AMD Adds GDDR7 Support in GPU Driver, Preparing for RDNA 5 Launch

AMD has submitted patches to its open-source graphics card drivers for Linux, adding support for GDDR7 memory, as anticipation builds for the company's next-generation RDNA 5 GPUs. In the AMDGPU open-source driver, GDDR7 is now listed among the supported VRAM types. Currently, AMD's graphics cards use GDDR6 for the consumer RDNA 4-based Radeon RX 9000 series, while Instinct MI data center and workstation GPUs use HBM3E and HBM4 memory. Since AMD is developing data center GPUs with HBM and consumer cards are the only models using GDDR, the GDDR7 placeholder indicates future support for RDNA 5.

Switching to GDDR7 will allow AMD to significantly boost the memory speeds of its graphics cards and potentially increase capacity, all while improving energy efficiency. The latest GDDR6 memory modules top out at 20 Gb/s, while GDDR7 can achieve 36 Gb/s today and even 48 Gb/s in future versions, according to JEDEC specifications. This could enable AMD's gaming and workstation GPUs with RDNA 5 technology to achieve significantly higher memory bandwidth, enhancing performance in memory-bound workloads. Read full story