AMD Radeon Pro v540 Research Thread

[TopHatProductions115]

I don't think the cards poofed as much as someone saw an opportunity to scalp... If you are still on the hunt and want to play with some funky hardware you can find them for sale here:
Link: https://directmacro.com/amd-102-d30201-00.html

EDIT TO MAKE THIS CLEAR: THESE CARDS ARE STILL AVAILABLE TO THOSE LOOKING TO EXPERIMENT AT THE LINK ABOVE!!! Don't be discouraged by the dead eBay listing!

Is this a decent listing, for those still seeking a v540?

• https://www.ebay.com/itm/386325049558

 

[PixelButts]

Is this a decent listing, for those still seeking a v540?

• https://www.ebay.com/itm/386325049558

Depends on how you feel. The original listing was like half that price so it's hard to really say it's worth it from my perspective, but for someone who doesn't have one it might be?

 

[Catch2223]

Was making a small joke. I am not someone that should be doing a lot of stuff like this as I am quite prone to causing more damage than anything else. I want to be sensible, and the machine to come out unscathed, as well as parts so I'd be more inclined with appropriate or cleaner solution.

Or I can just try to use a sick aftermarket shroud with multiple fans but that's no fun especially given that I'd want it to be a blower design which is a little difficult to do here. Or who knows maybe it's easy?

I created a small diagram below that shows what I think is a pretty simple solution to get variable power to the fan. Keep in mind if noise is not a concern you could just directly connect the fan to 12V. That will keep the card plenty cool. Because the blower I used is only a 3 wire (no PWM control) you need more than a PWM controller. I have attached links to the items you would need to emulate the setup described by the diagram. The extension cable is just used as a sacrifice to get 12V and GND wires from the ATX PSU. If you have a cable already that makes it easier. My thinking is this cable could be cut and stripped to give an easy way to connect with WAGO style connectors.

IMPORTANT EDIT: There is an alternate fan we could use! LINK This fan would keep us under the 1 amp limitation of the mobo AND is a drop-in replacement for the one I currently use. It also has the added benefit of being PWM (4 wire) which means it would be easily controlled by the motherboard. Only catch is there is still no termination on the wires so a sacrificial fan would be needed for the connector or you could buy the sockets/housing and crimp tools to terminate yourself but that will likely get costly. MOVING FORWARD ANYONE TRYING THIS I WOULD RECOMMEND THE FAN ABOVE!

Links:
Controller: https://www.amazon.com/Controller-Universal-Electronic-Stepless-Regulator/dp/B07T35JDTR/ref=sr_1_5?crid=2FDPRTAP29KMK&keywords=dc+fan+controller&qid=1701568743&sprefix=dc+fan+controlle,aps,115&sr=8-5
WAGO Connectors: https://www.amazon.com/Wago-221-413-LEVER-NUTS-Conductor-Connectors/dp/B06XGYXVXR/ref=sr_1_6?crid=PCM35AE46JDE&keywords=wago&qid=1701568881&sprefix=wago,aps,106&sr=8-6&th=1
6 Pin extension cable: https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-2-Pack-Extension-Power/dp/B01DV1Z4EQ/ref=sr_1_11?crid=36KOSQU04LJRM&keywords=6pin+pc+extension&qid=1701568918&sprefix=6pin+pc+extension,aps,119&sr=8-11

*REMOVED FAN DISCUSSION TO KEEP POST SHORT - SEE ORIGINAL POST IF INTERESTED*

As for the GPU itself, how have you all been powering it? My current setup is ready to be a housefilre since I'm yoloing with a 6pin PCIe to 8pin EPS especially since I have no idea what this thing is even drawing. The cable FEELS fine, but it hasnt even been under a load, it's just existed so if anyone has some ideas, I'm open to it. Second PSU wouldn't be bad either.

Hopefully my last post answers the fan connection questions. Though I am open to more discussion. I may look and see if I can find a fan under 1amp that would be viable.

As for connecting the GPU itself, I purchased a Corsair RM850 PSU for my bench rig. This PSU comes with two "CPU" power cables. The "CPU" cables are just EPS so as long as your mobo/CPU combo only needs a single EPS connection you still have one free to run the GPU. In the future if we ever get these cards to work properly I will happily produce 8pin Corsairs "GPU" socket to EPS connection cables. For right now with one card the RM850 works great.

Sure, I hope I recall the steps correctly. Its important to note that we have to use linux aws drivers amdgpu-pro-20.20-1184451-ubuntu-18.04 . I could not manage to get any other package to work so far.
*STEPS TO SET UP CARD REDACTED TO KEEP REPLY SHORT PLEASE SEE POST ON PAGE 2 IF INTERESTED*

Mczkrt, could you give more details about the setup you had OpenCL working on? I have tried 2 motherboard/CPU combos and still seem to be failing to have the drivers recognize the card. Could you maybe share what your hardware configuration is/was for that test?

 

[PixelButts]

As for connecting the GPU itself, I purchased a Corsair RM850 PSU for my bench rig. This PSU comes with two "CPU" power cables. The "CPU" cables are just EPS so as long as your mobo/CPU combo only needs a single EPS connection you still have one free to run the GPU. In the future if we ever get these cards to work properly I will happily produce 8pin Corsairs "GPU" socket to EPS connection cables. For right now with one card the RM850 works great.

I think just a psu with 2 EPS connections is more than sufficient, or just use a second psu since I doubt anyone is gonna daily drive something like this in a normal case.
The alternate fan solution is however something I will absolutely opt for assuming it works without overloading a header or can keep up with the gpu under load. I have no problem with making a custom curve if it works out that way so long as it's sufficient.

 

[Catch2223]

Aside from the obvious issues powering and cooling these cards I have been trying to get mine to actually show up under a Ubuntu environment with no success. I have tested with older (2015?) Intel chipsets including a Z97 and Z170. I just ordered a setup to run a B650 with a Ryzen 5 7600 and I will report back if this makes any difference.

I did find this video last night:

It appears this YouTuber was able to get the card to fully initialize both GPUs and run several flavors of Crypto workloads using the OS MMPOS. If you are interested he has a longer video from these tests in the "Live" section of his channel. I tried to reproduce this with my current hardware but again the device failed to initialize. If someone else with one of these wants to try it looks like it should be as close as we have seen to plug and play. You can get the OS here: https://app.mmpos.eu/

 

[mczkrt]

Mczkrt, could you give more details about the setup you had OpenCL working on? I have tried 2 motherboard/CPU combos and still seem to be failing to have the drivers recognize the card. Could you maybe share what your hardware configuration is/was for that test?

Asrock B550M Pro4
Ryzen 5 3600

I had to apply these settings in BIOS (In my case this is what really got the card going, unfortunately this badly impacts testing in VMs)
Above 4G decoding - on
Resizable BAR - off
IOMMU - off

Re cooling, from my experience you really don't need any superpowered blower if you obey indicated airflow direction. 2nd GPU radiator has a denser finstack, so pushing air from the back is counterproductive, as you will need more pressure and noise just to have enough airflow over 1st GPU. In my setup, I use 15W blower (at 60% power) at the bracket and 2x40mm at EPS connector, all hooked up to the mainboard.

 

[Catch2223]

Asrock B550M Pro4
Ryzen 5 3600

I had to apply these settings in BIOS (In my case this is what really got the card going, unfortunately this badly impacts testing in VMs)
Above 4G decoding - on
Resizable BAR - off
IOMMU - off

Re cooling, from my experience you really don't need any superpowered blower if you obey indicated airflow direction. 2nd GPU radiator has a denser finstack, so pushing air from the back is counterproductive, as you will need more pressure and noise just to have enough airflow over 1st GPU. In my setup, I use 15W blower (at 60% power) at the bracket and 2x40mm at EPS connector, all hooked up to the mainboard.

Thanks for sharing. I'm going to hope that the resizable bar issues I am having are related to the old hardware/intel. Fingers crossed the B650 and Ryzen 5 allow me to see this card live!

As for cooling, I agree, blowing with the arrow would be a good idea (since that's the heatsinks intent) but on a test rig this was the easy way out without a mess of zipties and tape. If you have a picture of the cooling setup your using I'd be curious to see it. Always happy to design brackets and print parts for those involved in solving this cards mysteries and maybe you have a novel solution I can use for inspiration. Otherwise I think the "real" answer is to run this card in a server rack setup.

I also have access to a plasma cutter if sheet metal would allow us an elegant cooling solution. I'm happy to crank out parts and sell at cost. This is a fun hardware project

 

[mczkrt]

I hope no-one gets offended.

Blower is mounted to the chassis, but it can also be screwed directly to the bracket for open bench testing.

 

[TopHatProductions115]

I hope no-one gets offended.

Blower is mounted to the chassis, but it can also be screwed directly to the bracket for open bench testing.

You will be executed for this offense!

jk, cool mod.

 

[PixelButts]

Re cooling, from my experience you really don't need any superpowered blower if you obey indicated airflow direction. 2nd GPU radiator has a denser finstack, so pushing air from the back is counterproductive, as you will need more pressure and noise just to have enough airflow over 1st GPU. In my setup, I use 15W blower (at 60% power) at the bracket and 2x40mm at EPS connector, all hooked up to the mainboard.

So the air flow marking on the card wasn't a mistake. Guess that would explain it. It seemed really weird to me that the flow of this was backwards until I saw a few rackmount servers with the GPUs actually in them in the front oriented this way.

 

[SyWillCry]

I don't think the cards poofed as much as someone saw an opportunity to scalp... If you are still on the hunt and want to play with some funky hardware you can find them for sale here:
Link: https://directmacro.com/amd-102-d30201-00.html

EDIT TO MAKE THIS CLEAR: THESE CARDS ARE STILL AVAILABLE TO THOSE LOOKING TO EXPERIMENT AT THE LINK ABOVE!!! Don't be discouraged by the dead eBay listing!

Fwiw, I've sent an email to them asking if they can provide pictures of the cards, considering that the name of the item and the picture don't match at all (ofc it's just a generic pic, but, wanting to make sure).

 

[Catch2223]

It's alive!!! My V540 is mining Ethereum Classic as I type this! Mining was the first/simplest load I could come up with plus the mining OS mmpOS has the correct drivers pre-installed. The new motherboard/CPU did the trick!

My setup is as follows:
Mobo: ASUS B650 Plus
CPU: Ryzen 5 7600
PSU: Corsair RM850 (2x EPS connectors for CPU and v540)
RAM: 32GB DDR5 Triforce (Cheapest on Amazon)
Storage: 16GB Thumbdrive
mxGPU: AMD V540 (Installed in 16x PCIe slot)

BIOS Settings:
Disable IOMMU
Enable 4G Decoding
Disable Resizable BAR

Drivers/OS:
Default AMD drivers in mmpOS version 4.0.4

V540 cooling solution:
Blower fan design I shared previously still pushing air the wrong way!

My notes on this success so far are that I am not seeing a power limit on either core as some other users had reported. ETC hashrate is 56mh/s @ 98W per core. The lights at the front of the v540 which typically light up blue changed to blue and white once the card initialized and it beeped a little "success" sound as the lights came on. I have attached a few images of the card running in mmpOS as well as thermal views so we can picture the uneven cooling involved with reversing the airflow. Success guys! There is hope! I'll continue experiments but this is a great checkpoint!

I'd be curious if someone has a modern Intel setup if they have success with this configuration as well. If I can get my hands on a CPU and Mobo cheap I may try it.

 

[Imperator]

I'd be curious if someone has a modern Intel setup if they have success with this configuration as well. If I can get my hands on a CPU and Mobo cheap I may try it.

Great job mate. I am curious what do you have in mind? What is the next target ?

 

[mczkrt]

Can you share kernel version and dump from clinfo ?

 

[Catch2223]

Can you share kernel version and dump from clinfo ?

Attached are the outputs from clinfo and cat /proc/version. Let us know what you think.

I'll add to that I am finding a power limit but it appears to be at 100W per GPU so 200W total for the card. 100W per GPU still puts this very close to "full power" of the retail equivalents. A little low but maybe there is some magic we can do to up that via VBIOS.

 

[mczkrt]

I'm no expert but it looks like driver was customized for this OS. Definitely newer version than mine and based on HSA instead of PAL. I don't expect it has full graphics stack, still I might set aside to some time to investigate this miner.

As for power draw - this is pure speculation, but my theory is that chips used for this card are very good bins, and with default V-F curve will never reach PPT limit. I don't think I ever saw it pass 100W PPT and 1V Vddgfx.

 

[laceflower]

Hey everyone,
It seems like listings have dried up but id still really love to try out one of these cards, and I finally have the money to do so.
If you're willing to sell your unit and ship to Australia, shoot me a DM and hopefully we can work something out.

 

[LabRat 891]

V520 added to RdN.ID/Amernimezone drivers

Radeon-ID Community Driver: Hybrid - Release Nebula 23.11.1 WHQL

Who modded this driver? @mylipho15? or you? Are you serious? It's a official Sourceforge of the project...

forums.guru3d.com

 

[FzR dontdie x]

Hey so I talked to Roman (Der8auer) and he wants to make a video on the card but he wants to show it running a benchmark if possible. Can we actually come up with an easy list of instructions to get this card to run a load I could send him? I’d love to see this card have some cool attention brought to it. Or even a reasonable 3d load would be good.

 

[PixelButts]

Hey so I talked to Roman (Der8auer) and he wants to make a video on the card but he wants to show it running a benchmark if possible. Can we actually come up with an easy list of instructions to get this card to run a load I could send him? I’d love to see this card have some cool attention brought to it. Or even a reasonable 3d load would be good.

Probably the drivers from the LTT thread as it comes with instructions, Windows 11 (some had success here?) but Windows 10 is fine, strapping some high airflow fans to it (blower with 3d printed mount is nice, but 2 40mm might be good too), and praying it works. Whether you virtualize it or not, no idea.
Card will need EPS power, so a PSU with 2 EPS connections, or just a second PSU altogether. You could also just drop it in a server rack with insane airflow, but that's bulky. Make no mistake you WILL need to cool it well.

Link to the LTT thread blow, I linked it in the OP of this thread as well, but if it goes down I can mirror it. Below is the best result I've seen so far from mczkrt. The bit question is the VBIOS because many of these have been different. A guarantee to get it running isn't possible at the moment.
I have also added mczkrt's notes on the bios settings for the motherboard as those seem to matter a ton too

Windows driver for AMD Radeon Pro V540

I bought an interesting video card but i need drivers for tesing. There is no information or driver on the AMD site. I know this is an ES card but the one GPU version is a released card (V520) This is navi12 dual gpu, like a navi10 5700XT but with HBM2. Power connector is server grade EPS (max 33...

linustechtips.com

Here is a sidenote, but I think it is still relevant:

I managed to test V520 on AWS using drivers posted on LTT and I can confirm they work. I'm attaching some screenshots with an overview of performance.

Some observations:
- Boost clock around 1600MHz compared to 1450MHz on V540
- Power draw much closer to 130W PPT
- OpenCL is not available
- GravityMark D3D12 test could not start

I don't think I ever saw fatal gpu error while tinkering. But you need to have message:

Initialized amdgpu

after installing drivers and rebooting, before any further steps.

I followed this guide:

Install AMD drivers on Linux instances - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

An instance with an attached AMD GPU, such as a G4ad instance, must have the appropriate AMD driver installed. Depending on your requirements, you can either use an AMI with the driver preinstalled or download a driver from Amazon S3.

docs.aws.amazon.com

Few things I have setup in BIOS:
Above 4G decoding - enable
Resizable BAR - disable (if present)
IOMMU - disable

I'm not using any kernel parameters except for virtual display, but drivers also worked fine without any outputs.

 

[mczkrt]

There is nothing easy about this card. I tried to follow my notes and install a fresh Ubuntu 23.04 running MESA drivers (I remember distinctly that this setup was working, at least with 1 GPU) and now OS reports that there is no hardware acceleration. I will try to make this work and post instructions once I'm certain they will work reliably.

I had no luck with R.ID drivers. Quickly checking .inf files, I don't see entry for REV_C1 id, so the installer doesn't load any drivers. Manually installing .inf for V520 ends with error about missing files.

 

[PixelButts]

Seconding the "nothing easy about this card", but I'll go further and say it's "a pain in the ass". The airflow direction being backwards* also makes this hard since unless you mount it sideways in a dense server chassis where it's just kinda in the middle of the machine somewhere you're probably going to end up needing an entirely backwards flow of air.
It doesn't help that those who have tried haven't been able to get the same results even under the same conditions due to multiple variables. Even now there's only been success with a single of the two GPUs on board so whether that second one ever becomes usable is a gamble too.

In regards to the R.ID drivers, the v520 driver is more for the mining vard cariant rather than these. I spoke with a user briefly about it.

 

[LabRat 891]

I had no luck with R.ID drivers. Quickly checking .inf files, I don't see entry for REV_C1 id, so the installer doesn't load any drivers. Manually installing .inf for V520 ends with error about missing files.

I do not have a Navi 12 card but,
I'm quite familiar w/ R.ID's drivers (as far as how easy it is to mis-install and break a function you DL'd the drivers for. Like, restoring OCing for non-RX Vega 10 cards)
IIRC, you must use the CLI installer, and there's a specific package and driver kernel that must be used; I think it says it in the menu "for Radeon Pro 5600M" or something like that*.

I've had best luck w/ their drivers, using the CLI, and SnappyDriverInstaller when prompted for Driver Installation Method.

edit: * that's not in the latest drivers. I have seen it in the CLU UI b4 tho... researching.

Edit 2: Posted by 2023-12-01



Edit 3: well, I can't find the exact example I can see in my head. They do 'backport' changes sometimes, so it's possible what I remember seeing is indeed gone.

If I had a Navi 12 card, I'd be probably be willing to spend days-weeks bashing my head against getting the right driver set installed and tweaked. Just, as I did w/ my MI25s/WX 9100s + 6500 XT combo set up to my liking

 

[laceflower]

BC-160s are available on eBay for roughly the same price as the original V540 listing. They come with active cooling but no video out. Might be able to get it to run a graphical workload using prime or something though, it should have the same navi 12 core as the v540/20.

 

[PixelButts]

I do not have a Navi 12 card but,
I'm quite familiar w/ R.ID's drivers (as far as how easy it is to mis-install and break a function you DL'd the drivers for. Like, restoring OCing for non-RX Vega 10 cards)
IIRC, you must use the CLI installer, and there's a specific package and driver kernel that must be used; I think it says it in the menu "for Radeon Pro 5600M" or something like that*.

I've had best luck w/ their drivers, using the CLI, and SnappyDriverInstaller when prompted for Driver Installation Method.

View attachment 331969

edit: * that's not in the latest drivers. I have seen it in the CLU UI b4 tho... researching.

Edit 2: Posted by 2023-12-01
View attachment 331970


Edit 3: well, I can't find the exact example I can see in my head. They do 'backport' changes sometimes, so it's possible what I remember seeing is indeed gone.

If I had a Navi 12 card, I'd be probably be willing to spend days-weeks bashing my head against getting the right driver set installed and tweaked. Just, as I did w/ my MI25s/WX 9100s + 6500 XT combo set up to my liking

It's worth noting that while they do indeed say the card is supported, I have yet to see anyone actually verify it's been tried. It's probably listed simply for the sake of "if encountered it probably works". However, as mczkrt said, no inf for it is present in the R.ID driver packages, so you'd have to assign a driver manually, and even then you're kinda in the realm of "ok but which one and would it even work".

The same issue with the v320 (Stadia GPU) where while it was listed, it was definitely not working but perhaps it's referring to the v340's v320 and might work. It was only after explicit checks for this card's ID did it actually apply any driver, and in turn we applied the MI25 driver to it which I guess is the best option we have but maybe it's better to use Vega 56 drivers. Works completely fine but the fact it was listed despite no verified instance of it working is kinda my point. In this card's case theres name overlap with a v340 (2 v320s), and that is for sure NOT the same. Likewise the BC-160 is a v520, and is distinctly NOT the v540 (2 v520s). It may be worth keeping this in mind.

BC-160s are available on eBay for roughly the same price as the original V540 listing. They come with active cooling but no video out. Might be able to get it to run a graphical workload using prime or something though, it should have the same navi 12 core as the v540/20.

Considering I do some silly stuff these days I should honestly pick one up but I just cant justify it because I dont mine, and I'd want a nice one, but that means I'll likely have to pay extra.
On the other hand, 200 bucks for one isn't terrible but it's been used so no telling how much life it has left, and some dont have active cooling either. Side note; why does nobody show the power connectors needed for this in the photos?