AMD Renoir Graphics Power Management Gets Wired Up

While AMD's next-gen Renoir APUs are Vega-based and not Navi, beyond the initial Linux driver enablement seen over the past few weeks coming out a few days ago were a set of patches just getting the power management in order.

The graphics power management support for Renoir is where we're seeing a larger deviation in the driver code than the rest of the driver enablement that mostly pegs it as a Vega/GFX9 Raven Ridge refresh past Picasso. The power features for Renoir has come in at 37 patches amounting to around one thousand lines of new code, more than would be necessary for just a Raven Ridge / Picasso facsimile.

These patches make the many adjustments needed to PowerPlay, enable GFXOFF support for being able to turn off the graphics engine when not needed. updated golden settings, and clock gating support for the various blocks. The new power management code for Renoir can be found on the mailing list.

Given the punctual Linux driver support, hopefully any/all Renoir issues will be squared away prior to launch. From our recent testing of the Picasso Ryzen 5 3400G it's been working out well on Linux, much more so than the original Raven Ridge APUs.