'.
> 
> Seems some these companies outsourced customer support to third-world 
> countries unaware scientific/non-desktop/-gaming usage exists.  Some put 
> 'gaming' in card names, despite maybe many/most are for users or number-
> crunching.  I asked one about OpenCL and they referred me to '"our" forum' 
> on gitlab.freedesktop.org , which isn't their site (it's for graphical 
> user interfaces (GUI) such as the X Window System (X), etc. for science 
> OS) let alone a forum, and CUDA & OpenCL don't need desktop: typically 
> start on command-line/console/shell/terminal (by 'terminal' I mean not 
> graphical user interface (GUI)) to compute in background (screen/tmux).  
> The customer support agent apparently thought OpenCL misspelled OpenGL.
> 
> Lately I asked AMD if GNU/Linux AMDGPU-Pro OpenCL still works on Radeon RX 
> Vega... I tried unofficial close variants (Debian/Devuan, Ubuntu/Neon GNU/
> Linuxes) which used to work but now some don't: too altered, so should I 
> try something listed in amdgpu-install (Debian, Mint, *Ubuntu) rather than 
> variants, or was Vega dropped?  I don't think AMDGPU-Pro depends on 
> systemd (oriented to desktops, not traditional servers) so since Devuan 
> doesn't alter anything else, OpenCL should work, and KDE Neon claims they 
> just add newer X/KDE desktop environment (DE) without altering underlying 
> Kubuntu (an official Ubuntu) though I've found sometimes false (upgrades 
> to experimental/development/testing KDE graphics libraries too new for 
> AMDGPU-Pro with older cards requiring dkms, despite OpenCL doesn't use 
> dkms, can completely break display many ways, which we need).
> 
> Is it best to ask AMD, ASUS, GigaByte, Nvidia, try other companies (Intel 
> GPUs, who else for cards)?  I still like ASUS for having most display-
> ports, but lately prefer GigaByte for best price with longer warranty 
> (than ASUS Tuf).
> 

On AMD, I would start with ROCm. ROCm is available immediately on 7900XTX,
7900XT, and the Radeon VII you mention (and that card is drifting out of
support and soon to be deprecated). Apparently there are moves afoot,
to include some of the lesser RDNA cards, so the supported list could
grow in future.

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROCm

It's hard for me to say whether OpenCL is still a separate development or
not. I don't know if it is packaged separately.

One of the sites that was capable of writing good article was Anandtech.
Future has laid off the staff there. Their server remains running,
there is a user forum, but in terms of writing new technical articles,
there is no one there now to do that. Anand, the original owner of the site,
went off to work for Apple, and Ryan Smith took over running the site after
that. And he was laid off. They could have written an article explaining
the block diagram of the software product.

But other than that, the marketing efforts are awful, and don't
tell end users anything about why you would buy a product. There is
Quadro with certified drivers for CAD work. The full capabilities of
OpenGL are enabled on a Quadro, whereas if you do OpenGL CAD
work on a gamer card, it "slows down after around 50 objects".
I expect the driver has the ability to consider what the program
name is which just started, and control the level of acceleration
available to that program.

NVidia has TensorCore, but what is that and how is it implemented ?
Is it just a shader program ? Or a logic block ?

(This covers some of it, but is likely a bit game-oriented.)

https://www.techpowerup.com/299130/nvidia-ada-ad102-block-diagram-and-new-architectural-features-detailed

Even readouts like this, do not map to whatever software
stack exists today. The card (ten years old?) on the left,
has no Ray Tracing, and is about to out of support. The device
on the right, is the iGPU in an AMD 5600G processor.

   [Picture]

    https://i.postimg.cc/59v3Fb8B/Techpowerup-GPUZ-2-62.gif

bullwinkle@TIKTACK:~$ inxi -F
System:
  Host: TIKTACK Kernel: 6.8.0-51-generic arch: x86_64 bits: 64
  Desktop: Cinnamon v: 6.4.6 Distro: Linux Mint 22.1 Xia
Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: Micro-Star model: MPG B550 GAMING PLUS (MS-7C56) v: 1.0
     UEFI: AMI   date: 07/13/2024
CPU:
  Info: 6-core model: AMD Ryzen 5 5600G with Radeon Graphics bits: 64
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Cezanne [Radeon Vega Series / Radeon Mobile Series]
    driver: amdgpu v: kernel
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.11 with: Xwayland v: 23.2.6 driver: X:
    loaded: amdgpu unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa dri: radeonsi gpu: amdgpu
    resolution: 1920x1080~75Hz
  API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: radeonsi,swrast platforms: x11,surfaceless,device
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: amd mesa v: 24.0.9-0ubuntu0.3
    renderer: AMD Radeon Graphics (radeonsi renoir LLVM 17.0.6 DRM 3.57
    6.8.0-51-generic)

Driver Manager says it "needs no drivers", which means AMDGPU is
already running it after the OS was installed. It was the default driver.
(Whereas on NVidia, you have Nouveau versus NVidia from Driver Manager.)

   Paul

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Thread

graphics cards for serious (science) usage? David Chmelik <dchmelik@gmail.com> - 2025-02-05 09:01 +0000
  Re: graphics cards for serious (science) usage? Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-02-05 06:30 -0500
    Re: graphics cards for serious (science) usage? Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-02-06 00:13 -0500
    Re: graphics cards for serious (science) usage? Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-02-06 21:05 +0000
      Re: graphics cards for serious (science) usage? Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-02-07 00:21 -0500
      Re: graphics cards for serious (science) usage? "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2025-02-07 19:28 +0800
        Re: graphics cards for serious (science) usage? Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-02-07 08:42 -0500
          Re: graphics cards for serious (science) usage? "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2025-02-08 22:32 +0800
  Re: graphics cards for serious (science) usage? "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2025-02-06 00:02 +0800

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