WhoDecidedThatthink of it like internal combustion engine

a 100cc engine driving a motorcycle at 60 km/h versus a 2000cc or a 2 litre engine driving a motorcycle at 60 km/h

the 2 litre engine consumes more fuel for the same amount of work done

similarly a 4090 or a 7900xtx which can go 50-60 times as fast as an iPhone GPU needs much more power for basic tasks

Yeah but internal combustion engines can disable some of their cylinders, say a V6 becomes a 3 cylinder.

Seems to be the case, after checking the review again, it seems playing a video costs a couple of watts (3070ti) more than idle.

ARFPower consumption is the first thing they must do right before even thinking about releasing. This is the most basic function of the part.
I don't care that there is somewhere a game title A which I haven't heard of but has some weird bugs.

Also, this will be obsolete when nvidia releases the full AD102 with all the shaders enabled.



At that time, AMD will be a full generation behind in terms of FPS.

So are you buying flagship gaming GPU to playback media? I am pretty sure gaming performance is priority. Even the 4090 is could be a much more efficient beast for minor frame rate loss, but at that segment, efficiency is not the first thing. iGPU is probably your best bet for efficient video playback. That's what I use.

jonupSo are you buying flagship gaming GPU to playback media? I am pretty sure gaming performance is priority.

I am pretty sure that when you pay 1800 euros, you don't want to have a power hog inside your case because of the inability of some AMD engineers to fix their mess.
So, smartphones can run 4K video comfortably at, say, 0.5W, while graphics cards cannot.
Can you explain?

noel_fsgreat now ignoring older generations

Great negativity there! Kudos!

noel_fsgreat now ignoring older generations

They are not ignoring older generations, they are concentrating on the teething problems of the new generation.

Apart from that every company will favor fixing problems of their newest products first. It's the newest customers that are more vocal by nature. Pleasing them is beneficial.

Some "opinions" here remind me of why I've been avoiding the comment section of every major tech forum.

OfficerTuxI tested it yesterday on my Reference Design RX 7900 XTX: A 4Kp60 HDR Youtube video used 90W before and about 50W after the Hotfix (according to the driver reported total board power consumption)

This is probably mainly due to reduced memory clocks. Before the Hotfix playing a video would cause VRAM to clock at >2000MHz, now it hovers between 200 and 900MHz.

It's something, I guess?

It did make a difference so it sounds like they will continue to work on it.

OfficerTuxI tested it yesterday on my Reference Design RX 7900 XTX: A 4Kp60 HDR Youtube video used 90W before and about 50W after the Hotfix (according to the driver reported total board power consumption)
This is probably mainly due to reduced memory clocks. Before the Hotfix playing a video would cause VRAM to clock at >2000MHz, now it hovers between 200 and 900MHz.

Thanks a lot for reporting! Could you please check other resolutions, too?
In W1zzard's testing the reference model consumed about 100W @ 4K and 1440p, 50W @ 1080p, and 21W @ 720p. I'm really curious if lower resolutions also see similar improvement.

HofnaerrchenThey are not ignoring older generations, they are concentrating on the teething problems of the new generation.

Apart from that every company will favor fixing problems of their newest products first. It's the newest customers that are more vocal by nature. Pleasing them is beneficial.

The older generations are somehow better. But for some weird reason the video playback consumption scales with the tiers.
66(5)00 XT is fine, but 6800/XT/69(5)00XT are really bad, as well.

QuietBobThanks a lot for reporting! Could you please check other resolutions, too?
In W1zzard's testing the reference model consumed about 100W @ 4K and 1440p, 50W @ 1080p, and 21W @ 720p. I'm really curious if lower resolutions also see similar improvement.

I did some more testing using this video:
The native resolution of my monitor is 1440p@144Hz.

Results:

Video Mode	SDR (HDR disabled in Windows)	HDR
4kp60	56W	59W
1440p60	42W	57W
1080p60	41W	44W - 57W
720p60	41W	43W

HDR 1080p60 is somewhat strange, the power consumption jumps between 44W (which would be in line with the other results) and 57W. This is due to the memory clock also jumping between 200MHz and 900MHz. It looks like the card can not decide which power state to use for the VRAM in that mode.

ARFThe older generations are somehow better. But for some weird reason the video playback consumption scales with the tiers.
66(5)00 XT is fine, but 6800/XT/69(5)00XT are really bad, as well.

I think this is at least somewhat related to high-tier cards having more VRAM. Decoding video can be quite memory bandwidth intensive, just the raw RGB output data of the decoder at 4kp60 10bit is 3840 * 2160 * 3 * 10bit * 60Hz / 8 bit/byte / 2^30 byte/GB = 1,74 GB/s.

The problem is, that you can not disable parts of the VRAM, all of it has to be powered, even if you only use 10% of it. You can clock it down, but it will still draw some power and usually the same clock will apply for all DRAM chips. Same applies for the memory controllers and caches connected to those parts of the VRAM, they also have to be powered all the time. The VRAM clock required to decode a video (or better say the memory bandwidth) is the same regardless of how much VRAM you have, for an example if you need 900 MHz to decode 4K video, you will have to clock all your VRAM at 900 MHz regardless of your card having 4 or 24 GB of VRAM, and the card with 24 GB will draw a lot more power than the 4 GB card.

Nvidia overall does better in that regard, but you can still see that their high end cards (with more VRAM) also need more power.

But this is just my guess anyway :)

SlaneThe "old" gen had a driver the 2022-12-08... So that is the point ? You would like a driver per week ?

Bad posters comment on news before respectable posters nine out of 10 times.

Driver/hotfix didn't fix the idle / multi-monitor power draw for me, my VRAM clocks are at 3D levels... 2485Mhz :kookoo:

LionheartDriver/hotfix didn't fix the idle / multi-monitor power draw for me, my VRAM clocks are at 3D levels... 2485Mhz :kookoo:

Well, that was to be expected, since the changelog only says:
"Improvements to power usage during hardware accelerated video playback. Further power efficiency improvements are planned for future releases."

And the high idle power draw is still in the known issues:
"High idle power has situationally been observed when using select high resolution and high refresh rate displays."

So umm.. can this only be downloaded and work for the 7900 series? Because umm.. I was messing with some overclocking and really jacked up my driver's. Ended up having to uninstall adrenaline from my PC completely because of an error or something from Windows. Now.. going to the amd page, windows 11 64-bit section, I opted to use the "detect my device" and install drivers and software that way. It detected my current graphics card and installed everything so its working again on the WHQL now colored blue software... Ok you ready for the kicker... I'm using a 5700xt. So umm.. what happened and is this ok?

ARFErr, and the market share will drop from the measly 8% now to 0.8% after.
Remember that they are yet to fill the lineup with new 7000 series GFX, namely 7600, 7700, 7800 and perhaps 7400/7500.

I don't have particular expectations, though, except declining market share and bankruptcy at some point :D

Bankruptcy? AMD was in the negative for years. Don't worry, they won't be going anywhere anytime soon. Plus their CPUs are good enough to stand on its own for many of years.

ChomiqFor how much? $3000? By then AMD will be ca. 70% behind it in MSRP.

Remember, nvidia can charge whatever they want and its never an issue, but even if AMD gave their gpus for free, they would still be found mediocre.

Guwapo77Bankruptcy? AMD was in the negative for years. Don't worry, they won't be going anywhere anytime soon. Plus their CPUs are good enough to stand on its own for many of years.

People like him/her are either trolling (most likely) or really naive.

The main reason why i dont give intel and nvidia a penny is because I know exactly what they will do to my wallet if they have no competition, but many don’t understand that concept.

Guwapo77Bankruptcy? AMD was in the negative for years. Don't worry, they won't be going anywhere anytime soon. Plus their CPUs are good enough to stand on its own for many of years.

The graphics division of AMD is in dire situation now. Bankruptcy is also an option ;) You know, natural selection, when your market share is 8% with a negative perspective, you don't expect a bright future.

Any chance of 7900 power consumption test with latest drivers?

noel_fsgreat now ignoring older generations

I own Asus Expedition RX570 and I don't feel neglected. Drivers are fine and performance is good as well. Nothing to complain about. I only hope AMD can release a good successor to RX5500, because 6400 and 6500 are not worth the money. I need a 1080p decent performance GPU, FYI.

tommo1982Any chance of 7900 power consumption test with latest drivers?

See my post above for video playback power consumption.

Despite that nothing has changed: Idle power is still the same and multi monitor consumption is still too high.

ARFThe graphics division of AMD is in dire situation now. Bankruptcy is also an option ;) You know, natural selection, when your market share is 8% with a negative perspective, you don't expect a bright future.

you are actually delusional, they are far from bankruptcy and they were doing big profit before starting RDNA R&D. I think you are forgetting every single console on the planet is using an amd gpu. Sorry i didnt count Switch as an actual console, its technically handheld console.

OfficerTuxI did some more testing using this video:

The native resolution of my monitor is 1440p@144Hz.

Results:

Video Mode	SDR (HDR disabled in Windows)	HDR
4kp60	56W	59W
1440p60	42W	57W
1080p60	41W	44W - 57W
720p60	41W	43W

HDR 1080p60 is somewhat strange, the power consumption jumps between 44W (which would be in line with the other results) and 57W. This is due to the memory clock also jumping between 200MHz and 900MHz. It looks like the card can not decide which power state to use for the VRAM in that mode.


I think this is at least somewhat related to high-tier cards having more VRAM. Decoding video can be quite memory bandwidth intensive, just the raw RGB output data of the decoder at 4kp60 10bit is 3840 * 2160 * 3 * 10bit * 60Hz / 8 bit/byte / 2^30 byte/GB = 1,74 GB/s.

The problem is, that you can not disable parts of the VRAM, all of it has to be powered, even if you only use 10% of it. You can clock it down, but it will still draw some power and usually the same clock will apply for all DRAM chips. Same applies for the memory controllers and caches connected to those parts of the VRAM, they also have to be powered all the time. The VRAM clock required to decode a video (or better say the memory bandwidth) is the same regardless of how much VRAM you have, for an example if you need 900 MHz to decode 4K video, you will have to clock all your VRAM at 900 MHz regardless of your card having 4 or 24 GB of VRAM, and the card with 24 GB will draw a lot more power than the 4 GB card.

Nvidia overall does better in that regard, but you can still see that their high end cards (with more VRAM) also need more power.

But this is just my guess anyway :)

I get about the same results on 6800, maybe a little more cosumption on 1080 sdr.

The reason i complained earlier about AMD ignoring older generations was because they have been mentioning a planned fix for the whole hardware accel shitshow in "upcoming versions". I thought that maybe with 7000 it would be better but they seem to still use their customers as beta testers, nvidia couldnt be more right about that. It is unacceptable this is the state we are in after 2 years into the generation. It has been getting better as the last 2 months but its infuriating, especially considering energy prices, you would think they would actually start giving it some priority, but meh, lets keep pumping out dumb features and bloat the drivers as much as possible. Im aware there is a minimal installation.

At this point i dont know if they dont care about hardware accel or if they are uncapable of fixing it, on GCN it was also insanity for a long time, to this day GCN1 has had it bugged for like 5 years and they straight up refused to fix it. Polaris suprisingly was pretty okay, sadly i didnt have it for too long due to external factors.

SlaneThe "old" gen had a driver the 2022-12-08... So that is the point ? You would like a driver per week ?

Thats not the point but whatever ill just play your game, yes, i would like a driver per week until their shit is fixed.

I observed high video playback on Asus R9 390 months ago. I didnt know back then that AMD traditionaly has a bit higher power usage while playback. My computer that was idling at 50W used up to 160W during youtube 1080p media playback. It bugged me so i went checking what is going on frequency wise. Turns out the GPU memory only had 2 frequency bins - either 150 or 1500Mhz. Turns out that memory voltage and core voltage were connected somehow. As soon as mem hit 1500Mhz, the voltage went very high, high power consumption followed. I tried about 40 different bin combinations, trying to keep gpu in lower bins during playback and in the end it worked - got my power consumption down to about 70-80W. I did that by changing lower 3-4 bins to make small steps instead of big ones. That way during video playback it stays in lower bins. By default for some reason as soon as playback starts, it detects certain % gpu usage and it jumps to unnecesarily high bins because it has no other "smaller" bins to go to. I solved that by adding them. Maybe someone could play with that and see if they can lower the power consumption the same way on 7900 XT and 7900 XTX. See the original image and edited image in the attachment. If someone does that i would be happy if he could share the result.

*** [SECOND PIC NAMED this.JPG] Might be that this is the last bios i tried, i dont have the GPU in my system anymore and its hard to remember which bios out of 50 i used last. Anyway like i said, the trick was to find the right combination to keep the bin as low as possible. Find out which core clock is enough to playback video without switching to higher bin. Same with memory. Adjust voltages. There is a certain point frequency/voltage wise where you will see a huge increase in power consumption. It is very easy to spot. The goal is to adjust bins in such a way to keep it from passing that line where the power consumption switches insanely high.

ARFThe graphics division of AMD is in dire situation now. Bankruptcy is also an option ;) You know, natural selection, when your market share is 8% with a negative perspective, you don't expect a bright future.

I would say given the competition is Ada, and the pricing mess that that is, I'd be shocked if AMD does not gain market share this cycle.