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[3dmashup]

Does the AMD A8 3850 APU Support Double Precision Floating Point?

Does the AMD A8 3850 APU support Double Precision Floating Point arithmetic for OpenCL?

Can any one provide a link to an "official' AMD document  with its OpenCL

Device Profile details?  This APU comparison table  does not give enough information

http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/processors/a-series/Pages/a-series-model-number-comparison.aspx

The Radeon 6550 spec page  isn't detailed enough

http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/amd-radeon-hd-6000a/hd-6550a/Pages/amd-radeon-hd-6550a.aspx#2

IMHO, it would be a  Big Miss if the first A Series APU deson't support DP!

[stroia]

None of the graphics parts of the APU support double precision at this time.  The APU part is for the consumer market which typcially doesn't a have high demand for double precision workloads.  May I inquire what type of workload you have that requires double precision on APU?

The OpenCL programming guide has some information on double precision.  The graphics cards that support DP are the Radeon XT 6970  and HD 5870.  In that doc it only lists the 5870 (I've alerted folks that it needs to be updated to include the 6970).

Edit:  The 5850 and 5830 also support double precision

[3dmashup]

Originally posted by: stroia None of the graphics parts of the APU support double precision at this time.  The APU part is for the consumer market which typcially doesn't a have high demand for double precision workloads.  May I inquire what type of workload you have that requires double precision on APU?

The OpenCL programming guide has some information on double precision.  The graphics cards that support DP are the Radeon XT 6970  and HD 5870.  In that doc it only lists the 5870 (I've alerted folks that it needs to be updated to include the 6970).

The APU was a potential game changer and AMD have bet much of their future on this line of chips.   I can think of any number of reasons of why not having  DP floating  point arithmetic on the APU will stiffle software innovation for the APU.   Since the silicon is what it is, its time to move on from the APU ...

[stroia]

Over time the GPU will get upgraded in the APU so there is potential that DP would be supported in the future, I couldn't say when that will happen.  But, hopefully you can come back to the APU at that time.

[yurtesen]

I have to agree with 3dmashup on the necessity of having DP calculations possible at least on some of the high end desktop APU chips. I would understand not having it on very low power chips...

It is sort of easy to give an example to software which require DP usage. For example any sort of simulation software or many projects similar to seti@home etc.

Obviously DP support would fuel the AMD OpenCL usage  tremendously on scientific community. Now very few software supports running these projects on AMD products.

[nou]

all new GPUs with GCN architecture will support DP in range 1/2-1/16 of SP FLOPS.

[yurtesen]

Perhaps, but when will we be able to buy them? (in APU form)

[Meteorhead]

Generation coming after Trinity should feature GCN as IGP, however those will surely not be available before 2013.