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OpenCL Benchmarks and Support for Both MacBook Pro GPUs

OpenCL
requires one of the following graphics cards or graphics processors:

NVIDIA

GeForce 9400M
GeForce 9600M GT
GeForce 8600M GT
GeForce GT 120
GeForce GT 130
GeForce GTX 285
GeForce 8800 GT
GeForce 8800 GS
Quadro FX 4800
Quadro FX5600

ATI

Radeon 4850
Radeon 4870
 
Quu said:
You will never see OpenCL supported on the HD 2600 or any HD 2xxx series from ATI as they simply do not contain the capability to process this kind of GPGPU data. You need an ATi HD 3xxx, HD 4xxx, NVIDIA 8xxx, 9xxx or 2xx series to be able to process any kind of general code.

So to say it again (as it has been repeated many times) the HD 2600 does not have the capability within it to support any type of OpenCL implementation. It is not Apple artificially limiting which GPUs they allow OpenCL to run on it is that the GPU itself cannot do it.

In ATi's defence. GPGPU was just arriving when they released the HD 2xxx series and its not easy to create hardware to run software that hasn't even been invented yet.
Click to expand...

someone mentioned the hd2600 not being capable of double precision fp. is this the missing capability hindering it from being open cl capable? aren't there only a handful of gpu's (if that) w/ double precision floating point capabilty? if so, why would open cl only work on such limited number of machines?

and lastly, how are you SO sure that hd2xxx will never, ever, evereverever be supported? where are you getting this info from? do you know something we don't?

also, you mentioned that "You need an ATi HD 3xxx, HD 4xxx, NVIDIA 8xxx, 9xxx or 2xx series to be able to process any kind of general code."

this is misleading. you say "general code" instead of something else. unless you explain yourself, i am regarding you as a charlatan and nothing more.
 
2006 Mac Pro with ATI 4780

Hi I just tried this in my ageing mac pro.

The 4780 works which I didn't expect in an unsupported machine, but my dual 2.0 GHz Xeon's get a segmentation fault!!? :mad:

What does this mean?:confused:

...........................................................
.................. OpenCL Bench V 0.25 by mitch ...........
...... C2D 3GHz = 12 sec vs Nvidia 9600GT = 0,93 sec ......
... time results are not comparable to older version! .....
...........................................................

Number of OpenCL devices found: 2
OpenCL Device # 0 = Radeon HD 4870
Device 0 is an: GPU with max. 750 MHz and 4 units/cores
Now computing - please be patient....
time used: 4.204 seconds

OpenCL Device # 1 = Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU 5130 @ 2.00GHz
Device 1 is an: CPU with max. 2000 MHz and 4 units/cores
Now computing - please be patient....
Segmentation fault
logout

[Process completed]
 
Creibold said:
My Results, for comparison:

Number of OpenCL devices found: 2
OpenCL Device # 0 = GeForce 8600M GT
Device 0 is an: GPU with max. 940 MHz and 32 units/cores
Now computing - please be patient....
time used: 2.929 seconds

OpenCL Device # 1 = Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7800 @ 2.60GHz
Device 1 is an: CPU with max. 2600 MHz and 2 units/cores
Now computing - please be patient....
time used: 15.840 seconds
Click to expand...

Sweet. Now all us 8600 owners have to do is pray that our cards don't burn up....

Seriously, I want to take advantage of this. Are there any that currently do? I'm imagining a version of handbreak that can convert my .eyetv files in a few minutes instead of an hour....
 
IEatApples said:
I don't understand why mine is so "slow" compared to the others with GTX 285? :confused:
Click to expand...

You have fewer cores than the others? Still, I am also surprised the difference is that large, but I don't claim to fully understand how the technology works either.
 
akrantz said:
You have fewer cores than the others? Still, I am also surprised the difference is that large, but I don't claim to fully understand how the technology works either.
Click to expand...

Yes, I've noticed that, but here's a 8800GT beating my GTX 285 with a large amount! :eek:

hal9000Mark2 said:
MacPro 2008 model - 2x2.8GHz (quad core)

Number of OpenCL devices found: 2
OpenCL Device # 0 = GeForce 8800 GT
Device 0 is an: GPU with max. 1500 MHz and 112 units/cores
Now computing - please be patient....
time used: 0.684 seconds

OpenCL Device # 1 = Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5462 @ 2.80GHz
Device 1 is an: CPU with max. 2800 MHz and 8 units/cores
Now computing - please be patient....
time used: 3.278 seconds
Click to expand...

I've also noticed a lot of other less powerful GPU's beating my GTX 285… something must be wrong… :(
 
I have a question...

Without reading through all the posts, I want to know if a dedicated h264 encoder/decoder processor is something that could be used by OpenCL?
 
...........................................................
.................. OpenCL Bench V 0.25 by mitch ...........
...... C2D 3GHz = 12 sec vs Nvidia 9600GT = 0,93 sec ......
... time results are not comparable to older version! .....
...........................................................

Number of OpenCL devices found: 2
OpenCL Device # 0 = Radeon HD 4870
Device 0 is an: GPU with max. 750 MHz and 4 units/cores
Now computing - please be patient....
time used: 4.195 seconds

OpenCL Device # 1 = Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU 5150 @ 2.66GHz
Device 1 is an: CPU with max. 2660 MHz and 4 units/cores
Now computing - please be patient....
Segmentation fault


I got this on a 06 mac pro with apple 4870

The 4870 seems to be a suckass OpenCL board
 
REWRITE handbrake for openCL....my mini would HAUL on conversions..

right now, i use my i7 system because I can do a full movie in 12 min..
hope the mini will be faster on converting soon enough!
 
djrod said:
I asume we have the same Macbook PRO, but why are my 9400M results so much betters than yours?

Code: 
Number of OpenCL devices found: 2
OpenCL Device # 0 = GeForce 9400M
Device 0 is an: GPU with max. 1100 MHz and 16 units/cores 
Now computing - please be patient....
time used:  3.493 seconds

OpenCL Device # 1 = Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     T9600  @ 2.80GHz
Device 1 is an: CPU with max. 2800 MHz and 2 units/cores 
Now computing - please be patient....
time used: 12.962 seconds

EDIT: If I turn the 9600GT On, the OpenCL results of the 9400M falls down dramatically and it matches yours:
Code: 
OpenCL Device # 0 = GeForce 9600M GT
Device 0 is an: GPU with max. 1250 MHz and 32 units/cores 
Now computing - please be patient....
time used:  2.785 seconds

OpenCL Device # 1 = GeForce 9400M
Device 1 is an: GPU with max. 1100 MHz and 16 units/cores 
Now computing - please be patient....
time used:  9.022 seconds

OpenCL Device # 2 = Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     T9600  @ 2.80GHz
Device 2 is an: CPU with max. 2800 MHz and 2 units/cores 
Now computing - please be patient....
time used: 13.376 seconds
Click to expand...

I was trying to figure this out as well, because I was getting results similar to 001's, but now I'm getting results similar to yours. The only thing that changed was when I got the lower 9400 score, my MBP was plugged in, but not fully charged. When the charge completed, I got a 9400 score in the 3 sec range.
 
I wouldn't put a lot of faith in this benchmark.

Code: 
Number of OpenCL devices found: 2
OpenCL Device # 0 = Radeon HD 4870
Device 0 is an: GPU with max. 750 MHz and 4 units/cores 
Now computing - please be patient....
time used:  4.228 seconds

OpenCL Device # 1 = Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU           W3540  @ 2.93GHz
Device 1 is an: CPU with max. 2925 MHz and 8 units/cores 
Now computing - please be patient....
[B]Segmentation fault[/B]
It thinks the 4870 only has 4 cores and it can't even run without an error on my new XEON.
 
Something I noticed using this

The more you are using your GPU for other things the slower OpenCL runs. This is probably pretty obvious to some people but it might explain some of the benchmarks being odd. Like if you have a bunch of windows showing on your desktop, that is using your GPU more, if you then add a video playing in the background, that adds more. The best way to run this benchmark is to minimize the amount of apps running in the background.

My GTX 285 was showing 3 seconds when I had a Remote Desktop session open, but after I closed it I saw it running at .2 seconds.

Ultimately though as many pointed out this benchmark doesn't really mean anything. I can't wait to see some real OpenCL apps released.
 
Chop69 said:
Judging by what the developers have said over on the Handbrake forums, they don't plan on using OpenCL anytime soon. Or Grand Central...

http://forum.handbrake.fr/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11239
Click to expand...

Just leaves the door open for someone else to do it. OS X development has taken off. Even MS seems to be paying attention to its Mac offerings. Either developers evolve their apps or no one will bother using them.
 
These results lead me to the idea:

For many people now, the 8 core Mac Pro would be pointless. Simply go for the entry level quad, throw in four GT 120's, and you'll get far better performance using OpenCL than you would for the top of the line 8 core, for far less cost. Spend the money on RAM.

All we really need now is for pro applications like Matlab to use OpenCL, and the dreams of Scientists and Engineers like me across the globe will come true!
 
from the SL features page:

"Because it’s built into the heart of Snow Leopard, QuickTime X uses Mac OS X technologies such as Cocoa, Grand Central Dispatch, and 64-bit computing to deliver greatest-possible performance and enables QuickTime Player to launch up to 2.4x faster."
Click to expand...

does anyone else find it strange that apple has added support for opencl in their OS but doesn't seem to have utilized it in any of their actual software? the new media encoding tools in quicktime X seem like a prime candidate for leveraging the gpu, but it seems that only h264 decoding is gpu accelerated.

it doesn't feel very encouraging for the adoption of the technology when they don't even use it themselves.

full-disclosure: i do media stuff for a living and i'm mostly just chomping at the bit for some real-world evidence that opencl might give my system an added boost!
 
Here's mine:

...........................................................
.................. OpenCL Bench V 0.25 by mitch ...........
...... C2D 3GHz = 12 sec vs Nvidia 9600GT = 0,93 sec ......
... time results are not comparable to older version! .....
...........................................................

Number of OpenCL devices found: 2
OpenCL Device # 0 = GeForce 8800 GT
Device 0 is an: GPU with max. 1500 MHz and 112 units/cores
Now computing - please be patient....
time used: 0.726 seconds

OpenCL Device # 1 = Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU 5150 @ 2.66GHz
Device 1 is an: CPU with max. 2660 MHz and 4 units/cores
Now computing - please be patient....
time used: 7.324 seconds
 
2002cbr600f4i said:
Did you not even bother to read the article? It stated clearly that only 1 GPU is active at a time. With the unibody MBP's only 1 GPU can be accessed at a time, and you have to log out to switch between them. I don't get why people think that wouldn't be the case with OpenCL. The OS only sees 1 of the GPUs at a time.
Click to expand...

come on, you never try this thing.
Snow Leopard can use BOTH GPU at a time. no need to log out anymore.
just change to performance mode. you can use both gpu with opencl
 
I wanted to join the party!

...........................................................
.................. OpenCL Bench V 0.25 by mitch ...........
...... C2D 3GHz = 12 sec vs Nvidia 9600GT = 0,93 sec ......
... time results are not comparable to older version! .....
...........................................................

Number of OpenCL devices found: 2
OpenCL Device # 0 = GeForce GTX 260
Device 0 is an: GPU with max. 1242 MHz and 192 units/cores
Now computing - please be patient....
time used: 0.357 seconds

OpenCL Device # 1 = Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9550 @ 2.83GHz
Device 1 is an: CPU with max. 3800 MHz and 4 units/cores
Now computing - please be patient....
time used: 6.403 seconds

Now checking if results are valid - please be patient....
:) Validate test passed - GPU results=CPU results :)
Click to expand...
 
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