Radeon's latest version of ReLive goes all in for Mining, Official support for 12 GPUs.

[WMGroomAK]

It would appear that AMD fully realizes that GPU Mining is a profitable business for selling their products and has added a GPU Workload toggle as well as support for up to 12 Polaris or Vega based RX cards on Windows 10 in compute tasks in the newest ReLive Edition 17.10.2.  

https://www.anandtech.com/show/11959/amd-releases-radeon-software-crimson-relive-edition-17102

Quote

The other significant parts of 17.10.2 are the compute-oriented updates, ostensibly for cryptocurrency mining with GPUs. The new Radeon Settings "GPU Workload" toggle in the Global Settings menu switches between graphics workload optimization or compute workload optimization, although this feature is limited to select RX 500, RX 400, R9 390, R9 380, R9 290, and R9 285 cards. As for multi-GPU, Radeon Software now formally supports compute workloads for up to 12 Polaris or Vega-based RX cards on Windows 10 systems. This is perhaps in response to the number of motherboards entering the market with more than the usual number of PCIe slots.

While these features may seem surprising at first, AMD has already taken other explicit steps to improving mining performance, releasing the Blockchain Compute Beta drivers shortly after the RX Vega64 launch, and an AMDGPU-Pro Beta Mining Driver for Linux (RHEL/CentOS 7.3 and Ubuntu 16.04.3) just last week. Considering that many serious cryptocurrency miners use customized software/BIOS/drivers, time will tell if additional Radeon Software features will make an impact in the mining ecosystem or drive significant demand for AMD GPUs. The current wave of Ethereum cryptocurrency mining, which had noticeably affected the GPU market in Q2, resulted in dedicated mining GPUs, as well as high prices and low availability for consumer cards. But bulk mining-specific SKUs (and in the case of NVIDIA, GPUs) appear at odds with mining improvements for consumer cards, with the release mining specific cards attempting to insulate consumers from mining sales.

One thing to note is that there appear to still be bugs in this as they list two major bugs dealing with the Compute and Multi-GPU setups.  First is that the system may hang up when switching to Compute mode while Crossfire is enabled and the second (which would be more major for miners) is that after an extended period of 12x GPU compute workload use, the system may hang.  

 

So who has their twelve RX 480s and/or 580s stashed away just waiting for official support?   

 

AMD Release Notes: http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/Radeon-Software-Crimson-ReLive-Edition-17.10.2-Release-Notes.aspx

 

[Simon771]

Ahhh that's too bad.

H110 Pro BTC+ can have 13 GPUs, and AMD only supports 12

 

What a shame!

[Misanthrope]

I'm going to stop recommending Polaris or Vega cards: My stance is "AMD is no longer interested in gamers and wants to cater to miners because they can pay more for the GPUs"

 

Don't get me wrong, the fact that they're moving so many cards it's a good thing. But let's be clear here: AMD are completely disregarding gamers now, they just don't care and were on a bad spot to begin with.

[WMGroomAK]

3 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

I'm going to stop recommending Polaris or Vega cards: My stance is "AMD is no longer interested in gamers and wants to cater to miners because they can pay more for the GPUs"

 

Don't get me wrong, the fact that they're moving so many cards it's a good thing. But let's be clear here: AMD are completely disregarding gamers now, they just don't care and were on a bad spot to begin with.

I wouldn't say they are completely disregarding gamers if the game optimization bit of the ReLive update is true...

 

Quote

Wolfenstein™ II: The New Colossus

• Up to 8% faster performance on Radeon™ RX Vega56 (8GB) graphics than with Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.10.1 at 2560x1440. (RS-188)
• Up to 4% faster performance on Radeon RX 580 (8GB) graphics card than with Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.10.1 at 2560x1440. (RS-189)

Destiny 2™

• Up to 43% faster performance on Radeon™ RX Vega56 (8GB) graphics than with Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.10.1 at 2560x1440.(RS-184)
• Up to 50% faster performance on Radeon RX 580 (8GB) graphics than with Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.10.1 at 2560x1440.(RS-185)

Assassin's Creed™: Origins

• Up to 16% faster performance on Radeon™ RX Vega56 (8GB) graphics than with Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.10.1 at 2560x1440.(RS-186)
• Up to 13% faster performance on Radeon RX 580(8GB) graphics than with Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.10.1 at 1920x1080. (RS-187)

It's more along the lines that I think AMD realizes that they cannot compete as well with Nvidia in the gaming arena and their cards happen to be at the better end of the performance per dollar metric for compute tasks so they are trying to support where their cards are being sold.

[Vode]

Good.

 

Radeon Technology Group REALLY needs to make some money for once. I hope it doesn‘t come to bite them like with Hawaii.

[IamODIN]

i thought cpu mining is illegal 

[The Benjamins]

3 minutes ago, IamODIN said:

i thought cpu mining is illegal 

no, why would it?

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, IamODIN said:

i thought cpu mining is illegal 

Where did you hear something like that, regardless, this article is on multi GPU mining.

[Trixanity]

25 minutes ago, WMGroomAK said:

I wouldn't say they are completely disregarding gamers if the game optimization bit of the ReLive update is true...

 

It's more along the lines that I think AMD realizes that they cannot compete as well with Nvidia in the gaming arena and their cards happen to be at the better end of the performance per dollar metric for compute tasks so they are trying to support where their cards are being sold.

A Reddit user is also reporting a 15% increase in Tomb Raider on Ultra and 40% on High with a Vega 64. Of course this isn't verified and isn't listed in the changelog either.

[cj09beira]

41 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

I'm going to stop recommending Polaris or Vega cards: My stance is "AMD is no longer interested in gamers and wants to cater to miners because they can pay more for the GPUs"

 

Don't get me wrong, the fact that they're moving so many cards it's a good thing. But let's be clear here: AMD are completely disregarding gamers now, they just don't care and were on a bad spot to begin with.

considering prices are starting to come down finally it would be a weird move on your part, plus considering the same patch improves game perf in multiple games.

what i see is an amd that is taking advantage of its strong points, also this helps more than just miners, people that run render farms with consumer hardware, or that run boinc/F@H

[Misanthrope]

1 hour ago, cj09beira said:

considering prices are starting to come down finally it would be a weird move on your part, plus considering the same patch improves game perf in multiple games.

what i see is an amd that is taking advantage of its strong points, also this helps more than just miners, people that run render farms with consumer hardware, or that run boinc/F@H

Well that's kinda why tbh: To expand, the reason I'm giving AMD a hard time here it's because prices are finally coming down on Polaris. It's still difficult to recommend to people who do not own a decent Freesync panel already but they're getting better.

 

So why are prices better? A few reasons:

 

1) They're finally done creating what Apple needed (likely but I'm unsure as to what would be the impact tbh)

2) They finally increased their production volume significantly (unlikely, see next point)

3) The demand from miners is finally slowing down at least partially.

 

So the fact that now they are coming up with another, very clearly miner friendly update, means that this is all about 3) and they don't want the demand from miners to go down too much since they were selling good numbers (and possibly because of a little bit of 2) and panicking over not moving inventory as fast due to 3))

 

But in any case to me this sends a very loud and clear message: We want miners to get these cards, have another miner driver and one when it might actually help that demand increase (not very likely but it's a possibility) or move out the reminder stock quickly enough while they readjust production numbers ramping down.

 

That's a great business move but quite frankly a scumbag move to someone who claims to care about gamers. Most people have been reasonably understanding during this entire ordeal but this has little excuse: let's support the people who buy 12 fucking GPUs at the time at a minimum!

 

No, I am done making or listening to excuses for AMD: they just don't care about gamers, no matter what they claim their actions are speaking far louder here.

[Misanthrope]

2 hours ago, huilun02 said:

They're not going to deliberately throw a wrench into the works for GPU mining capabilty. It would be silly as they will lose sales. But they can try tackling it the conventional way - producing more GPUs in hopes that the actual card manufacturers step up production. They can try. Those extra cards are just going to get pinched by miners again. And AMD would take all the blame.

 

So you have a suggested solution that doesn't involve shooting themselves in the foot? 

As shown above, leaving good enough alone would be a step: You don't sabotage miners but you don't encourage them either. The supply of Polaris cards was starting to stabilize a bit, still inflated prices but not as inflated so their immediate reaction is to create a mining friendly driver? This is going the opposite way as if AMD wanted the high demand from mining to continue or mitigate the slowdown somehow.

[ravenshrike]

2 hours ago, huilun02 said:

But they can try tackling it the conventional way - producing more GPUs

Which beyond a certain point they have to convince GloFo to go along with. They're between a rock and a hard place. If they want to convince GloFo to increase GPU production beyond the already contracted maximum rates they have to show strong and continued demand. In order to guarantee that demand, the best way is to ensure maximum performance for every application, including mining, that the cards are good for.

[cj09beira]

52 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

Well that's kinda why tbh: To expand, the reason I'm giving AMD a hard time here it's because prices are finally coming down on Polaris. It's still difficult to recommend to people who do not own a decent Freesync panel already but they're getting better.

 

So why are prices better? A few reasons:

 

1) They're finally done creating what Apple needed (likely but I'm unsure as to what would be the impact tbh)

2) They finally increased their production volume significantly (unlikely, see next point)

3) The demand from miners is finally slowing down at least partially.

 

So the fact that now they are coming up with another, very clearly miner friendly update, means that this is all about 3) and they don't want the demand from miners to go down too much since they were selling good numbers (and possibly because of a little bit of 2) and panicking over not moving inventory as fast due to 3))

 

But in any case to me this sends a very loud and clear message: We want miners to get these cards, have another miner driver and one when it might actually help that demand increase (not very likely but it's a possibility) or move out the reminder stock quickly enough while they readjust production numbers ramping down.

 

That's a great business move but quite frankly a scumbag move to someone who claims to care about gamers. Most people have been reasonably understanding during this entire ordeal but this has little excuse: let's support the people who buy 12 fucking GPUs at the time at a minimum!

 

No, I am done making or listening to excuses for AMD: they just don't care about gamers, no matter what they claim their actions are speaking far louder here.

they cant increase gpu production, as shown 2 years ago with the 290x mining craze, as back then they lost a LOT of money when the bubble bursted.

 

this driver doesn't do much, it just allows miners to use less motherboards on newer systems, it might improve profit a bit but not by much as the boards they buy are cheap ones, and the 6pcie+ boards are also more expensive,

it just removes a silly driver limitation that is super old, because until recently no one needed more cards in a system. 

amd has been really active on the driver side improving perf for amd cards in GAMES, and by now has what? 2 drivers focused on mining / compute

and this one doesn't have the optimizations for blockchain at least under win 8.

 

 

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

3 hours ago, huilun02 said:

GPU mining is punishable by firing squad

Then what am I supposed to do with my hundred 1070s?  There's no SLI bridge that big. 

 

(Just kidding, I'm only mining with 50 GPUs.

 

Hah, fooled again!  Make that 3)

 

On Topic : If AMD goes all in with mining drivers, it's obvious that they're not worried about RMAs.  Probably because the whole "mining kills GPUs" thing just isn't true.

[Derangel]

6 hours ago, huilun02 said:

I'm sure people would much prefer Nvidia's approach to post launch support i.e ending it early in favor of newest generation of GPU

The fuck does that have to do with anything in this thread?

 

By the way, Nvidia is still releasing drivers for the 400 series, over seven years after release.

[GOTSpectrum]

You know what, unlike many other people, I for one am glad AMD are pushing mining drivers. They're playing to the strength of GCN and the architectures that have been derived from it. And that is great compute performance! 

[bitsbetrippin]

Confirmed it supports more than 12 GPUs, 21 GPUs were just proven to work with fall creator update + AMD Driver. I imagine Linus could pull together one heck of a build to one up ours. It seems the sky is the limit now in Windows. Good job by both AMD and Microsoft.

[laminutederire]

14 hours ago, Misanthrope said:

I'm going to stop recommending Polaris or Vega cards: My stance is "AMD is no longer interested in gamers and wants to cater to miners because they can pay more for the GPUs"

 

Don't get me wrong, the fact that they're moving so many cards it's a good thing. But let's be clear here: AMD are completely disregarding gamers now, they just don't care and were on a bad spot to begin with.

To be fair, why would they? Even when they have superior products, the market shares do not follow in gaming. Which means the gamers don't care about AMD, making AMD not caring as much.

And to be fair NVIDIA only care about gamers because they can milk the cash if that huge cow all day long in every way possible (yeah Gsync I'm looking at you), whivh means they care less about gamers than they do about money.

But that's on the gamers. Lots of them are idiots who don't research and participate in a ridiculous e-peen contest anyway. I cannot count how many people buying 1080ti with crappy cpus while a 1080 and a decent cpu would have been better, just for them to say they have that card..

[AlTech]

14 hours ago, huilun02 said:

GPU mining is punishable by firing squad

But CPU? Totally fine

Both are just as bad in my books.

[Uzume]

I like them having focus on compute (as well as gaming) because I spend more time on Boinc work units than playing games. Any extra percentage points in efficiency or performance makes a huge difference with 24/7 operation and it results in more science being done.

 

Meanwhile what the crypto guys gain in one hand they lose in the other from increasing difficulty, as everyone else has access to the new drivers also.

[Misanthrope]

5 hours ago, laminutederire said:

To be fair, why would they? Even when they have superior products, the market shares do not follow in gaming. Which means the gamers don't care about AMD, making AMD not caring as much.

And to be fair NVIDIA only care about gamers because they can milk the cash if that huge cow all day long in every way possible (yeah Gsync I'm looking at you), whivh means they care less about gamers than they do about money.

But that's on the gamers. Lots of them are idiots who don't research and participate in a ridiculous e-peen contest anyway. I cannot count how many people buying 1080ti with crappy cpus while a 1080 and a decent cpu would have been better, just for them to say they have that card..

I have to take a little bit of issue with that. They usually dont have the superior products in top tier gaming. In fact it's been at least 5 years if not more since that's so. Now what they get is comparable to superior mid tier cards and even consistently so (all the way since the 7950 until 580) I maintain than the high end market even if perhaps not as important to sales is very important for optics since AMD has spend too much time still releasing high end products that just do not match up to Nvidia: they're not as fast, routinely more power hungry, etc.

 

Now as for your second point this goes a little bit into my first comment: why I wouldn't call all people "idiots" I do recognize that there's enough newbies looking to get into PC gaming that usually wouldn't know what's actually better for the price. But the thing is that it's been like 5 months since AMD is just not better for the price anyways and it looks like they'll miss out on this holiday season big time as well so this problem that you mention will continue. I usually make a good faith effort to make a case for AMD (And I still plan to when it comes to CPUs) but when it comes to GPUs I just don't think it's worth a half hour discussion about historical performance and prices to justify an AMD GPU when most newbies will just say "Right....but this 1060 is virtually as good and just a slight premium right?" and just buy Nvidia.

 

AMD simply has to do better for gamers imho. We know they have the superior hardware, it's why they win at mining, but they can't figure out proper driver support out of the gate they even flatout lied about Vega drivers being released more mature and they had several months of delays to work on those and still couldn't do the damn cards justice.

[Okjoek]

20 hours ago, Misanthrope said:

I'm going to stop recommending Polaris or Vega cards: My stance is "AMD is no longer interested in gamers and wants to cater to miners because they can pay more for the GPUs"

 

Don't get me wrong, the fact that they're moving so many cards it's a good thing. But let's be clear here: AMD are completely disregarding gamers now, they just don't care and were on a bad spot to begin with.

I think AdoredTV had a good opinion on this. nVIDIA has the mind-share and gamers have made up their minds that nVIDIA is what they want and are willing to pay more and more every year for it as evidence with Pascal. AMD is just being a good business by trying to carve out a niche in the market that they can still compete in with the significantly less revenue to work with.

 

 

Me personally. I think AMD should get their new APUs done right. All the news and leaks I've been hearing is promising. A "U" laptop CPU with graphics performance just short of an MX150 (mobile GT 1030). Who knows what the GPU in the desktop version will do? Might even beat the GT 1030 I think.

Intel, nor nVIDIA can compete with this product so it makes sense for AMD to master it. I just hope they can price it right like they did Ryzen because lord knows Intel and nVIDIA don't.

 

 

[Doobeedoo]

I don't see the toggle though. 

[WMGroomAK]

10 hours ago, bitsbetrippin said:

Confirmed it supports more than 12 GPUs, 21 GPUs were just proven to work with fall creator update + AMD Driver. I imagine Linus could pull together one heck of a build to one up ours. It seems the sky is the limit now in Windows. Good job by both AMD and Microsoft.

21 GPUs is actually fairly impressive.  Any tips/tricks on what your setup is and how you got it all setup?  Would be interesting to see...