AMD Fixes High Idle Power and Performance Issues
A new AMD graphics driver has been released to address an unusual high-power usage case in Windows, specifically targeting Radeon RX 7000 users. Although it remains uncertain if all incidences have been covered, the update, which accompanies AMD's latest beta driver, is already making a positive difference to RX 7000 power consumption.
Earlier this month, a report highlighted the presence of high idle power on RDNA 3 cards. This issue was initially discovered in December, and it seemed that a solution had not been implemented until now. Initially, AMD acknowledged that high idle power had been observed with select high-resolution and high-refresh rate displays. However, it has since been revealed that this bug affects the entire RX 7000 family of graphics cards.
The Adrenalin Edition 23.7.1 driver specifically improves high idle power when using select 4k@144Hz FreeSync enabled displays or multimonitor configurations. According to the release notes, this fix "should reduce wasted electricity," a welcome improvement for users of AMD's newest architecture.
Additional Fixes and Improvements
In addition to the high idle power fix, the driver also addresses suboptimal performance or occasional stuttering in VR games and applications. A specific fix has been implemented for the RX 7900 XTX to eliminate intermittent corruption when playing WWE 2K23.
Users of DaVinci Resolve Studio will no longer experience crashing and driver timeout issues thanks to this driver update. Furthermore, the intermittent corruption observed when switching windows while playing Nioh 2 has also been resolved. This issue affected multiple Radeon products, including the RX 6800 XT.
The Adrenalin Edition 23.7.1 driver also introduces support for additional Vulkan extensions, providing benefits to users of games and applications that utilize the Vulkan API.
Continued Work on Known Issues
AMD is actively working on resolving known issues, although the list of remaining issues is still longer than the list of fixes. However, users should note that the 'Factory Reset' driver install feature has temporarily been disabled due to reports of bricked Windows installs. Instead, users can employ AMD's Cleanup Utility to start afresh if needed.
Staying informed about the latest developments in the tech landscape is crucial, and that includes being aware of graphics driver updates. These updates can significantly improve performance and resolve issues that would otherwise go unaddressed. Better still, they can do both.
