AMD is increasingly moving towards AI, especially in PCs. The latest official announcement from the company serves as a prelude to the Advancing AI event that Lisa Su’s team will host next month. As they recently did with their most powerful graphics card, AMD now implements ROCm 5.7 support for the RX 7900 XT and introduces it for PyTorch.
It seems AMD is making monthly progress, as almost 30 days ago the RX 7900 XTX paved the way that its younger sibling now follows. The commitment is clear, and it is happening in Linux, specifically Ubuntu, which is great news. However, there is still much work to be done.
AMD introduces its RX 7900 XT in ROCm 5.7 and adds support for PyTorch
PyTorch is the key to AMD’s success in 2023. The company seeks to add value to its hardware, just like NVIDIA and Intel, by including more and more desktop graphics models in its ecosystem.
The announcement is crucial, as it was expected and shows a clear trend, which is more important than the support itself. Therefore, AMD states that AMD ROCm 5.7 will have extended support for the RX 7900 XT to “offer even more options for AI developers and researchers.”
With this, three graphics cards now have support: Radeon PRO W7900, RX 7900 XTX, and the mentioned RX 7900 XT, all under the RDNA 3 architecture. AMD cites the 20 GB of VRAM integrated into its second-fastest PC model and the 168 AI Accelerators featured as reasons for the support, “making it another great solution for accelerating ML training and inference workflows on a local desktop.”
There is still much work to be done, and users demand more support
Regarding the announcement of RX 7900 XT support in ROCm 5.7 and PyTorch, AMD comments: “We are excited about this latest addition to our portfolio. In combination with ROCm, these high-end GPUs make AI more accessible from a software and hardware perspective, allowing developers to choose the solution that best suits their needs,” said Erik Hultgren, AMD’s Software Product Manager.
While this is celebrated, it is also true that AMD trails far behind CUDA or OneAPI support, which is a significant issue when considering PC hardware purchases beyond gaming and Windows. Consequently, the key request for AMD is to make its software stack compatible with all current GPUs and, if possible, many older ones.
No one even questions CUDA support in NVIDIA, for example, and Intel is on the same path with OneAPI and Arc. As we always emphasize, the most problematic aspect for AMD is not the hardware but the software stack and its compatibility, which is NVIDIA’s strongest point and will be the same for Intel.
That the RX 7900 XT supports ROCm 5.7 and PyTorch is undoubtedly great news. Hopefully, AMD will gain more momentum, support the entire RDNA 3 lineup, and include RDNA 2, if possible, in the coming 2024.
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