AMD Publishes GC 11.5.2 Firmware For Upcoming RDNA3.5 Hardware
GC 11.5.2 is another RDNA3.5 variant that follows the same driver code paths as GC 11.5.0 and GC 11.5.1 IP. GC 11.5.0 being the graphics IP block version used by Strix Point with the RDNA3.5 Radeon 890M graphics of the Ryzen AI 300 series. GC 11.5.1 and GC 11.5.2 are presumably for the likes of the Strix Halo and Krackan1 variants expected in the coming months or potentially for some semi-custom APUs.
GC 11.5.2 was only patched to the AMDGPU kernel driver back in June while the 11.5.0/11.5.1 support appeared months prior, presumably with the GC 11.5.2 products coming to market later than the rest. But with AMD's block-by-block open-source driver enablement strategy for different IP blocks of their GPUs and all being versioned separately, it remains difficult to accurately assess what product(s) will use what IP versions.
In any case, as of today the GC 11.5.2 microcode/firmware is now upstream in linux-firmware.git. Thus when paired with the latest Linux kernel and Mesa support, the open-source Linux driver support for GC 11.5.2 hardware will be good-to-go (barring any quirks or last minute issues with production hardware relative to the driver state).
It's good seeing AMD upstreaming their graphics firmware earlier than in the past. AMD used to not publish their firmware files until release time or within days or releasing new GPU products. This made it a struggle to get it packaged up and shipped by major Linux distributions ahead of launch and without these files the open-source driver cannot function. But by getting these firmware files out earlier, there's time for Linux distributions to incorporate the new linux-firmware.git assets so that there is a more pleasant out-of-the-box experience for launch customers on Linux.
Add A Comment
