Best versions of Catalyst/APP/ADL for Linux?

[maxpower]

I'm thinking about switching my small mining rig over from Windows to Linux. It's an old Mac Pro (yeah, I know) that's currently running Windows 7, with a 6850 and a 7850.

So I plan on installing Ubuntu, but I'm wondering which versions of the Catalyst driver and the AMD APP and ADL SDKs will give me the best results with CGMiner. I've searched through the forums, but everybody seems to recommend different versions.

Any recommendations? Has anybody got a combination of driver/SDK versions on a Linux machine that works really well? Also, does the version of Ubuntu I choose matter?

Thanks!

[os2sam]

Have you read the FAQ section of the CGMiner readme?

[maxpower]

Have you read the FAQ section of the CGMiner readme?

I have! But I've also seen people posting that they've had better rates with Catalyst 12.10 and 13.1, so I'm curious if the FAQ matches recent experience, and if a later driver might actually be better.

But, re-reading the FAQ brings up another question--if APP SDK 2.4 and 2.5 are best for 6xxx cards, and 2.6 and 2.7 are best for 7xxx cards, which will give me the best performance for my hybrid 6xxx/7xxx system? Maybe I should go with SDK 2.6/2.7 since the 7850 is the faster card.

[os2sam]

Have you read the FAQ section of the CGMiner readme?

I have! But I've also seen people posting that they've had better rates with Catalyst 12.10 and 13.1, so I'm curious if the FAQ matches recent experience, and if a later driver might actually be better.

But, re-reading the FAQ brings up another question--if APP SDK 2.4 and 2.5 are best for 6xxx cards, and 2.6 and 2.7 are best for 7xxx cards, which will give me the best performance for my hybrid 6xxx/7xxx system? Maybe I should go with SDK 2.6/2.7 since the 7850 is the faster card.

You haven't seen the scads of post stating not put 5xxx/6xxx cards in the same rig as 7xxx?  Which I believe is stated in the FAQ as well?

[os2sam]

Maybe I should go with SDK 2.6/2.7 since the 7850 is the faster card.

You have to go with 2.6+ SDK for 7xxx cards.

[gyverlb]

If you use 2.6 you can get the same performance than 2.4/2.5 with 5xxx cards only if you compile the phatk kernel (for cgminer this is done automatically on the first run) on a 2.4 or 2.5 based system.
You'll have to move the resulting bin file on the 2.6+ based system and force cgminer to use it (the -k option overrides its default choice for the kernel).

I still have one Xubuntu 11.04 system configured in case cgminer tunes its OpenCL kernels again and I have to recompile them.

[maxpower]

You haven't seen the scads of post stating not put 5xxx/6xxx cards in the same rig as 7xxx?  Which I believe is stated in the FAQ as well?

Wow. I don't see it in the FAQ, but I wish I had seen the posts before I invested in the 7850. Thank you for the pointer.

If you use 2.6 you can get the same performance than 2.4/2.5 with 5xxx cards only if you compile the phatk kernel (for cgminer this is done automatically on the first run) on a 2.4 or 2.5 based system.
You'll have to move the resulting bin file on the 2.6+ based system and force cgminer to use it (the -k option overrides its default choice for the kernel).

I still have one Xubuntu 11.04 system configured in case cgminer tunes its OpenCL kernels again and I have to recompile them.

Thanks, this is really helpful. I'll experiment with this before I start thinking about getting rid of my 6850.