Monday, April 26th 2021
What AMD Didn't Tell Us: 21.4.1 Drivers Improve Non-Gaming Power Consumption By Up To 72%
AMD's recently released Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.4.1 WHQL drivers lower non-gaming power consumption, our testing finds. AMD did not mention these reductions in the changelog of its new driver release. We did a round of testing, comparing the previous 21.3.2 drivers, with 21.4.1, using Radeon RX 6000 series SKUs, namely the RX 6700 XT, RX 6800, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6900 XT. Our results show significant power-consumption improvements in certain non-gaming scenarios, such as system idle and media playback.
The Radeon RX 6700 XT shows no idle power draw reduction; but the RX 6800, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6900 XT posted big drops in idle power consumption, at 1440p, going down from 25 W to 5 W (down by about 72%). There are no changes with multi-monitor. Media playback power draw sees up to 30% lower power consumption for the RX 6800, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6900 XT. This is a huge improvement for builders of media PC systems, as not only power is affected, but heat and noise, too.
Why AMD didn't mention these huge improvements is anyone's guess, but a closer look at the numbers could drop some hints. Even with media playback power draw dropping from roughly 50 W to 35 W, the RX 6800/6900 series chips still end up using more power than competing NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30-series SKUs. The RTX 3070 pulls 18 W, while the RTX 3080 does 27 W, both of which are lower. We tested the driver on the older-generation RX 5700 XT, and saw no changes. Radeon RX 6700 XT already had very decent power consumption in these states, so our theory is that for the Navi 22 GPU on the RX 6700 XT AMD improved certain power consumption shortcomings that were found after RX 6800 release. Since those turned out to be stable, they were backported to the Navi 21-based RX 6800/6900 series, too.
The Radeon RX 6700 XT shows no idle power draw reduction; but the RX 6800, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6900 XT posted big drops in idle power consumption, at 1440p, going down from 25 W to 5 W (down by about 72%). There are no changes with multi-monitor. Media playback power draw sees up to 30% lower power consumption for the RX 6800, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6900 XT. This is a huge improvement for builders of media PC systems, as not only power is affected, but heat and noise, too.
63 Comments on What AMD Didn't Tell Us: 21.4.1 Drivers Improve Non-Gaming Power Consumption By Up To 72%
...not a wise PR move. Best to just fix the obvious and move on.
the idle power consumption directly correlates with the vram frequency. some visual changes trigger vram to ~900 mhz -> 20-30W. eventually, it cools down to ~200 nhz -> 10W. or even almost 0 mhz -> 5W.
when i connect in addition my lg 48" oled 4k@120 via hdmi 2.1, the vram goes up to 2000 mhz.
when "switch off" the lg, i.e. put into standy. no change. vram 2000 mhz.
when I unplug power cable from lg, vram frequency goes down.
when I unplug the eizo and have just the lg 4k@120. vram 2000 mhz.
when change to 4k@100. no change. vram 2000.
when change to 4k@60. vram goes down.
i.e. as long as only one monitor/tv is connected to the graphics card and only one device is electrically powered, then 4k@60hz has as low as 5W power consumption.
with higher refresh rate or more monitors (standby monitor/tv counts too), the vram goes to 2000 mhz and so the idle power consumption
AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT Review - The Biggest Big Navi
AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT Review
In RX 6900XT review the power consumption was this:
RX 6800 & 6800 XT: 20.45.01.12-11.6 Press Driver
RX 6900 XT: 20.45.01.14 RC8 Press Driver
In RX 6700XT review the power consumption was different:
RX 6700 XT: March 3 Press Driver
AMD: 21.2.3 Beta
Drivers were different, but the testing for Idle and Multi-monitor power consumption also changed, so I am not sure what had the biggest impact on power consumption.
For me also if I set default monitor refresh rate of 165Hz the memory remains at full speed.
If I drop refresh rate to 144Hz them memory clock drops.
I was ones reading that it could be due to the fact that the VRAM does not support intermediate voltage and frequency levels.
and/or with the physical layer drivers (for the pixel clock) and so if more cables have to be driven, the vram is also bumped up.
for amd, i suppose, there is little to gain from idle power consumption compared to average gaming.
maybe there are some optimization for few use cases. all others are just full clock..
I test the Ryzen 5 2500U, Ryzen 5 3500u and Ryzen 5 4600H... If you install any APU driver, and close manually Radeon Software in task manager, you can Double battery duration
If the cards gets over 53C is when the fans will start to spin and will stop when it reaches 45C. The cooler is just not open/big enough on your 5700XT to dissipate the heat. You could try putting a low RPM fan to blow over the card, so it doesn't start its own.
If you EVER wonder why AMD has a bad driver reputtaion - this is it! They always spend the first 9-12 months of a new arch wrestling with big CTD bug , and then spend the next two years attempting to fix the sea of "annoying, but not game-breaking" driver bugs. :D
At this point, Intel has a better Windows driver team than AMD does!
I am agnostic to AMD or Nvidia cards as long as they are good value for money. Driver problems/ bugs will always persist. If you think Nvidia is better, then by all means, please stick to Nvidia. FYI, there are still quite a few reports of blacking out RTX 3xxx series cards and only resolved through under clocking. Nvidia appears to have "solved" the problem by means of a driver update, but in reality, some of these cards need a BIOS level update due to reduce aggressiveness of the clock speed boost mechanism. So it all boils down to silicon lottery for potential RTX 3xxx buyers. Between minor software bug vs one that is potentially hardware related, I am happy to stick with a minor software annoyance.