Intel & NVIDIA Dominate The Initial Steam Machines

[jwcalla]

Despite how price sensitive this Steam Machine market is going to be, and the strength of AMD's APUs, and their overall priceerformance advantage, there's not a single AMD anything in the initial release of Steam Machines.

It looks like it comes down to the "d" word that we're not allowed to talk about.

I guess Steam Machines are small potatoes since they probably won't sell much. But if they do take off in the future, AMD is already behind the 8-ball. smh.


http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Intel-NVIDIA-Steam-Machines

 

[TaintedSquirrel]

Now I gotta know what the D word is.
If the Steamboxes are Linux, doesn't it make sense to use Nvidia?

edit: Article got it.

they likely were not part of the initial launch models given the state of the Catalyst Linux graphics driver with regard to performance issues in the latest AAA Linux titles as well as rendering issues.

 

[a3venom]

AMD APU will not give a price / performance advantage in any steam machine. i doubt if they would even remotely consider AMD for processors ever again in anything ever made.

But GPUs, i think AMD has a strong game and would like to see them in more OEMs like these, Apple has used them in the past.

 

[limitedaccess]

You are also assuming that retail cost to the consumer is the same as cost to OEMs.

 

[a3venom]

i highly doubt if steam machines see any success too, OEMs tend to price products stupidly.
like 1200$ gaming PCs with fucking 750Tis

 

[PRIME1]

It's about drivers and heat/noise

 

[durquavian]

Drivers yes, heat and noise no. It is no secret that NVIDIA is better with linux drivers. CPU-wise Intel will likely suffice with lowly 2cores seeing most games on steam are not that dependant on core count. But that being said doesn't mean an AMD APU can't. The whole issue here is Linux.

Isn't steamboxs supposed to allow remote processing of games like on your PC streamed to the steam box?

 

[Armenius]

Linux is the reason, people. AMD doesn't have a strong Linux OpenGL driver yet. You can all calm your tits now.

"But, but... you can just install your own OS!"

The point of the Steam machines is to be an All-In-One box, so that is not taken into consideration.

 

[cageymaru]

It comes down to the fact that AMD has slacked on their Linux drivers. They did release a new Linux driver for 15.5 on 6/2/2015. That's just too late for the initial Steam Machines release schedule.

 

[jwcalla]

It comes down to the fact that AMD has slacked on their Linux drivers. They did release a new Linux driver for 15.5 on 6/2/2015.

And it's still fundamentally broken.

I don't know if anything will become of SMs, but that AMD closed themselves off to the opportunity is just sort of frustrating.

They've been working on these drivers for 10+ years and they still suck.

 

[cageymaru]

I don't see how they can donate tons of their Mantle work to Vulkan and then fail to have an awesome driver for it.

 

[jwcalla]

I don't see how they can donate tons of their Mantle work to Vulkan and then fail to have an awesome driver for it.

That's the theory... But I'd bet at least a dime that their Vulkan drivers will be trainwrecks.

 

[Michaelius]

It comes down to the fact that AMD has slacked on their Linux drivers. They did release a new Linux driver for 15.5 on 6/2/2015. That's just too late for the initial Steam Machines release schedule.

That wouldn't be so bad but radeon 290 is still slower than gtx 680 in linux gaming.

 

[Deleted member 83233]

Real GPUs aside for a minute. I'm going to guess that most people (who game in any serious capacity) have 1080 TVs in their living room. Yes, some have higher, some have lower, (probably more people with lower, but not within the gaming crowd...) These are just guesses so don't take it TOO seriously. Based on this assumption on my part, are there any AMD APUs that can play a half-decent AAA game from the last say... 4-5 years at medium to high settings at 1080?

This is an honest question. I haven't gone out and looked at APU benchmarks lately. Last time I did look though, most of the testing was done at 720, and typically low settings.

I've seen the inside of one of the Alienware boxes, and it's basically a gaming laptop without a built-in screen. It's got a mobile i7, some mobile NV chip (GTX 8xxM of some kind roughly equivalent to a 750Ti which can actually play games decently at 1080.) This is an apples and oranges comparison, as one could also argue for AMD based mobile GPUs perhaps,) but I'm mainly curious if there is an APU that is up to this task.

My reasons for wondering are two-fold. One, I'd like to know how viable they'd be for Steam Machines like the OP, but also, I'm curious if any of them are getting close enough to being decent gaming performs if say I wanted to build a Mini-ITX tiny gaming box for someone, and didn't want to go with the discrete GPU option to keep costs down. I'll do a little research of my own of course, but thought I'd ask since it's relevant to the thread.

 

[rennyf77]

Before I parted out my 7850k build it easily played the new wolfenstein medium 1080p, and certainly was able to max out dead space 1/2 with aa. Plenty of modern system punishers were 30fps playable with medium settings and 1080p.

 

[Deleted member 83233]

Before I parted out my 7850k build it easily played the new wolfenstein medium 1080p, and certainly was able to max out dead space 1/2 with aa. Plenty of modern system punishers were 30fps playable with medium settings and 1080p.

Hmm, not too bad then for something like that. Yeah, I'm thinking it might be useful to build something like this for people that don't necessarily want to spend what a Steam Machine would cost, but also don't have [H]-style requirements either. Still people who play "real" games, but not as seriously as some. Seems like they'd also make nice MAME / Emulator systems.

 

[rennyf77]

I think the issue my be that you have to overclock both the cpu and gpu to mine that kind of performance out of the platform. You also need fast ram, 2133 or better. There's also the small form factor issue. I initially wanted to put it into a lian li pc q07 mitx tower. Very limited space. I found that I couldn't get an overclock out of the system in the hyper confined case. I wasn't even using the stock heatsink. I upgraded to the id cooling is50 low profile cooler. I didn't get the clock I wanted out of it until I move over to a small atx case where I could house a seidon 120v cooler. Truthfully I could have gone with a roomiermitx chassis.

 

[rhansen5_99]

Just my 2c, but that Alienware steambox for $330 recently is going to be almost impossible for an AMD machine to match. I mean it had an i3 4130T, and a GTX 860m, 4gb ddr3l and a 500gb mechanical drive. The A10 barely comes close to matching the single thread performance of Haswell, and the 512 shaders in the 7870k are no match for the 860m. Lets not get into how skylake with the gt3 igpu almost eats the APU for breakfast.

 

[Pieter3dnow]

That's the theory... But I'd bet at least a dime that their Vulkan drivers will be trainwrecks.

LOL you are so clueless

Do yourself a favour and read up what a close to metal driver is then realize that Vulkan is using parts from Mantle .

The idea is that the game developers do all the work and the close to metal driver is about as complicated for AMD as Mantle/DX12.

 

[Bowman15]

This is awesome. We really need an Intel/Nvidia monopoly...only good things can happen.

 

[DracoNB]

Seems like steam machines won't sell that well anyway, they are expensive, not upgradable (custom gpu soldered onto mobo). Just the downsides of a console and PC in one w/o the benefits of either (unique games for console and upgradability for PC)

The $50 streaming box sounds like it could do very well, but I don't see the AIO selling well for anything other than initial release before people realize they are a terrible deal.

 

[jwcalla]

LOL you are so clueless

Do yourself a favour and read up what a close to metal driver is then realize that Vulkan is using parts from Mantle .

The idea is that the game developers do all the work and the close to metal driver is about as complicated for AMD as Mantle/DX12.

I believe you are clueless.

That driver will still have to interface with all of the Linux kernel subsystems as well as integrate with X.org itself. You may not believe it has to, but it has to. It's not going to push framebuffers using magic pixie dust.

 

[Pieter3dnow]

I believe you are clueless.

That driver will still have to interface with all of the Linux kernel subsystems as well as integrate with X.org itself. You may not believe it has to, but it has to. It's not going to push framebuffers using magic pixie dust.

Which is the normal driver model which has zero impact on the close to metal drivers . But supposedly Vulkan would do something different I cannot recall what it does exactly on the display front.

 

[socK]

Mantle kept platform specific bits as extensions. That includes the presentation bits and interfacing with the windowing systems.

You can look at the "grWsi" family of functions in Mantle.

Vulkan may just do the same thing.

 

[jwcalla]

Mantle kept platform specific bits as extensions. That includes the presentation bits and interfacing with the windowing systems.

You can look at the "grWsi" family of functions in Mantle.

Vulkan may just do the same thing.

And that's the part AMD will f up.

 

[socK]

And that's the part AMD will f up.

I don't even see how it's possible to come to that conclusion

 

[jwcalla]

I don't even see how it's possible to come to that conclusion

Let me go even a little broader then. I'd be surprised if AMD even provides a working Vulkan driver for Linux / SteamOS within six months of the competition.

Let's just say it would be uncharacteristic of them. It can't be ruled out, of course. But it would be essentially a first for AMD.

Not that it releases them of the obligation to provide a working OpenGL driver if they want to be in a Steam Machine. There are still a lot of titles on OpenGL that probably won't get Vulkan versions.

 

[thesmelliestsock.]

Seems like steam machines won't sell that well anyway, they are expensive, not upgradable (custom gpu soldered onto mobo). Just the downsides of a console and PC in one w/o the benefits of either (unique games for console and upgradability for PC)

The $50 streaming box sounds like it could do very well, but I don't see the AIO selling well for anything other than initial release before people realize they are a terrible deal.

I wish the streaming box was around before I drilled a hole in my wall to run an HDMI cable through to my TV lol.

I disagree about the Steam machines though... I think if they can promote the product properly they might steal some console people over. The price of PC games are so much better than their console counterparts. We're lucky to have Steam, Amazon, GMG (and the list goes on...) to buy our games through.

 

[DPI]

I wish the streaming box was around before I drilled a hole in my wall to run an HDMI cable through to my TV lol.

Meh, you did the right thing. You can't ever go wrong hardwiring. There are always gotchas and downsides to streaming and conversion, even if they're better than ever.

 

[tybert7]

AMD APU will not give a price / performance advantage in any steam machine. i doubt if they would even remotely consider AMD for processors ever again in anything ever made.

But GPUs, i think AMD has a strong game and would like to see them in more OEMs like these, Apple has used them in the past.

I think any steam machine creators would be better off waiting for the zen chips to ship, better yet wait for the zen based APUs that potentially arive in 2017 to ship. By then dx12 games should be out with more frequency, and an additional AMD gpu could be used in tandem with the APU gpu for more performance than some equivalent intel+ nvidia combo. That is one of the promises of dx12 and being able to use multiple gpus of differing power.


.... oh I forgot, these won't have dx12.... well, hopefully Vulkan will be ready by then.

 

[durquavian]

I wish the streaming box was around before I drilled a hole in my wall to run an HDMI cable through to my TV lol.

I disagree about the Steam machines though... I think if they can promote the product properly they might steal some console people over. The price of PC games are so much better than their console counterparts. We're lucky to have Steam, Amazon, GMG (and the list goes on...) to buy our games through.

Have you seen these prices on the steamboxs?

 

[durquavian]

Let me go even a little broader then. I'd be surprised if AMD even provides a working Vulkan driver for Linux / SteamOS within six months of the competition.

Let's just say it would be uncharacteristic of them. It can't be ruled out, of course. But it would be essentially a first for AMD.

Not that it releases them of the obligation to provide a working OpenGL driver if they want to be in a Steam Machine. There are still a lot of titles on OpenGL that probably won't get Vulkan versions.

With all the press and relations promoting, I think AMD will show a greater chance at a Linux driver than before. Whether it plays on par with Nvidia is gonna be a hard call.

 

[griff30]

And that's the part AMD will f up.

Is Linux that brittle?

 

[Pieter3dnow]

Let me go even a little broader then. I'd be surprised if AMD even provides a working Vulkan driver for Linux / SteamOS within six months of the competition.

Let's just say it would be uncharacteristic of them. It can't be ruled out, of course. But it would be essentially a first for AMD.

Not that it releases them of the obligation to provide a working OpenGL driver if they want to be in a Steam Machine. There are still a lot of titles on OpenGL that probably won't get Vulkan versions.

It seems that you keep forgetting that Vulkan API is relying on close to metal drivers. Since AMD made Mantle they would have to do "some" work but not a lot .....

You can not pick and choose the environment it is all low level so the difference in calls used are just that and the real work is done by the game developers. This goes for Mantle DX12 and Vulkan. But it does not mean that they would be totally different from each other which comes close to the function of a high level API.

Another thing is that Khronos is committee based so Vulkan is already announced but will take a good while to take form.

AMD has much to gain from Vulkan so the effort of fixing old drivers seems rather trivial .....

 

[Deleted member 83233]

Meh, you did the right thing. You can't ever go wrong hardwiring. There are always gotchas and downsides to streaming and conversion, even if they're better than ever.

I agree! I like new tech, and am generally curious about streaming, and think it's cool that it exists. (and really think the implementation on the Wii U is great for example...) However, I'm also a fan of brute force solutions and the direct approach.

 

[mope54]

Now I gotta know what the D word is.
If the Steamboxes are Linux, doesn't it make sense to use Nvidia?

edit: Article got it.

It's sad because back in the day those of us devoted to open source could *only* use ATI cards since nVidia refused to release open source drivers. They sucked ass in terms of performance but they were the only means of maintaining a truly 100% open source platform.

I had to leave ATI because of a customer service spat where I (sadly) promised to the representative I'd never purchase another of their cards so I don't know exactly what transpired since then.