Tuesday, August 1st 2023
AMD Radeon RX 6000/7000 GPUs Reduce Idle Power Consumption by 81% with VRR Enabled
AMD Radeon RX 6000 and RX 700 series based on RDNA 2 and RDNA 3 GPU architectures have been benchmarked by folks over at ComputerBase. However, these weren't regular benchmarks of performance but rather power consumption. According to their latest results, they discovered that enabling Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) can lower the power consumption of AMD Radeon cards in idle. Using a 4K display with a 144 Hz refresh rate, ComputerBase benchmarked Radeon RX 6800/6700 XT and RX 7900 XT, both last-generation and current-generation graphics cards. The performance matrix also includes a comparison to Intel Arc A770, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, RTX 3080, and RTX 4080.
Regarding performance figures, the tests compare desktop idle consumption, dual monitor power consumption, window movement, YouTube with SDR at 60 FPS, and YouTube with HDR at 60 FPS, all done on a 4K 144 Hz monitor setup. You can see the comparison below, with the most significant regression in power consumption being Radeon RX 7900 XTX using 81% less power in single and 71% less power in dual monitor setup.
Source:
ComputerBase.de
Regarding performance figures, the tests compare desktop idle consumption, dual monitor power consumption, window movement, YouTube with SDR at 60 FPS, and YouTube with HDR at 60 FPS, all done on a 4K 144 Hz monitor setup. You can see the comparison below, with the most significant regression in power consumption being Radeon RX 7900 XTX using 81% less power in single and 71% less power in dual monitor setup.
94 Comments on AMD Radeon RX 6000/7000 GPUs Reduce Idle Power Consumption by 81% with VRR Enabled
Go AMD!
An AOpen (Acer) Fire Legend 25XV2Q F set to 1080p at 300 Hz (and below) - The XTX clocks down properly.
But when set to 360 Hz, it exhibits high idle clocks:
No other software running in the background except the Snipping Tool.
To be honest, this is only because of my silly preferences. :p I like to play games with RT on and all settings maxed out, but resolution and refresh rate doesn't matter that much for me. AMD's weaker RT performance is usually still enough in 1080p. So far the only exception I found is cyberpunk. My setup can't maintain constant 60 fps in that game with all settings maxed and psycho RT. It's very close to it, but I guess I will have to wait for AMD to release FSR3. :D
By the way, I am actually planning to get a new monitor. Previously I had a 6600XT, so that was fine with my current 1080p display. I am saving up for an upgrade, also trying to figure out what should I buy. 1440 or 4k, IPS or oled, 27" or 32" size.
My personal recommendation would be 27" 1440p. I think there's that LG 240Hz OLED one. I've gone 42" 4k OLED (LG C2) & tbh, it's obviously very hard to drive 4k at high refresh, but also I get motion sickness from it! Then again, if you don't care about high refresh then maybe a 32" 4k is the way to go for you, since driving games at 4k 60fps isn't so bad these days.