HD 3870 already outdated for OpenCL. Am I naïve for expecting otherwise?

[Veerappan]

[QUOTE=Qaridarium;172890]

I'd really like to be able to just get a list of OpenCL compatible Linux graphics cards, and list them in ascending order of "OpenCL-power" per dollar. /QUOTE]

the hd5850 2gb vram version does have the best OpenCL-power per dollar ratio.

thats because this card do have full 64bit support without any slowdown and the card only cost you 200€ today.

all gtx480 cards and gtx580 cards are much slower on 64bit tasks because they slowdown the speed to sell tesla cards-

The double-precision speed isn't as fast as the Tesla cards, but for single-precision and integer workloads, they're fine. Everything I'm working on is integer-based, so it doesn't affect me...

[Qaridarium]

[QUOTE=Veerappan;173272]

The double-precision speed isn't as fast as the Tesla cards, but for single-precision and integer workloads, they're fine. Everything I'm working on is integer-based, so it doesn't affect me...

you really not get the point the DP speed is much higher with the hd5850 per DOLLAR
i wrote this: "OpenCL-power per dollar ratio. "
PER DOLLAR mean you can not beat an 200€ card with an 2000 € Tesla card if you are 50% faster.
50% faster means 300€.... 100% faster means 400€.... but your tesla costs 2000€,.,.
your tesla need to be 10 time faster on DP

[Veerappan]

[QUOTE=Qaridarium;173284]

you really not get the point the DP speed is much higher with the hd5850 per DOLLAR
i wrote this: "OpenCL-power per dollar ratio. "
PER DOLLAR mean you can not beat an 200€ card with an 2000 € Tesla card if you are 50% faster.
50% faster means 300€.... 100% faster means 400€.... but your tesla costs 2000€,.,.
your tesla need to be 10 time faster on DP

http://blog.cudachess.org/2010/03/nv...ncl-benchmark/

GTX 580 versus a Radeon 5870 (also includes a 6870 and GTX 460/480):
http://www.geeks3d.com/20101125/test...eeks3d-labs/5/

4-part series which compares a radeon 5870 against a GTX 280 (280, not 480). Note that the GTX 280 usually beats the 5870, which means the Fermi cards probably demolish it:
http://www.geeks3d.com/20100115/gpu-...l-test-part-1/

Another GTX 480 versus 5870:
http://www.geeks3d.com/20100330/gefo...rmance-tested/

As I said, the GTX 480 and GTX 580 kick the pants off the 5870 (and therefore the 5850). Looking at the second link above, the GTX 460 768MB is as fast as the 5870. The GTX 460 goes for $160-$200 on newegg, and the 5850 is $185+.

Personally, even if it is a little slower, I'd probably still buy the GTX 460/560 because of Nvidia's Visual Profiler tool:
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/visual-profiler.html

If you're doing OpenCL development work, it will probably come in really handy.

[deanjo]

[QUOTE=Veerappan;173432]

http://blog.cudachess.org/2010/03/nv...ncl-benchmark/

GTX 580 versus a Radeon 5870 (also includes a 6870 and GTX 460/480):
http://www.geeks3d.com/20101125/test...eeks3d-labs/5/

4-part series which compares a radeon 5870 against a GTX 280 (280, not 480). Note that the GTX 280 usually beats the 5870, which means the Fermi cards probably demolish it:
http://www.geeks3d.com/20100115/gpu-...l-test-part-1/

Another GTX 480 versus 5870:
http://www.geeks3d.com/20100330/gefo...rmance-tested/

As I said, the GTX 480 and GTX 580 kick the pants off the 5870 (and therefore the 5850). Looking at the second link above, the GTX 460 768MB is as fast as the 5870. The GTX 460 goes for $160-$200 on newegg, and the 5850 is $185+.

Personally, even if it is a little slower, I'd probably still buy the GTX 460/560 because of Nvidia's Visual Profiler tool:
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/visual-profiler.html

If you're doing OpenCL development work, it will probably come in really handy.

This all really depends on the the GPGPU application being used. For most average end users the Nvidia cards will smoke an AMD on consumer based applications which do not typically rely on double precision (those benchmarks for example don't utilize DP).

Q is right however if it was going to be on pure double precision benchmark or application the AMD cards would show a better performance benchmark result on their consumer cards then nvidias consumer cards. The flipside however to that the AMD cards do not carry the same error correction so how many of those results are accurate is anybodies guess and for an application that uses double precision accuracy is desired even if it comes at a monetary cost or some speed.

It really all depends on the market you are going after and the GPGPU application.

[Veerappan]

This all really depends on the the GPGPU application being used. For most average end users the Nvidia cards will smoke an AMD on consumer based applications which do not typically rely on double precision (those benchmarks for example don't utilize DP).

Q is right however if it was going to be on pure double precision benchmark or application the AMD cards would show a better performance benchmark result on their consumer cards then nvidias consumer cards. The flipside however to that the AMD cards do not carry the same error correction so how many of those results are accurate is anybodies guess and for an application that uses double precision accuracy is desired even if it comes at a monetary cost or some speed.

It really all depends on the market you are going after and the GPGPU application.

Yeah, you and Quaridarium are right that the double precision floating performance of the Fermi-based GTX cards is crippled, but at the same time, I haven't seen any consumer-level benchmarks that use fp64 either.

Given that double-precision floating point wasn't even a requirement of the OpenCL 1.0 spec (it was an optional extension), I haven't placed much importance on it when weighing purchasing decisions.

[Qaridarium]

Yeah, you and Quaridarium are right that the double precision floating performance of the Fermi-based GTX cards is crippled, but at the same time, I haven't seen any consumer-level benchmarks that use fp64 either.

Given that double-precision floating point wasn't even a requirement of the OpenCL 1.0 spec (it was an optional extension), I haven't placed much importance on it when weighing purchasing decisions.

its not only openCL... openGL4.1 also have "double-precision floating point " for graphic if you really use openGL4.1 highdefinition graphic then the nvidia cards is crippled.
most of the amd lowend and mid cards also cripple this feature.
its only 5850 and up but 6870,67xx, 66xx, and so one not but 6970,6950 support that.

this makes it easy for openCL or full(openGL4.1) if don't buy an 5850/5870 or 6970/6950 nvidia is better in OpenCL right now.
vram matters to if you can get a 2gb version its just better than 1 gb in openCl..

[hoohoo]

The current AMD Stream SDK explicitly lists the 4xxx series as supported. The previous SDK listed 4870 as supported but 4890 as not formally supported. 3870 - well it is older than OpenCL, so YMMV.

[Veerappan]

The 4xxx is supported, but is missing an extension that my current work requires, so I had to replace it with something newer. My advisor had a spare GTX 480 laying around that I could borrow, so I'm using that for now.

I'm hoping that the clover project makes some progress, because I'd love to eventually upgrade to a radeon 5xxx/6xxx on Gallium with working OpenCL. Of course this would also depend on a bit more optimisation work in the r600g driver.