AMD Link

AMD decided an overlay was not enough, and what better way to go beyond the PC than to use a smart phone? The vast majority of us own one, be it with an iOS or Android operating system, and that is a second screen we tend to have next to us all the time. This idea is not new, and I have actually been using Roccat's Power-Grid from time to time with varying levels of success in achieving my goals at the time. AMD saw the emerging audience that is mobile-friendly, with a lot of web traffic spent on phones, and created an app called AMD Link. This app is compatible with devices running at least iOS 10 or Android 5.0, with the app yet to be put up on respective app stores at the time of writing. AMD informed us that the app is still going through due process before it gets on the iOS app store; however, an APK for the Android version is supposedly already available via the AMD Chinese website.


Once the app has been installed on your phone/tablet, and you have Radeon Software 17.12.1 running on your PC, simply make sure both devices are on the same WiFi network (a mobile hotspot might not work at this point), and you will notice the AMD Link tab at the bottom in the driver as seen above. For security purposes, a QR code with a continually updating pin code will be provided, which has to be scanned for a code that has to be input from time to time. We do not yet know how often the codes refresh, and hopefully, it is a good balance between being annoying and being lax. The connection can be initiated from either device, and once established, you will see the phone in the list of connected devices in the driver and vice versa. The devices will be stored in a history regardless of whether the connection is up, and you can remove them at any time.


The app is fairly straightforward to navigate on either platform, with the home page acting as an overview to the various options available. This includes performance monitoring, which allows users to track gaming performance on their PC in real time. The app settings here allow the selection of metrics to track, including CPU, GPU, and system RAM activity; however, conspicuous in its absence here is GPU temperature. Each metric can be further selected to reveal more options, including sampling interval and tracking duration, which in turn can be presented as a bar graph of the metric intensity as a function of time for analysis. Not shown here is also the neat detail AMD has incorporated wherein the background color changes from red to orange to green depending on the average FPS in real time such that a red screen is used for average FPS < 30, orange when between 30-60 FPS, and green when above 60 FPS.


The next menu set is for Radeon ReLive, and this is where AMD Link goes beyond the other apps that exist already with rudimentary performance monitoring. Users can enable one-touch screen capture and streaming, while also being able to access the gallery as part of ReLive - now all from your connected device. Consider the device as a remote control for ReLive, and when connected, you get a preview of the screen on the PC as well. There is some lag involved here, which is also contingent on your WiFi network strength and speed, but when using it to quickly take screenshots or record videos, or even start a live stream, this can be invaluable for many. Similarly, when in the gallery, you can also quickly manage your files and also share selected ones on social media to accounts that were previously connected either in the driver or the app.


The final two menu options do not need the smart device to be connected to the PC and are more to do with the app itself. When connected to the Internet, the news feed section will allow users to receive the latest information on AMD products, and we are glad to see AMD does provide customization filters on the news feed so the app does not just become another ad. The notifications page ends up doing something similar for the Radeon Software side of things, except these are direct notifications about a new driver release and only appear when relevant. Finally, the app settings is where device connections are managed, while also providing more information about the app itself, thus completing this circle and bringing us back to where we started.

Given how the app has not been made available publicly yet, we have not had any personal experience with it at this time, but it certainly is intriguing and on the list of things to check out for many of us here at TechPowerUp.