AMD's AMDGPU driver will finally become the default for GCN 1.1 Sea Islands APUs in the upcoming Linux 7.1 kernel. The change affects APUs like Kaveri, Kabini, and Mullins, which have been using the legacy Radeon DRM driver until now. Users of these older chips can expect much better performance, out-of-the-box RADV Vulkan support, and an overall improved experience compared to the aging Radeon driver.
The transition completes years of work to bring AMDGPU's experimental support for GCN 1.0 and 1.1 hardware up to feature parity with the legacy driver. Timur Kristóf of Valve's Linux graphics team led the effort over the past year, handling bug fixes and the patches needed to change the default behavior. AMD's discrete GCN 1.0 and 1.1 GPUs already made the switch in previous kernel releases, making this the final piece of the puzzle for older AMD graphics hardware.
The final AMDGPU pull request for Linux 7.1 also includes an audio regression fix, GPU partition updates, a new CONFIG_GCOV_PROFILE_AMDGPU option for code profiling, SMU updates, and various other fixes. The Linux 7.1 merge window is expected to open soon.
