AMD proposes Ryzen overclocking driver for Linux

AMD is working on official Ryzen overclocking controls for Linux through a proposed driver called AOD, short for AMD Overclocking Driver. Engineer Shyam Sundar S K submitted a three-patch series for review. The WMI driver connects to the same firmware interface used by Ryzen Master on Windows and exposes its controls through sysfs.

Initial capabilities include PPT, TDC, and EDC limits and their supported ranges, a platform-level SMT toggle, and a read-only memory clock readout. Ryzen Master itself is not being ported to Linux. AMD appears to be leaving graphical interfaces to third-party tools such as CoreCtrl and desktop environments while providing the kernel-side support.

Power-limit changes are stored in firmware and take effect only after a reboot, unlike AMD’s existing HSMP interface, which applies changes immediately but loses them on restart. The limit attributes are write-only because firmware does not report active values. The SMT control behaves more like a BIOS setting than the kernel’s nosmt boot parameter. Additional firmware commands could enable more controls later, but the patches remain under review with no confirmed kernel release.