The most popular AMD Ryzen CPUs are finally getting optimized Linux support
AMD promises to extend coverage to more processors over time
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The latestAMDdriver has posted patches to theLinuxkernel that’ll enable users to get better per watt performance from theirAMDZen-based CPUs.
According toPhoronix, the drivers currently support processors powered by the Zen 3 microarchitecture, such as theRyzen 5000desktop processors, as well as theEpyc server processors.
“We would like to introduce a new AMD CPU frequency control mechanism as the “amd-pstate” driver for modern AMD Zen based CPU series in Linux Kernel,” wrote Rui Huang, senior member of the technical staff at AMD.
The new AMD-PSTATE driver reportedly promises to bring the same level of optimizations to Zen 3 processors thatIntel’s P-State driver has been delivering for Intel CPUs for a long time.
Long time coming
Unlike the generic ACPI CPUFreq driver, the new AMD-PSTATE uses ACPI Collaborative Processor Performance Controls (CPPC) to help make better performance state decisions to maximise performance with a minimal energy footprint.
According toPhoronix, AMD first introduced an optimized CPPC-based driver back in July 2019, just as the company was about to unveil its Zen 2 microarchitecture.
However, the effort never made it into the kernel, and was eventually abandoned, supposedly because of a “lack of resources” at AMD.
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While the ACPI CPPC support originated with the Zen 2 processors, the current AMD-PSTATE driver currently limits itself to Zen 3 processors only. However,Phoronixreports that AMD has promised to extend their coverage to cover not just upcoming processors, but also older ones such as those based on Zen 2.
ViaPhoronix
With almost two decades of writing and reporting on Linux, Mayank Sharma would like everyone to think he’sTechRadar Pro’sexpert on the topic. Of course, he’s just as interested in other computing topics, particularly cybersecurity, cloud, containers, and coding.
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