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.
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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.
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Via Phoronix
