In my Linux 7.4 preview I said AMD PerfOpt was the change to watch. It’s now merged.
What’s new
PerfOpt landed with the IOMMU pull for Linux 7.4. It lets AMD integrated GPUs skip the IOMMU when they access system memory directly, and it’s on by default with the AMDGPU driver on Radeon iGPUs. Phoronix’s benchmarks showed AI/LLM gains of roughly 18% to 23%, and older Ryzen APUs benefit too. To confirm it’s armed on 7.4+, look for “PerfOpt” in your dmesg output. The same merge adds IOMMU support for the Raspberry Pi 5’s BCM2712 display and media blocks, plus a para-virtualized IOMMU driver from Microsoft for Hyper-V.
My take
Free speed for local models on AMD laptops and mini PCs, just from a kernel update. Rolling distros should have it not long after 7.4 ships.
God Bless, and May the Source Be with You!
