Linux 7.4: Radeon HDMI 2.1 by Default, AMD iGPU AI Boost, and First Apple M4 Steps

Phoronix has published a preview of the features expected in the Linux 7.4 kernel. The stable Linux 7.3 release is due the same day, after which the merge window for the follow-on cycle opens — and, the site says, it carries even more changes. The final 7.4 release should arrive around the end of December.

AMD graphics and CPUs

The AMDGPU driver finally enables HDMI 2.1 support by default. With VRR and ALLM already in place, and after the relevant patches were open-sourced, modern Radeon owners should get a solid HDMI 2.1 experience.

For AMD integrated graphics, the IOMMU feature called PerfOpt is turned on by default. It can yield large performance gains for AI and large-language-model workloads on AMD iGPUs, including prior-generation hardware.

Zen 6 support also advances with BTB context isolation, RMPOPT optimization, and AMD P-State driver improvements. A device ID that had been mistakenly missing is fixed too, so the AMDXDNA driver now supports the NPU in Ryzen AI Max 400 (Gorgon Halo) chips.

Intel, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and Apple

Intel is preparing Rugged Panther Lake support, merging the BFF driver, improving Battlemage graphics, and adding vRAM health checks. Work continues on the NVIDIA Nova driver, and support arrives for several Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 laptops.

For Apple Silicon, initial Device Trees land for the M4 and A18 Pro in the MacBook Neo. As with the M3, this isn't usable yet — the kernel can boot, but full hardware enablement is still ongoing. Apple audio support is also going upstream. In addition, support arrives for Google's Tensor G5 SoC and Pixel 10 devices.

File systems, virtualization, and more

EXT4 gains an iomap buffered I/O path, and FUSE gets large folios; both improve performance. On the virtualization side come Intel Instruction Timeout to counter possible DoS vectors in TDX VMs, a para-virtualized Hyper-V IOMMU driver from Microsoft, and a steal governor. Networking adds the Nebula Matrix driver.

Among the curiosities is a new kernel taint introduced for the age of fuzzing bots, plus a wave of AI/LLM-driven patches. On the removal side, the C-based Binder driver is retired in favor of the Rust implementation. Rounding things out are memory-management optimizations, faster file opening, Zstd improvements, and the first patches toward cutting kernel build time.

Source: Phoronix