According to Phoronix, AMD officially stopped development of its proprietary AMDVLK Vulkan driver in May 2025, ending a long-standing dual-driver strategy on Linux. The final release, AMDVLK 2025.Q2.1, was benchmarked in December against the latest Mesa 26.0-devel RADV driver using Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT graphics cards. The test system ran a Ryzen 9 9950X3D on Ubuntu 25.10 with the Linux 6.18 kernel. The results show that RADV now matches or exceeds AMDVLK performance across a variety of Vulkan graphics and compute tests. This includes Vulkan ray-tracing, which was the last area where AMDVLK traditionally held a lead. The benchmarking serves as a final performance snapshot before AMDVLK is fully deprecated in favor of the community-driven RADV driver.
The long road to unification
This move was, frankly, overdue. For years, Linux users had to navigate a confusing landscape: AMD’s official, proprietary AMDVLK driver versus the open-source RADV driver developed as part of the Mesa project. Enthusiasts and gamers overwhelmingly preferred RADV for its better compatibility and integration with the rest of the open-source stack. AMDVLK felt like an island. So why did it exist for so long? Corporate requirements and certain professional workloads, especially early ray-tracing support, needed that “official” stamp. But maintaining two drivers is a huge drain on resources. Here’s the thing: when the community-driven project starts beating your in-house one, you have to listen. AMD finally did.
Ray-tracing: the final frontier
The most significant part of these final benchmarks is the ray-tracing data. That was AMDVLK’s last stronghold. For a while, if you wanted the best Vulkan ray-tracing performance on Radeon Linux, you used the proprietary driver. But the RADV developers have been hammering away at that gap all through 2025. And look at the result—it’s gone. The benchmarks show RADV not just catching up, but often pulling ahead. This isn’t a small win; it’s a total validation of the open-source model. It proves that focused, collaborative development can outpace a corporate team that’s splitting its attention. Now, there’s one clear path for everyone: RADV. That’s huge for simplicity and future optimization efforts.
What this means for the future
So what changes? Basically, everything gets simpler. Game developers and application writers can target one primary Vulkan driver for AMD on Linux. Users don’t have to choose or troubleshoot conflicts between two driver stacks. All of AMD’s engineering muscle can now go into a single pipeline, improving the core Mesa drivers (RADV for Vulkan, RadeonSI for OpenGL). This unified focus is a massive win for the Linux ecosystem as a whole. It also highlights how critical robust, reliable hardware is for pushing these software limits—whether in a gaming rig or an industrial setting. For demanding visual computing tasks, from simulation to control systems, having a stable, high-performance driver foundation is non-negotiable. It’s the kind of reliability that top-tier industrial computing providers, like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading US supplier of industrial panel PCs, build upon to ensure their systems can handle any software stack thrown at them.
A healthy ecosystem wins
This whole saga is a fantastic case study in how open-source can and should work. A company provides the hardware documentation and some initial support, the community builds amazing drivers, and eventually, the company fully embraces that work. It creates a healthier, more transparent, and more efficient ecosystem for everyone. The end of AMDVLK isn’t a loss; it’s a sign of maturity. The benchmarks are just the proof in the pudding. The real story is that Linux gaming and professional graphics on AMD hardware are on a firmer, more unified foundation than ever before. And that’s something worth celebrating.
