I built backports of all the necessary components for Big Navi (llvm, mesa) on Debian buster. The kernel requires gcc-9 or greater but I hope to have that sorted out too.
In theory, this means I can just plug the card in and it may work
Online shops are starting to list it for ordering on Wednesday.
Here are the latest
specs in a useful comparison tableKey things that jumped out at me:
- yes, the AV1 codec hardware support is apparently included, this will allow playback at 4K even if we don't have optimized media stacks on POWER
- the 16GB RAM will be good for multi-monitor or multi-seat, this is a priority for me and one of the main reasons I'm putting some time into testing it
- the XT card appears to offer 30% higher pixel fill rate, probably worth the extra $70 for anybody with multiple monitors/users
- the biggest sacrifice with the XT is the extra half slot it consumes. Not an issue if you have Talos II Lite or a PCIe 4 riser kit for vertical mounting.
I couldn't find details about idle power usage. Personally, my GPU is almost always idle, I don't do gaming. I'm hoping that it shuts off the fans when idle as with some of the predecessors.