First I need to say that I don't have an AMD GPU (yet), but I am looking into buying one for my next build since AMD offers an open-source driver called "AMDGPU".
On Wikipedia I read that there is also another closed-source driver called "AMDGPU-PRO" that is supposed to offer some better 3D-performance.
AMDGPU also has an optional closed-source component that operates on top of the open source AMDGPU for better intensive 3D application support known as AMDGPU-PRO.
Now I was wondering how big the performance difference actually is in practice? Does someone have experience and possibly even some performance numbers? Ideally that would be using Wayland
The PRO driver is restricted to kernel4.8 (I think) and allows for HDMI Audio and Freesync (not 100%), it also has a better Vulkan driver at this present time.
However! the amdgpu/radeon open driver for kernel4.11 and mesa17.1 currently outperform the PRO driver just slightly, and in some cases allot. When Kernel 4.13 or 4.14 hits we will hopefully have freesync and hdmi audio with the new DC driver stack line.
I didn't think that the DC equals freesync support. It's only the fundament. Or do you have any info about AMD actually working towards open sourcing freesync? I certainly hope so and the great performing (with newer hardware) troubleless open source drivers are the reason for me to go with Vega instead of an NVidia card.
@comfreak You should know though that these great performance numbers only apply to newer kernels, as these drivers have been making insane progress just lately (and they are still improving). So I'd advise you to use a rolling release distro to get the best performance out of your graphics card. I've been using Arch and Manjaro (based on Arch) a lot.
You should also know that by default only AMD cards with GCN gen 3 and newer are supported.
