AMD says its new RDNA 4 GPUs only support UEFI This means that compatibility states on older motherboards are now excluded Only a serious niche set with players with very old PCs will be affected
AMD’s new RDNA 4 graphics card only supports UEFI officially, which is the modern roof of BIOS, the company has made it clear.
As you may be aware of, the BIOS firmware on your motherboard is needed for your computer to start and work, which facilitates communication between the hardware components and the software’s operating system. And as mentioned, UEFI is just the latest spin on this (though it should be noted, it has been around for a long time at this time).
AMD tells us: “To fully utilize the benefits of UEFI, only UEFI mode is officially supported from AMD RDNA 4 generation of graphics card (Radeon RX 9000 Series Graphics and later).”
So, in short, your PC should run in full UEFI mode, and not an inheritance compatibility mode (known as CSM or compatibility support module), which is an alternative to non-eufi-timetable that some people have used to run AMD graphics cards on older hardware.
Team Red also outlines the benefits of UEFI company compared to ‘Legacy’ (pre-weefi) BIOS company, which includes the following Boons:
Much improved security
Fully specified interfaces that ensure interoperability and testability
Reliable firmware updates from the Internet with minimal user interaction
Support for hard drives greater than 2.2 TB
Support for many new types of PC -hardware, including NVME SSD boot support
Windows Secure Boot to Prevention of Malware
Faster shutdown, startup, sleep and resumption times
(Image Credit: Shutterstock / DC Studio)
Analysis: What does this mean for RX 9070 buyers practical?
If you are confused at this point, don’t worry. Any modern PC supports UEFI and will be in order with a new RDNA 4 graphics card (the RX 9070 models are of course landing). However, you may need to activate UEFI mode and AMDS FAQ about this case gives a full explains about how to do it.
If you have a Windows 11 PC, it still requires UEFI -Note that the Windows Secure Boot feature is mentioned above, yes, it is required for better security on Windows 11 machines. (I should note that although Secure Boot is part of Microsoft’s official Windows 11 system requirements, it is possible to fudge your way around it, but it is not recommended).
Those with a PC that is so old that it does not offer a full UEFI mode on the motherboard will probably not want to run a groundbreaking GPU in the system. There may be some niche cases where this happens, remember you why AMD is emitting this warning – but the vast majority of people don’t have to worry here. They simply have to make sure they run full UEFI mode (very likely the case), not an inheritance compatibility mode with their motherboard company.
In fact, an RX 9070 GPU can even work with the said legacy mode, but since it is officially not supported now, you can expect flakiness of all kinds and a generally bad experience (and some key features will certainly be missing, like Sam or Smart Access Memory).
Via Videocardz
You like …
