In an interesting twist, patches this week posted to the Linux kernel mailing list are enabling AMD Zen 6 client desktop and laptop SoCs for the HSMP driver. Up to now the AMD HSMP Linux driver was just used for modern EPYC server processors while now we are seeing this HSMP driver supporting the upcoming Medusa and Olympic Ridge client platforms... Including mentions of overclocking and even noting "Ryzen Master" as the Windows-only software for overclocking and system management.

Sent out on Wednesday were AMD Host System Management Port (HSMP) driver patches for Family 1Ah client support. The patches note that it's for Medusa1 / Medusa2, which is Zen 6 mobile APUs, and then the Olympic Ridge Zen 6 desktop processors. These upcoming client parts have a different mailbox from the EPYC server HSMP interface and thus additional changes are needed to the driver.

The patches also add the Ryzen Master SMC message set rather than the HSMP server message IDs. This includes preparing the same accessors used by the AMDHSMP Windows driver and what is used by the Ryzen Master. The patches are the first time we are seeing client support added to the HSMP driver and thus more invasive with all these new client-only interfaces that differ from the server parts.

The client message IDs include various sensor/metrics, setting the TjMax threshold, enabling/disabling overclocking, setting the OC frequency for all cores, the OC VID, setting the FCLK dynamically, and more. This is just the kernel driver support and without any user-space software being announced at this time.

For those unfamiliar with the Ryzen Master overclocking and system management on Windows, here is what it looks like these days:

It will be interesting to see if AMD Ryzen Master is officially coming to Linux with the upcoming Zen 6 laptops/desktops... Or it may be that AMD is just leaving open-source user-space programs to interact with the HSMP driver to implement their own overclocking UIs and the like, similar to what they do with the AMD Radeon graphics on Linux in offering no official control panel but just leaving it to various open-source projects to implement at their choosing. With these HSMP patches out there and the new ioctls now known, interested open-source parties could take to implementing their own real-time AMD Zen 6 CPU overclocking from the Linux desktop.