AMD Radeon SMU 15 power management for RDNA 4 GPUs
The System Management Unit firmware interface for AMD's next-generation Radeon GPUs based on the GFX12 / RDNA 4 architecture. It handles voltage, clock, and thermal control between the kernel's amdgpu driver and the on-card SMU, enabling power management on the upcoming Radeon parts that succeed the RDNA 3 family.
recommendation
It should stay in the kernel because this is fresh enablement code for AMD's RDNA 4 generation, with active patch traffic on the amd-gfx list through early 2026 adding features and refining metrics handling. Although the hardware was not yet on retail shelves in 2025, this is the standard upstream path for AMD GPU power management and there is no alternative driver to replace it.
repository signals
sources
- spinics.net
Jan 5, 2026 patch series explicitly enabled SMU 15_0_0 support in DRM/AMD, indicating new bring-up rather than retirement.
- spinics.net
Feb 9, 2026 follow-up patch updated SMU15 metrics handling, showing active upstream refinement of this directory.
- spinics.net
Apr 21, 2026 v4 patch fixes unified metrics handling for SMU 15.0.0, showing current maintenance activity and no removal direction.
- phoronix.com
Phoronix summarized the initial SMU15 patches as support for future/next-gen Radeon hardware tied to GFX12/RDNA4-era enablement, implying it was not a mature retail-installed base in 2025.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Local shell inspection shows this directory is live AMDGPU SMU code for MP1 IP_VERSION(15,0,0), not a helper-only subtree. Web search found spinics threads from Jan-Apr 2026 (`msg134880`, `msg137271`, `msg142024`) showing enablement and bug-fix traffic for SMU 15.0.0 and no removal/deprecation discussion. Web search also found the Phoronix Jan 5, 2026 article describing SMU15 as next-gen/future Radeon GFX12/RDNA4-related hardware; that supports `hardware_still_sold_new_in_2025=false` and `last_widely_available_year=null`. No separate upstream replacement exists for this use case beyond staying within `amdgpu`, so the correct hint is to keep it.