AMD Releases BIOS for Radeon VII with UEFI GOP

cageymaru

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AMD has announced the release of a BIOS for the Radeon VII with UEFI GOP included for their AIB partners. AMD will also make a one click installable BIOS available to end users via AMD.com. AMD doesn't expect gaming performance differences between the non UEFI BIOS and the UEFI GOP included BIOS, although the non UEFI BIOS may experience slower boot times from cold boot. Earlier today TechPowerUp found that the first batch of Radeon VII cards didn't ship with a UEFI GOP BIOS installed.

AMD has released a BIOS for the Radeon VII with UEFI GOP included for our AIB partners. We will also make a one click installable BIOS available to end users via AMD.com. We do not expect gaming performance differences between the non UEFI BIOS and the UEFI GOP included BIOS, although the non UEFI BIOS may experience slower boot times from cold boot.
 
Good, making something super easy for those are not familiar/comfortable is smart thinking!
 
Yeah, it seems like AMD has made updating drivers really easy. I remember hearing horror stories about their drivers, and the difficulties people had getting them installed (when I used Nvidia). Not so anymore. Now I'm getting ready to go back to Nvidia, I hope they are easy too.
 
Yeah, it seems like AMD has made updating drivers really easy. I remember hearing horror stories about their drivers, and the difficulties people had getting them installed (when I used Nvidia). Not so anymore. Now I'm getting ready to go back to Nvidia, I hope they are easy too.

Both AMD and Nvidia are about the same when it comes to driver updating. They both are simple, yet can be difficult when a problem arises (DDU to the rescue). Both camps have their strong points, and their issues.
 
(my) dumb question of the day, what's UEFI GOP and aside from maybe faster boot times, whats the point of the GPU having a UEFI bios? (aint that the motherboard's deal?)
The Graphics Output Protocol (GOP) is enabled by UEFI driver to support graphic console output in the pre-OS phase. The ultimate goal of GOP is to replace legacy VGA BIOS and eliminate VGA HW functionality. With out it you get strange things like post going out the on-board and the Card not kicking in till windows boot or sometimes just a failure to boot. It depends on if you have secure boot enabled or not in addition to the UEFI boot. But if they didn’t have that enabled I can only imagine what other settings they missed which could cause all sorts of strange things.
 
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(my) dumb question of the day, what's UEFI GOP and aside from maybe faster boot times, whats the point of the GPU having a UEFI bios? (aint that the motherboard's deal?)
It's a payload in the gpu firmware which allows the GPU to perform minimal setup and then hand over to the OS, whereas otherwise the BIOS (or legacy BIOS code) would have to perform setup and handover. In some situations it could mean a less buggy boot process, in others it could cause issues (in the case that uefi isn't implemented properly, for instance).

Edit: see "Replacing VGA, GOP implementation for UEFI" (PDF file) on uefi.org.
 
The Graphics Output Protocol (GOP) is enabled by UEFI driver to support graphic console output in the pre-OS phase. The ultimate goal of GOP is to replace legacy VGA BIOS and eliminate VGA HW functionality. With out it you get strange things like post going out the on-board and the Card not kicking in till windows boot or sometimes just a failure to boot. It depends on if you have secure boot enabled or not in addition to the UEFI boot. But if they didn’t have that enabled I can only imagine what other settings they missed which could cause all sorts of strange things.

This is just more proof that AMD - really ... really - rushed this release. I'm reading now on Tom's Hardware that some units might have slipped by the quality assurance department, but that's BS. AMD didn't even have proper firmware ready for PC, let alone a working UEFI for PC. There is nothing that I hate more than unpolished products at this price point. This one is not just unpolished, it's downright unfinished. That would also explain the half ass noisy cooler on this GPU. Sorry AMD, but worse than a performance loss when compared to NVIDIA is you shipping pre-production quality hardware.
 
This is just more proof that AMD - really ... really - rushed this release. I'm reading now on Tom's Hardware that some units might have slipped by the quality assurance department, but that's BS. AMD didn't even have proper firmware ready for PC, let alone a working UEFI for PC. There is nothing that I hate more than unpolished products at this price point. This one is not just unpolished, it's downright unfinished. That would also explain the half ass noisy cooler on this GPU. Sorry AMD, but worse than a performance loss when compared to NVIDIA is you shipping pre-production quality hardware.
This is rather a minor issue, as long as the card works. Crashing/instability are another thing entirely, of course.
 
This seems like a mostly irrelevant issue.

It makes absolutely no difference if you need to load the CSM module on boot or not, except for a couple of second delay.
 
This seems like a mostly irrelevant issue.

It makes absolutely no difference if you need to load the CSM module on boot or not, except for a couple of second delay.

Mostly irrelevant yes, but some OEM workstations don't have the ability to enable a CSM - they don't need it for the systems/components they ship and support. I'm sure AMD doesn't want to be locked out of those sales, however small they are.
 
This is just more proof that AMD - really ... really - rushed this release. I'm reading now on Tom's Hardware that some units might have slipped by the quality assurance department, but that's BS. AMD didn't even have proper firmware ready for PC, let alone a working UEFI for PC. There is nothing that I hate more than unpolished products at this price point. This one is not just unpolished, it's downright unfinished. That would also explain the half ass noisy cooler on this GPU. Sorry AMD, but worse than a performance loss when compared to NVIDIA is you shipping pre-production quality hardware.

The [H] review is what you should go by. They will call a spade a spade if said spade really is .. erm... a spade. I've said spade 4 times. Now 5.
 
This is just more proof that AMD - really ... really - rushed this release. I'm reading now on Tom's Hardware that some units might have slipped by the quality assurance department, but that's BS. AMD didn't even have proper firmware ready for PC, let alone a working UEFI for PC. There is nothing that I hate more than unpolished products at this price point. This one is not just unpolished, it's downright unfinished. That would also explain the half ass noisy cooler on this GPU. Sorry AMD, but worse than a performance loss when compared to NVIDIA is you shipping pre-production quality hardware.
Firmware updates are very normal for many industries even years after product launch. AMD should be praised for the rapid response on issues found.

Have not heard of any signicant hardware issues yet, no space invaders or massive hardware failures as in 20% of the Nvidia 2080 Ti's

Cooler does seem weak, about as effective as the Vega's blower cooler and as noisy. Definitely where an AIB partner could improve things.

In any case, AMD seems very active on this launch.
 
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Yeah, it seems like AMD has made updating drivers really easy. I remember hearing horror stories about their drivers, and the difficulties people had getting them installed (when I used Nvidia). Not so anymore. Now I'm getting ready to go back to Nvidia, I hope they are easy too.

AMD Drivers are great. I love the Adrenaline UI, its very easy to navigate, much better than Nvidia's control panel.
 
AMD has announced the release of a BIOS for the Radeon VII with UEFI GOP included for their AIB partners. AMD will also make a one click installable BIOS available to end users via AMD.com. AMD doesn't expect gaming performance differences between the non UEFI BIOS and the UEFI GOP included BIOS, although the non UEFI BIOS may experience slower boot times from cold boot. Earlier today TechPowerUp found that the first batch of Radeon VII cards didn't ship with a UEFI GOP BIOS installed.

AMD has released a BIOS for the Radeon VII with UEFI GOP included for our AIB partners. We will also make a one click installable BIOS available to end users via AMD.com. We do not expect gaming performance differences between the non UEFI BIOS and the UEFI GOP included BIOS, although the non UEFI BIOS may experience slower boot times from cold boot.


I have yet to see the bios update on AMD.COM . If somebody knows where to look let me know. I prefer NOT to use the asrock bios fix.
 
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