With all this talk… I’m eagerly waiting for the iMac Pro.
Best of all worlds really: - High core count - ECC RAM - 5K 27” display - Great graphic card - Super silent… I’ve been using a Mac Pro 2013 (the trash can one), Xeon E5 8 cores, 32 GB ECC RAM, connected to two 27” screens (one 5K with DPI set at 200%, the other a 2560x1440 Apple thunderbolt) It runs flawlessly Windows, Mac and Linux (though under Linux I never managed to get more than one screen working at a time). It compiles on mac, even with stylo under 12 minutes and on Windows in 19 minutes (used to be 6 minutes and 12 minutes respectively before all this rust thing came in)…. And that’s using mach with 14 jobs only so that I continue to work on the machine without noticing it’s doing a CPU intensive task. The UI stays ultra responsive. And best of all, it’s sitting 60cm from my hear and I can’t hear anything at all… This has been my primary machine since 2014, I’ve had no desire to upgrade as no other machine will allow me such comfortable development environment under all platforms we support. It had been difficult to choose at the beginning between the higher frequency 6 cores or the 8 cores. But that turned out to be a moot issue as the 8 cores, when only 6 cores are run will go as high as the 6 cores version… The mac pro was an expensive machine, but seeing that it will last me longer than your usual machine, I do believe that in the long term it will be best value for money. My $0.02 > On 8 Nov 2017, at 8:43 am, Henri Sivonen <hsivo...@hsivonen.fi> wrote: > > I agree that workstation GPUs should be avoided. Even if they were as > well supported by Linux distro-provided Open Source drivers as > consumer GPUs, it's at the very least more difficult to find > information about what's true about them. > > We don't need the GPU to be at max spec like we need the CPU to be. > The GPU doesn't affect build times, and for running Firefox it seems > more useful to see how it runs with a consumer GPU. > > I think we also shouldn't overdo multi-monitor *connectors* at the > expense of Linux-compatibility, especially considering that > DisplayPort is supposed to support monitor chaining behind one port on > the graphics card. The Quadro M2000 that caused trouble for me had > *four* DisplayPort connectors. Considering the number of ports vs. > Linux distros Just Working, I'd expect the prioritizing Linux distros > Just Working to be more useful (as in letting developers write code > instead of troubleshoot GPU issues) than having a "professional" > number of connectors as the configuration offered to people who don't > ask for a lot of connectors. (The specs for the older generation > consumer-grade Radeon RX 460 claim 5 DisplayPort screens behind the > one DisplayPort connector on the card, but I haven't verified it > empirically, since I don't have that many screens to test with.) > > On Tue, Nov 7, 2017 at 10:27 PM, Jeff Gilbert <jgilb...@mozilla.com > <mailto:jgilb...@mozilla.com>> wrote: >> Avoid workstation GPUs if you can. At best, they're just a more >> expensive consumer GPU. At worst, they may sacrifice performance we >> care about in their optimization for CAD and modelling workloads, in >> addition to moving us further away from testing what our users use. We >> have no need for workstation GPUs, so we should avoid them if we can. >> >> On Mon, Nov 6, 2017 at 10:32 AM, Sophana "Soap" Aik <s...@mozilla.com> wrote: >>> 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 > > > > -- > Henri Sivonen > hsivo...@hsivonen.fi <mailto:hsivo...@hsivonen.fi> > https://hsivonen.fi/ <https://hsivonen.fi/> > _______________________________________________ > dev-platform mailing list > dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org <mailto:dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org> > https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform > <https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform> _______________________________________________ dev-platform mailing list dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform
