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Another solid move by AMD. Due to their attitude towards open-source in the GPU department, I haven't used an Nvidia graphics card in years. Their APUs kill pre

Another solid move by AMD. Due to their attitude towards open-source in the GPU department, I haven't used an Nvidia graphics card in years. Their APUs kill pretty much all the competition. Their CPUs are excellent for price/performance, efficiency, and core-count. And now this? If they can prioritize getting more AI/ML and 3D modeling capability into their cards, going all-red would become the new clear meta.

alanfranz 3y ago
If. If they can proritize _and_ execute on that vision.
- slt2021 3y ago
  there is also second mover advantage, where they just need to copy-cat the best part of nvidia's ML stack and dont waste time figuring out what works/what doesn't work. they will get users simply because they will be alternative to nvidia. Add good pricing strategy and it can be immediate success
  - msla 3y ago
    > there is also second mover advantage, where they just need to copy-cat the best part of nvidia's ML stack and dont waste time figuring out what works/what doesn't work. Seems like patents would stop that.
    - slt2021 3y ago
      didn't know nvidia patented matmul and dot product
      - m00x 3y ago
        There's a lot more involved than matmul and dot products.
    - bmicraft 3y ago
      Didn't the Google v Oracle lawsuit end up confirming that you can't patent an API?
      - slt2021 3y ago
        AMD doesnt have to implement CUDA api, they just need to make sure their compute framework works well with pytorch/tf/MLIR or whatever high level framework is being used. Cuda itself will change over time, so no reason for AMD to pick cuda, because nobody writes CUDA kernels by hand, they use high level frameworks
        woodson 3y ago
        But CUDA kernels are everywhere, not just in high-level frameworks. Look at DeepSpeed, for example, which is used in training LLMs.
        slt2021 3y ago
        So what? They can be replaced by amd kernels if there will be adequate tooling support
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - orra 3y ago
        No, it confirmed reimplementing an API is not copyright infringement. The patent claims were rejected simply because the Google implementations were written in such a way the patents did not apply.
  - fatfingerd 3y ago
    I'm actually happier if they deliver a mediocre GPU performance seamlessly. I would be as annoyed as the gamers to be priced out of a great desktop/video setup. If hype more fully occupied Nvidia's fragile race cars I'd have a nicer laptop.
- justinjlynn 3y ago
  With Ryzen and their other recent products and their rapid pace of improvement, they certainly have developed a decent track record of that.
  - m00x 3y ago
    They're crushing it on hardware, but being left behind in the firmware/software.
    - justinjlynn 3y ago
      Getting Intel proprietary advantage in widely used open source packages and systems is something Intel has been very, very good at doing. I use POWER9 systems and... Yeah, the software porting situation has been rather annoying (especially in media processing libraries that rely on things like embree, opencolorio and the like)
gdevenyi 3y ago
One word. CUDA
- justinjlynn 3y ago
  Valve's Proton/wine... Apple's M5 cpu. Software/hardware layers, especially system software and hardware interfaces that must remain stable and compatible essentially forever, aren't the strong lock in mechanisms everyone thinks they are.
  - m00x 3y ago
    That absolutely doesn't work in ML training.
    - imtringued 3y ago
      It would work if AMD focused on ROCm support for their consumer GPUs. The reason for that is quite simple. Angry consumers using your GPUs produces a lot of data that helps you design future GPUs and improve the drivers.
    - jjoonathan 3y ago
      It absolutely does, but AMD's execution on this front has been unmitigated dogshit for the last decade and now every engineer in this niche has a scar or five from giving AMD chance after chance after chance and then limping back to NVDA when the slog is just too much. Now that they have money, I'm hoping they can turn this around. I hear that they have... but I've always heard that and it has never been true. I need to see to believe, now.
      - Pet_Ant 3y ago
        Are you referring to OpenCL?
        imtringued 3y ago
        https://www.phoronix.com/news/OpenCL-On-Mesa-Matrix https://www.phoronix.com/news/OpenCL-On-Mesa-Matrix
adrian_b 3y ago
This is indeed good, but for now it is just a small step towards restoring their previous documentation transparency. Before Zen, AMD published for each CPU the very useful "BIOS and Kernel Developer’s Guide". Starting with the first Zen, this previously public information has become secret. Hopefully, with OpenSIL equivalent information will become public again.
- userbinator 3y ago
  equivalent information will become public again. I'm not so hopeful, because it seems to have become common for companies to replace information with open source code, which amounts to nothing more than "put this constant in this register" with no detailed explanation of the why. I'd much rather they publish actual documentation than OSS.
  - delusional 3y ago
    Why not both? Good documentation with a reference implementation seems like the optimal choice. They're going to have to write the reference implementation anyway.

alanfranz 3y ago

If. If they can proritize _and_ execute on that vision.

slt2021 3y ago
there is also second mover advantage, where they just need to copy-cat the best part of nvidia's ML stack and dont waste time figuring out what works/what doesn't work. they will get users simply because they will be alternative to nvidia. Add good pricing strategy and it can be immediate success
- msla 3y ago
  > there is also second mover advantage, where they just need to copy-cat the best part of nvidia's ML stack and dont waste time figuring out what works/what doesn't work. Seems like patents would stop that.
  - slt2021 3y ago
    didn't know nvidia patented matmul and dot product
    - m00x 3y ago
      There's a lot more involved than matmul and dot products.
  - bmicraft 3y ago
    Didn't the Google v Oracle lawsuit end up confirming that you can't patent an API?
    - slt2021 3y ago
      AMD doesnt have to implement CUDA api, they just need to make sure their compute framework works well with pytorch/tf/MLIR or whatever high level framework is being used. Cuda itself will change over time, so no reason for AMD to pick cuda, because nobody writes CUDA kernels by hand, they use high level frameworks
      - woodson 3y ago
        But CUDA kernels are everywhere, not just in high-level frameworks. Look at DeepSpeed, for example, which is used in training LLMs.
        slt2021 3y ago
        So what? They can be replaced by amd kernels if there will be adequate tooling support
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - orra 3y ago
      No, it confirmed reimplementing an API is not copyright infringement. The patent claims were rejected simply because the Google implementations were written in such a way the patents did not apply.
- fatfingerd 3y ago
  I'm actually happier if they deliver a mediocre GPU performance seamlessly. I would be as annoyed as the gamers to be priced out of a great desktop/video setup. If hype more fully occupied Nvidia's fragile race cars I'd have a nicer laptop.
justinjlynn 3y ago
With Ryzen and their other recent products and their rapid pace of improvement, they certainly have developed a decent track record of that.
- m00x 3y ago
  They're crushing it on hardware, but being left behind in the firmware/software.
  - justinjlynn 3y ago
    Getting Intel proprietary advantage in widely used open source packages and systems is something Intel has been very, very good at doing. I use POWER9 systems and... Yeah, the software porting situation has been rather annoying (especially in media processing libraries that rely on things like embree, opencolorio and the like)

gdevenyi 3y ago

One word. CUDA

justinjlynn 3y ago
Valve's Proton/wine... Apple's M5 cpu. Software/hardware layers, especially system software and hardware interfaces that must remain stable and compatible essentially forever, aren't the strong lock in mechanisms everyone thinks they are.
- m00x 3y ago
  That absolutely doesn't work in ML training.
  - imtringued 3y ago
    It would work if AMD focused on ROCm support for their consumer GPUs. The reason for that is quite simple. Angry consumers using your GPUs produces a lot of data that helps you design future GPUs and improve the drivers.
  - jjoonathan 3y ago
    It absolutely does, but AMD's execution on this front has been unmitigated dogshit for the last decade and now every engineer in this niche has a scar or five from giving AMD chance after chance after chance and then limping back to NVDA when the slog is just too much. Now that they have money, I'm hoping they can turn this around. I hear that they have... but I've always heard that and it has never been true. I need to see to believe, now.
    - Pet_Ant 3y ago
      Are you referring to OpenCL?
      - imtringued 3y ago
        https://www.phoronix.com/news/OpenCL-On-Mesa-Matrix https://www.phoronix.com/news/OpenCL-On-Mesa-Matrix

adrian_b 3y ago

This is indeed good, but for now it is just a small step towards restoring their previous documentation transparency. Before Zen, AMD published for each CPU the very useful "BIOS and Kernel Developer’s Guide". Starting with the first Zen, this previously public information has become secret. Hopefully, with OpenSIL equivalent information will become public again.

userbinator 3y ago
equivalent information will become public again. I'm not so hopeful, because it seems to have become common for companies to replace information with open source code, which amounts to nothing more than "put this constant in this register" with no detailed explanation of the why. I'd much rather they publish actual documentation than OSS.
- delusional 3y ago
  Why not both? Good documentation with a reference implementation seems like the optimal choice. They're going to have to write the reference implementation anyway.