Arch Linux

ominide

Member

Registered: 2009-10-11

Posts: 15

Arch Builds / HPC with AMD/ATi

Hi all, I have some questions to ask and would value your input back.

I am going to be building a new PC, specifically to aid in my graduate thesis work in computer science, so I need to upgrade from my measily Centreno Duo laptop (side note: its never run as well as it does on that its on Arch: you all have a convert now) so that I can approach GPGPU programming.  My initial idea was to just save for an i7-920 and some Nvida cards but money is tight (being a grad student and all).  However after seeing the most results from the most recent SuperComputing confrense I have seriously given thought to an AMD/ATi combo.  Now historically I've been a fan of AMD but not ATi, and when I got into it system building years ago ATi stunk building drivers for windows let alone linux.

My serious question is those that are using ATi, are you noticing at least pretty linear increase in quality of driver release, or at least close.  I'm going to ignore the open source driver mostly because if I buy a 400$ graphics card for HPC and a lesser extent HD video processing, I want it to bloody work, not wait a year or two for half implimentation.  Please note that I do wish to see the open source drive be on par or better but right now, I'm trying to graduate in spring 2011 so timing is pretty critical.

Any thoughts about the subject I would love to know since I'm at that point of system building where I need to select the parts that are dependent on each other a lot.

Thanks,
also if this needs to be moved to another board please do so.

lagagnon

Member

From: an Island in the Pacific...

Registered: 2009-12-10

Posts: 1,087

Website

Re: Arch Builds / HPC with AMD/ATi

I honestly don't see why you just don't buy an equivalent quality nVidia card and save yourself some grief.

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Philosophy is looking for a black cat in a dark room. Metaphysics is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there. Religion is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there and shouting "I found it!". Science is looking for a black cat in a dark room with a flashlight.

ominide

Member

Registered: 2009-10-11

Posts: 15

Re: Arch Builds / HPC with AMD/ATi

That was the original plan, but if the ATi drivers a more sure'd up than they've been, or I've heard, I might beable to eak out something that has the HPC power of the Intel/Nvidia combo and save myself some money.  The reason I'm considering the ATi is that I know that the 58xx are significantly more powerful than current gen Nvidia (we're excluding fermi) and if possible would it be able to be utilized in linux.

doorknob60

Member

Registered: 2008-09-29

Posts: 404

Re: Arch Builds / HPC with AMD/ATi

Eh, I'm using Catalyst right now and it's not giving me any problems like it has in the past, but their support simply isn't even close to Nvidia's. Besides the fact than Nvidia's drivers always work better, Catalyst often takes a while to support new Kernels and new versions of Xorg (I'm still on Xorg 1.6.x). The open source drivers work fairly well if you want to mess with a bunch of git packages. I had it working good for a while, but then it stopped working so I just installed Catalyst. Go with Nvidia IMO, though AMD CPUs still rule ATI is getting better though, and aside from having to use the old Xorg, it's not giving me any problems right now.