AMD has at no time mentioned that the recently released Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.4.1 WHQL drivers significantly reduce idle GPU consumption; However, the first tests comparing this new version with the previous 21.3.2 using the latest generation graphics (RX 6700 XT, RX 6800, RX 6800 XT and RX 6900 XT) showed that consumption is greatly reduced, reaching 72% of less.
Your AMD GPU will consume up to 72% less with the latest drivers
The guys at TPU ran various tests comparing the consumption of multiple AMD graphics cards in different scenarios, all “non-gaming” (i.e. with the computer at rest or just with media playback, where GPU does not need almost nothing), and they found a huge and pleasant surprise in terms of consumption savings.
The Radeon RX 6700 XT doesn’t show a significant reduction in power consumption when the GPU is idle, but the RX 6800, RT 6800 XT, and RT 6900 XT all saw big drops in power consumption when running. use of this new version of AMD drivers. For example, at 1440p resolution, consumption drops from 25 to just 5 watts (72% less); that yes, it should be borne in mind that consumption does not present variations in multi-monitor configurations.
The power consumption for media playback (for example with a VLC movie or a YouTube video) is reduced by up to 30% with the RX 6800, 6800 XT and 6900 XT, which is a huge improvement especially interesting for manufacturers of multimedia PC systems, because not only power consumption is affected, but also temperature and noise.
The data is obvious, of course, and no one knows why AMD hasn’t mentioned these huge consumer improvements with its latest drivers, although a closer look at the numbers might give clues. Even with media playback power consumption dropping from around 50 to 35 watts, the RX 6800/6900 series chips still use more power than competing RTX 30 series chips.
For example, an RTX 3070 consumes only 18 watts, or an RTX 3080 increases the consumption to 27 watts, both values lower than the 35 watts that AMD GPUs consume even with the improvement of these drivers. Moreover, the guys at TPU also tested these new drivers with previous gen graphics and didn’t notice any changes, so it seems that these improvements only serve to alleviate the consumption deficiencies of the next gen graphics, which ‘they were simply consuming too much while at rest.
Either way, if you have a latest generation AMD graphics card, this driver update is worth it, as ultimately a reduction in graphics card consumption is always appreciated, hence why. ‘she comes.