AMD warns that its RX 9070 GPUs are exclusively 'UEFI only' – and if this worries you, don’t panic, it probably won’t affect you.

AMD has announced that its new RDNA 4 graphics cards will only be compatible with UEFI, which leaves out compatibility modes on older motherboards. This change will primarily affect a very small group of gamers who own very old computers.

The RDNA 4 GPUs, which belong to the Radeon RX 9000 series and later, require the operating system to run in full UEFI mode, without reverting to compatibility mode (CSM) that some non-UEFI motherboards have allowed for years to enable AMD graphics cards to function on obsolete hardware.

AMD has highlighted the advantages of UEFI firmware over traditional BIOS, including significant improvements in security, well-defined interfaces that ensure interoperability, reliable firmware updates from the internet with minimal user interaction, support for hard drives larger than 2.2TB, compatibility with new types of hardware, and faster boot, shutdown, sleep, and resume times.

For potential buyers of the RX 9070 cards, it is important to know that any modern PC supports UEFI and will work seamlessly with a new RDNA 4 graphics card, although it may be necessary to enable UEFI mode in the motherboard settings. Since Windows 11 requires UEFI by default, users with this operating system should not worry, as the Secure Boot feature is integrated to provide better security.

Those with very old PCs that do not support full UEFI mode are likely not interested in using a next-generation GPU. However, AMD has chosen to issue this warning due to some isolated cases. In most situations, users just need to ensure their computer is running in full UEFI mode and not in a legacy compatibility mode. A RX 9070 GPU may work in such an old mode, but since it is not officially supported, it is likely to experience performance issues and lack important features like Smart Access Memory (SAM).