AMD ROCm 7.9.0 preview#
2025-10-20
3 min read time
AMD ROCm is an open, modular, and high‑performance GPU software ecosystem — built collaboratively with the community, maintained transparently, and optimized for consistent, scalable performance across data centers, desktops, and edge devices.
ROCm 7.9.0 is a technology preview release built with TheRock, AMD’s new open build and release system. This preview introduces a new modular build workflow that will become standard in the near future. The existing monolithic release process will continue to be used in the production ROCm 7.0 stream during this transition period until the modular workflow fully replaces it. See the release notes for more information.
What is ROCm?#
ROCm is AMD’s open software stack for GPU‑accelerated computing. It provides the tools needed to program AMD GPUs — including runtimes, compilers, performance and system utilities, and optimized math and compute libraries. The wider ROCm ecosystem includes ROCm‑enabled HPC applications and deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch.
Some key features:
Open source – Transparent development driven by community feedback
Cross‑platform – Supports Linux and Windows environments
Comprehensive – End‑to‑end toolchain from compilers to libraries
Performance‑focused – Tuned for AMD Instinct™, AMD Radeon™, and AMD Ryzen™ architectures
ROCm supports AMD GPU architectures spanning data center, workstation, and APU categories. TheRock enables a unified ROCm user‑space experience across devices.
AMD Instinct GPUs – Purpose‑built for large‑scale compute, AI training, and HPC workloads.
AMD Radeon GPUs and AMD Ryzen AI APUs – Designed for workstations, desktop computing, and edge AI applications.
Note
This release supports a limited number GPU models. Hardware support will be expanded with future releases.
What’s changing#
ROCm is evolving to improve flexibility, maintainability, and use‑case alignment.
Leaner core – The Core SDK focuses on essential runtime and development components.
Use case‑specific expansions – Optional domain‑specific SDKs for AI, data science, and HPC.
Modular installation – Install only the components required for your workflow.
This approach streamlines installation, reduces footprint, and accelerates innovation through independently released packages.
ROCm Core SDK#
The ROCm Core SDK provides the foundational components that power the ROCm ecosystem — runtimes, compilers, math libraries, and system utilities for GPGPU computing.
The TheRock infrastructure keeps these components modular, consistent, and easy to integrate across configurations.
Getting started#
See the release notes – ROCm Core SDK 7.9.0 release notes – to learn about the latest changes and current system compatibility information.
Follow Install AMD ROCm 7.9.0 to set up ROCm on your system.