AMD Officially Requires Windows 11 for Latest Graphics Cards

AMD has just released the Ryzen chipset driver update package 7.02.13.148, which includes many new programs to improve application compatibility, support Microsoft Pluton, and many other features.

In addition, “Team Red” has also posted a new support document on its website, sharing information regarding UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) support on the latest RX 9000 series graphics cards. AMD launched the 9070 series GPUs last week to compete with Nvidia’s RTX 5070/Ti cards. The initial response seems to be quite positive as the company promises performance close to the RTX 5070 Ti at a price just a little higher than the RTX 5070. In addition to gaming, AI/ML performance and media encoding/decoding are also significantly improved.

In its new UEFI support document, AMD states that Radeon GPUs from the 9000 series onwards will only officially support UEFI mode. As a result, if your system is configured to use a legacy BIOS or CSM (compatibility support module), it may not work and will not boot.

This requirement is similar to Windows 11. In other words, UEFI/Secure Boot will become mandatory to enhance operating system security. In addition to security, UEFI also brings many other benefits such as Fast Boot. AMD explains:

Compared to the old "legacy" BIOS firmware, UEFI firmware offers many new and useful features, including:

• Security is greatly improved
• Well-defined interfaces ensure interoperability and testability
• Reliable firmware updates from the internet with little user interaction
• Support hard drives larger than 2.2TB
• Support for a wide range of new PC hardware, including the ability to boot from NVMe SSDs
• Windows® Secure Boot to prevent malware
• Faster shutdown, startup, sleep and resume times

To take full advantage of UEFI, only UEFI mode will be officially supported starting with the 4th generation of AMD RDNA™ graphics cards (Radeon™ RX 9000 Series and later).

AMD also touts ReSizable BAR, also known as Smart Access Memory in the case of Radeon, as a UEFI benefit.

The documentation also suggests that performance and compatibility issues may occur if users do not enable UEFI firmware on their systems:

It is important that your PC is configured for UEFI mode to ensure compatibility, performance, and optimal user experience with AMD Radeon™ RX 9000 Series and newer graphics cards.

This means that unsupported devices running Windows 11 without UEFI/Secure Boot will not work optimally with Radeon 9000 series graphics cards, and therefore you should upgrade to a new PC.

Additionally, if you're wondering whether your current graphics card's VGA BIOS (vBIOS) comes with a UEFI module, you can use TechPowerUp's GPU-Z tool to check, which currently has a small catalog containing relevant information.