- AMD says its new RDNA 4 GPUs will only support UEFI
- This means compatibility modes on older motherboards are now ruled out
- Only a seriously niche set of gamers with very old PCs will be affected
AMD’s new RDNA 4 graphics cards will only support UEFI officially, which is the modern take on the BIOS, the company has made clear.
As you may be aware, the BIOS is the firmware on your motherboard that’s necessary for your computer to boot up and work, facilitating communication between the hardware components and the software operating system. And as mentioned, the UEFI is just the most recent spin on this (though it should be noted, it has been around for a long time at this point).
AMD tells us: “To fully leverage the benefits of UEFI, only UEFI Mode will be officially supported starting from the AMD RDNA 4 generation of graphics cards (Radeon RX 9000 Series Graphics and later).”
So, in short, your PC will need to be running in full UEFI mode, and not a legacy compatibility mode (known as CSM or Compatibility Support Module) which is an alternative on non-UEFI motherboards that some folks have used to run AMD graphics card on older hardware.
Team Red also outlines the benefits of UEFI firmware compared to ‘legacy’ (pre-UEFI) BIOS firmware, which includes the following boons:
- Greatly improved security
- Fully specified interfaces that ensure interoperability and testability
- Dependable firmware updates from the internet with minimal user interaction
- Support for hard drives larger than 2.2TB
- Support for many new types of PC hardware, including NVMe SSD boot support
- Windows Secure Boot for malware prevention
- Faster shutdown, startup, sleep, and resume times
Analysis: What does this mean for would-be RX 9070 buyers in practical terms?
If you’re confused at this point, don’t worry. Any modern PC will support UEFI and will be fine with a new RDNA 4 graphics card (the RX 9070 models are about to land, of course). You may, however, need to enable UEFI mode and AMD’s FAQ on this matter provides a full explainer on how to do so.
If you’ve got a Windows 11 PC, it requires UEFI anyway – note the Windows Secure Boot feature AMD mentioned above, well, that’s required for better security on Windows 11 machines. (I should note that while Secure Boot is part of Microsoft’s official Windows 11 system requirements, it’s possible to fudge your way around it, but it’s not recommended).
Those with a PC so old it doesn’t offer a full UEFI mode on the motherboard are not likely to be wanting to run a cutting-edge GPU in the system anyway. There may be some niche cases where this happens, mind you, which is why AMD is issuing this warning – but the vast majority of folks don’t have to worry here. They simply must ensure that they are running full UEFI mode (very likely the case), not a legacy compatibility mode with their motherboard firmware.
Indeed, an RX 9070 GPU may even work with said legacy mode, but as it’s officially unsupported now, you can expect flakiness of all kinds and a generally poor experience (and some key features will certainly be missing, like SAM or Smart Access Memory).
Via VideoCardz
