The most popular AMD Ryzen CPUs are finally getting optimized Linux support AMD Zen 3
The latest AMD driver has posted patches to the Linux kernel that’ll enable users to get better per watt performance from their AMD Zen-based CPUs.
According to Phoronix, the drivers currently support processors powered by the Zen 3 microarchitecture, such as the Ryzen 5000 desktop processors, as well as the Epyc 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 that Intel’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 to Phoronix, 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.
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, Phoronix reports 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.
Via Phoronix
The latest AMD driver has posted patches to the Linux kernel that’ll enable users to get better per watt performance from their AMD Zen-based CPUs. According to Phoronix, the drivers currently support processors powered by the Zen 3 microarchitecture, such as the Ryzen 5000 desktop processors, as well as…
