AMD GPU LLVM Back-End Renamed From R600 To AMDGPU

Last year upstream developers decided to rename the R600 AMD GPU LLVM back-end to "AMDGPU" and that move finally happened... But not to be confused with the new AMDGPU Linux kernel DRM driver.

The AMD GPU LLVM back-end was originally called "R600" and that's how it's been in the LLVM tree, even though it supports modern-day AMD GCN GPUs too. This back-end is shared by hardware not only used by the R600 Gallium3D driver but also the RadeonSI Gallium3D driver -- basically, all of the relevant GPUs are supported by this compiler back-end. However, in calling it R600 could lead to some confusion and will get stale over time, which is why months ago the developers decided to rename it to "AMDGPU" to make it more universal.

That move has finally happened the LLVM code being renamed.

Just don't get confused now as separately there's the AMDGPU kernel DRM driver that will premiere with Linux 4.2. The AMDGPU kernel driver is the new DRM driver based off the Radeon DRM but is used for supporting the very latest Tonga, Carrizo, Iceland GPUs and all hardware going forward. The LLVM back-end and kernel DRM driver also share the same name, but the scope of their hardware support is vastly different as is their function. There's also now the AMDGPU DDX driver (xf86-video-amdgpu) for supporting the hardware handled by the AMDGPU DRM driver, but that hopefully won't add any extra confusion.