
AMD “Vega” Instruction Set Reference [pdf] - dragontamer
http://developer.amd.com/wordpress/media/2013/12/Vega_Shader_ISA_28July2017.pdf
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dragontamer
There is a lot of discussion about GPGPU compute around here (between BTC
Mining, High-performance Computing, Video Card Discussions, and Supercomputing
topics...), but I thought it'd be a good idea to make a link to the low-level
machine code architecture of one of these modern GPUs.

AMD Vega is AMD's newest video card, although it mostly works the same as
AMD's previous "GCN" cards. The Vega ISA linked here is very similar to the
GCN documentation AMD has published in previous years, except its been updated
to include a slightly new format and includes the new instructions associated
with the new graphics card.

The "CUDA" equivalent for NVidia is the NVidia PTX instruction set, but I
personally haven't looked through that yet myself. In any case, an
understanding of how the GPGPU works can give enlightenment to why GPUs are so
good at certain tasks but bad at other tasks.

With regards to this "Vega" Instruction Set Reference, I recommend that
beginners skim through the first 4 chapters, which are easier to read than
you'd expect. This will give a good overview of how the GCN architecture is
designed to work.

