AMD’s Enduro Switchable Graphics Levels Up
by Jarred Walton on September 6, 2012 3:00 AM ESTClosing Thoughts
It’s been a long road for AMD’s switchable graphics drivers, but if AMD can deliver everything they’re promising, we’re finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
There have been two major frustrations over the past couple of years for us: first, we just haven’t seen much in the way of AMD mobile GPUs for review. That’s not because the systems aren’t out there, but most of the OEMs using AMD GPUs have been hesitant at best to sample them to reviewers. That’s a problem because when hardware isn’t getting reviewed, it usually means there’s not a huge amount of public interest, which means that the hardware isn’t selling. None of us want the graphics arena to turn into a one sided affair, but NVIDIA’s Optimus initiative has really caught hold since launching and AMD hasn’t had a proper answer—until now.
The second issue with AMD’s mobile graphics solutions has been the drivers. Discrete-only notebooks have been able to get driver updates, but only at the cost of usable battery life; meanwhile the more interesting switchable solutions have received essentially nothing in the way of driver updates from the laptop OEMs—the Sony VAIO C I tested a year ago continues to have most of the same driver problems, and the last driver update from Sony in October 2011 uses 8.850 series drivers from AMD (roughly matching up with the Catalyst 11.5 release). HP’s ENVY 15t-3000 is a more recent offering with an Ivy Bridge CPU and HD 7750M graphics, and the drivers there are 8.951 (Catalyst 12.3) and haven’t been updated in months. If you purchase a laptop with a discrete GPU, presumably you want to use that GPU for gaming or other graphics applications, and that means you’ll want to get driver updates on occasion. Prior to the Enduro 5.5 update that hasn’t generally been possible, and we’re eager to see that change.
Overall, we’re pleased to see AMD taking a serious look at their switchable graphics technology and working to bring it up to the level of the competition. We wish it would have happened sooner, but at least it's not too late to get things headed in the right direction—and we'd suggest that perhaps dropping the monthly driver updates is part of the reason we're finally getting needed Enduro enhancements. Right now, it feels as if Enduro 5.5 is basically where Optimus was back in early 2010, so AMD’s not out of the woods yet, but get us a couple driver updates this year and we’ll be ready to believe that Mobility Radeon users will receive the same level of driver support as desktop Radeon users.
We’ve never really had a problem with the performance of AMD’s mobile GPUs, and in recent years they have often managed to trump NVIDIA on a bang-for-the-buck analysis. Unfortunately, without driver updates we’ve been hesitant to recommend laptops with AMD’s mobile GPUs. The 7000M “London” GPUs (basically GCN/Southern Islands for mobile users) have a lot to offer, and with the updates to Enduro and regular driver releases from AMD, the mobile graphics competition is about to get a lot more interesting. Competition is always nice to see.
For anyone interested in seeing the full set of “Enduro 5.5” slides, the above gallery is available.
Update: Many readers have commented (and there are lengthy forum posts elsewhere) on issues with the 7970M GPU being underutilized while playing games. I ran a few quick tests of my own with the preview drivers to see if things are any better. All tests were run at 1080p, with the games set to either "Medium" or "Maximum" settings. Here are the results:
| Clevo P170EM GPU Utilization | ||
| Game | 1080p ~Medium | 1080p ~Maximum |
| Batman: Arkham City | 47% | 100% |
| Diablo III | 98% | 99% |
| DiRT 3 | 62% | 100% |
| Elder Scrolls: Skyrim | 54% | 60% |
Obviously, the GPU isn't being maxed out in terms of what it can do in many of our test cases, and our complete benchmark results back this up. Especially at lower detail settings and lower resolutions, the HD 7970M isn't scaling to the sort of frame rates we'd expect. Is this a problem with Enduro in general, or just with the current drivers? AMD might also be intentionally scaling down GPU utilization (and thus performance) at lower quality settings, as the difference between 100 FPS and 150 FPS isn't particularly important on a 60 Hz LCD.
That said, in many cases we're seeing slightly lower performance with the preview drivers than the initial drivers, so clearly there's optimization work that needs to be done, and we may see improved results with the public release (most likely in October). While many people are frustrated with the current situation, I maintain that getting regular driver updates is the first hurdle that AMD needs to address; once that's in place, future driver releases can hopefully improve performance (along with GPU utilization).
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Vozier - Monday, September 10, 2012 - link
what you say is all true, but many here are really missing that there is no real alternative to the 7970M, the 680M i so much more expensive that its on another league, and the 675 and 670 are old techonolgy and not really a lot cheaper or better.SO right now almost all 7970M buyers are faced more with an upgrade than an alternative. At least for me the option to spend 300 extra its not a valid one.
If 7970 wouldnt exist i would have probably gone for a 650M notebook and saved 500 or 600 bucks.
That the 7970M can be as good as the 680M si really amazing, as for myself i prefer to BET 300 that the drivers will be fixed (i actually did because i bought once the issue was known), and for the time being play games not affected or not so badly affected by enduro.
Of course there is no justification for AMD and its whole public management of this whole issue. They have already lost many customers and will loose many more if they dont rise to the ocasion.
vgray35@hotmail.com - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
Great so a fix is coming soon it appears - about time thank goodness.But do you really expect that we should turn the other cheek as regards AMD's overt attack against its customers? The driver will fix the problem, however, my immediate focus has now switched to what needs to be done in response to AMD's attack against ME. That arrogance needs to be dressed down a notch or two.
This has gone far beyond a driver fix issue Jarred, and it appears you think we should just swallow that corporate arrogance and move on.
JarredWalton - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
As I posted elsewhere, it takes more than AMD to delete a forum thread and/or posts. For instance, if I started deleting all the negative comments on this article, I would expect most of the people who posted to be pissed and move to another forum. Put a different way, if Sager opened a thread and then AMD asked Sager to close it, while it's bad of AMD it's also bad of Sager -- and hopefully NBR wasn't complicit in the deleting of threads.Seanzky - Friday, September 7, 2012 - link
Well, they were. And guess what, the thread started at AMD forums obviously got locked pretty quickly because we couldn't keep it civil. Mind you, we (the 7970M victims) did everything we could to keep everything civil despite them (the fanboys who had no interest or business other than to troll us) baiting us into a flame war.This is besides the point. I'm just glad things are in motion and that things are moving toward the direction that's in our favor, finally.
TokamakH3 - Friday, September 7, 2012 - link
Enduro being broken is one thing. Current gen card that is surpassed by previous gen hardware by a large margin in some cases is something completely different. Reviews of the card that showed a false huge improvement that hasn't materialized for 5 months is something else. I last tried AMD when I bought a Gen 1 Athlon that gave me nothing but headaches for 6 months until I literally threw it away and bought an Intel proc. That time I messed with drivers and bios updates until well after the return period, and I did the same thing this time. Except there weren't any new bios or driver updates to play with this time, I just kept waiting. 5 months without a driver update on a brand new flagship card? Really?Fool me twice, shame on me.
KyleH334 - Monday, September 17, 2012 - link
I appreciate very much your honesty! I'm very new to laptop gaming and bought a Clevo 17.3 inch Laptop from PC Specialist. I watched quite a few YouTube videos before plumping for the 7970m due to people singing it's praises! Obviously since then I have realised that this probably wasn't the smartest move. However I am hopefull that we will see some improvements in the near future :)Thank you for the time you have put in to get a response from AMD!!
Pixelpusher6 - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
"This isn't Clevo's support thread :/"-Well this article is about AMD's Enduro switchable graphics, which in it's current form there are some glaring problems. Reading this article one gets the sense that AMD's Enduro is pretty much on par with Nvidia's Optimus solution, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I think that Anandtech should give mention of the issue since it seems to be widespread, and maybe they should ask AMD for a response about it (do they plan to fix it?) and update the article. I mean if it worked fine why would Alienware completely disable it with their AMD graphics laptops?
JarredWalton - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
Did you actually read the article? The whole point is that "Enduro 5.0" -- which is what every single Enduro laptop is currently using -- is basically a huge concern and I wouldn't recommend it. I told AMD that and they said, "Let us show you Enduro 5.5 and prove that we're about to fix it." The whole article is about what is coming with the next driver update, and I note several times that without driver updates Enduro is a dead end. So AMD is fixing that in the near future, but until then it's not fixed and even then performance may not be there for some users.Pixelpusher6 - Friday, September 7, 2012 - link
Sorry Jarred was a little confused about different versions of Enduro and with all the different names. Anyway I think it is helping people that bought 7970m's that you are looking into this issue and reporting on it. I agree with you regarding the "it takes two to tango" bit with Notebook Reviews, just because AMD asked them to remove the threads about problems people were having doesn't mean they had to. That is why Anandtech is my one stop shop for completely unbiased technology information, it's because I know you guys don't engage in these types of behaviors.Beenthere - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
The switchable graphics market is likely a niche market that will be gone very soon with the advancement of AMD's APUs. Those who actually desire a good laptop graphics solution would be wise to just buy a Trinity A10-4600M powered laptop and skip the switchable graphics, which is obsolete now.