Hi All, I'm in the middle of getting another evaluation machine with a 10-core W-Series Xeon Processor (that is similar to the 7900X in terms of clock speed and performance) but with ECC memory support.
I'm trying to make sure this is a "one size fits all" machine as much as possible. Also there are some AMD Radeon workstation GPU's that look interesting to me. The one I was thinking to include was a Radeon Pro WX2100, 2GB, FH (5820T) so we can start testing that as well. Stay tuned... On Mon, Nov 6, 2017 at 12:46 AM, Henri Sivonen <hsivo...@hsivonen.fi> wrote: > Thank you for including an AMD card among the ones to be tested. > > - - > > The Radeon RX 460 mentioned earlier in this thread arrived. There was > again enough weirdness that I think it's worth sharing in case it > saves time for someone else: > > Initially, for multiple rounds of booting with different cable > configurations, the Lenovo UEFI consistenly displayed nothing if a > cable with a powered-on screen was plugged into the DisplayPort > connector on the RX 460. To see the boot password prompt or anything > else displayed by the Lenovo UEFI, I needed to connect a screen to the > DVI port and *not* have a powered-on screen connected to DisplayPort. > However, Lenovo UEFI started displaying on a DisplayPort-connected > screen (with or without DVI also connected) after one time I had had a > powered-on screen connected to DVI and a powered-off screen connected > to DisplayPort at the start of the boot and I turned on the > DisplayPort screen while the DVI screen was displaying the UEFI > password prompt. However, during that same boot, I happened to not to > have a keyboard connected, because it was connected via the screen > that was powered off, and this caused an UEFI error, so I don't know > which of the DisplayPort device powering on during the UEFI phase or > UEFI going through an error phase due to missing keyboard jolted it to > use the DisplayPort screen properly subsequently. Weird. > > On the Linux side, the original Ubuntu 16.04 kernel (4.4) supported > only a low resolution fallback mode. Rolling the hardware enablement > stack forward (to 4.10 series kernel using the incantation given at > https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack ) fixed this and > resulted in Firefox reporting WebGL2 and all. The fix for > https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=191281 hasn't propagated > to Ubuntu 16.04's latest HWE stack, which looks distressing during > boot, but it seems harmless so far. > > I got the 4 GB model, since it was available at roughly the same price > as the 2 GB model. It supports both screens I have available for > testing at their full resolution simultaneously (2560x1440 plugged > into DisplayPort and 1920x1200 plugged into DVI). > > The card is significantly larger than the Quadro M2000. It takes the > space of two card slots (connects to one, but the heat sink and the > dual fans take the space of another slot). The fans don't appear to > make an audible difference compared to the Quadro M2000. > > On Fri, Oct 27, 2017 at 6:19 PM, Sophana "Soap" Aik <s...@mozilla.com> > wrote: > > Thank you Henri for the feedback. > > > > How about this, we can order some graphics cards and put them in the > > evaluation/test machine that is with Greg, to make sure it has good > > compatibility. > > > > We could do: > > Nvidia GTX 1060 3GB > > AMD Radeon RX570 > > > > These two options will ensure it can drive multi displays. > > > > Other suggestions welcomed. > > > > Greg, is that something you think we should do? > > > > On Thu, Oct 26, 2017 at 11:33 PM, Henri Sivonen <hsivo...@hsivonen.fi> > > wrote: > >> > >> On Fri, Oct 27, 2017 at 4:48 AM, Sophana "Soap" Aik <s...@mozilla.com> > >> wrote: > >> > Hello everyone, great feedback that I will keep in mind and continue > to > >> > work > >> > with our vendors to find the best solution with. One of the cards > that I > >> > was > >> > looking at is fairly cheap and can at least drive multi-displays (even > >> > 4K > >> > 60hz) was the Nvidia Quadro P600. > >> > >> Is that GPU known to be well-supported by Nouveau of Ubuntu 16.04 > vintage? > >> > >> I don't want to deny a single-GPU multi-monitor setup to anyone for > >> whom that's the priority, but considering how much damage the Quadro > >> M2000 has done to my productivity (and from what I've heard from other > >> people on the DOM team, I gather I'm not the only one who has had > >> trouble with it), the four DisplayPort connectors on it look like very > >> bad economics. > >> > >> I suggest these two criteria be considered for developer workstations > >> in addition to build performance: > >> 1) The CPU is compatible with rr (at present, this means that the CPU > >> has to be from Intel and not from AMD) > >> 2) The GPU offered by default (again, I don't want to deny multiple > >> DisplayPort connectors on a single GPU to people who request them) > >> works well in OpenGL mode (i.e. without llvmpipe activating) without > >> freezes using the Open Source drivers included in Ubuntu LTS and > >> Fedora. > >> > >> On Fri, Oct 27, 2017 at 2:36 AM, Gregory Szorc <g...@mozilla.com> wrote: > >> > Host OS matters for finding UI bugs and issues with add-ons (since > lots > >> > of > >> > add-on developers are also on Linux or MacOS). > >> > >> I think it's a bad tradeoff to trade off the productivity of > >> developers working on the cross-platform core of Firefox in order to > >> get them to report Windows-specific bugs. We have people in the > >> organization who aren't developing the cross-platform core and who are > >> running Windows anyway. I'd prefer the energy currently put into > >> getting developers of the cross-platform core to use Windows to be put > >> into getting the people who use Windows anyway to use Nightly. (It > >> saddens me to hear fear of Nightly from within Mozilla.) > >> > >> > Unless you have requirements that prohibit using a VM, I encourage > using > >> > this setup. > >> > >> For some three-four years, I developed in a Linux VM hosted on > >> Windows. I'm not too worried about the performance overhead of a VM. > >> However, rr is such an awesome tool that it justifies running Linux as > >> the host O > >> > >> > I concede that performance testing on i9s and Xeons is not at all > >> > indicative > >> > of the typical user :) > >> > >> Indeed. Still, we don't need Nvidia professional GPUs for build times, > >> so boring well-supported consumer-grade GPUs would also be in the > >> interest of "using what our users use" even if paired with a CPU that > >> isn't representative of typical users' computers. > >> > >> On Fri, Oct 27, 2017 at 1:13 AM, Thomas Daede <tda...@mozilla.com> > wrote: > >> > I have a RX 460 in a desktop with F26 and can confirm that it works > >> > out-of-the-box at 4K with the open source drivers, and will happily > run > >> > Pathfinder demos at <16ms frame time.* It also seems to run Servo's > >> > Webrender just fine. > >> > > >> > It's been superseded by the RX 560, which is a faster clock of the > same > >> > chip. It should work just as well, but might need a slightly newer > >> > kernel than the 4xx to pick up the pci ids (maybe a problem with LTS > >> > ubuntu?) The RX 570 and 580 should be fine too, but require power > >> > connectors. The Vega models are waiting on a kernel-side driver > rewrite > >> > (by AMD) that will land in 4.15 (hopefully with new features and > >> > regressions to the RX 5xx series...) > >> > >> Thank you. I placed an order for an RX 460. > >> > >> -- > >> Henri Sivonen > >> hsivo...@hsivonen.fi > >> https://hsivonen.fi/ > > > > > > > > > > -- > > moz://a > > Sophana "Soap" Aik > > IT Vendor Management Analyst > > IRC/Slack: soap > > > > -- > Henri Sivonen > hsivo...@hsivonen.fi > https://hsivonen.fi/ > -- moz://a Sophana "Soap" Aik IT Vendor Management Analyst IRC/Slack: soap _______________________________________________ dev-platform mailing list dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform
