AMD’s Enduro Switchable Graphics Levels Up
by Jarred Walton on September 6, 2012 3:00 AM ESTIntroduction
A couple weeks back, I contacted AMD to let them know I was working on a notebook review—a Clevo P170EM from AVADirect with HD 7970M graphics. Much to my surprise, when I received the notebook I discovered it used AMD’s Dynamic Switchable Graphics, now rebranded as Enduro. It has been just over a year since my last look at the technology, where things were so bad that I felt most users would be better off if they had only discrete AMD GPUs and no switchable graphics—or they could simply buy NVIDIA Optimus enabled laptops. The short story is that my initial experience with the P170EM was largely the same, only the lack of driver updates was even more damning when looking at a notebook sporting such a high-end GPU. What could be done? AMD scheduled a meeting with me to go over the latest updates, and thankfully things aren’t quite so grim as I first thought.
First, let’s get everyone up to speed. Historically speaking, AMD/ATI has been on the forefront of switchable graphics technology. While the first laptop with switchable graphics tested at AnandTech used NVIDIA’s implementation (the ASUS UL80Vt), Radeon-based alternatives also existed in a similar time frame. The main problems with early switchable graphics solutions is that they required extra hardware on the manufacturer side (muxes), increasing cost, and more importantly you were generally locked in to getting graphics driver updates from the laptop OEM. NVIDIA addressed both problems when they launched Optimus in early 2010, and while there were certainly some teething pains the vast majority of users have been pleased with the result. Where did that leave AMD? Simply put: out of most laptops.
Was it because NVIDIA had superior technology, better drivers, or better marketing? I’d say yes to all three, and it has been painful to watch as the number of laptops with discrete GPUs (at least in the US) has largely shifted to being NVIDIA products. Up until now, if you wanted a laptop with a discrete GPU, the ability to switch off that GPU, and you wanted regular driver updates, your only viable option has been NVIDIA equipped laptops. Perhaps that’s why every major OEM (along with most smaller OEMs/ODMs) ships at least some of their laptops with NVIDIA’s Optimus Technology. With laptop sales now outpacing desktop sales, giving up so much ground to their competitor is a serious problem AMD needs to overcome.
I should note that AMD has other products that actually help get around our concerns with Enduro. The Llano and Trinity APUs for example offer integrated GPU that are as fast (faster in some cases) as discrete GPUs. If you’re looking for a good budget laptop that gets excellent battery life and you don’t want to deal with switchable graphics at all, Llano started the trend of providing a decent GPU with acceptable CPU performance and Trinity continues that trend. Even better: driver updates aren’t a problem as there’s only one AMD GPU to contend with. Trinity/Llano didn’t win any awards for pure performance, but in terms of bang for the buck and creating a well-rounded device, the APUs have proven successful. But we’re not going to worry about Trinity/Llano or other APUs; today’s focus is on discrete GPUs and switching between these high-power, high-performance GPUs and low-power, low-performance integrated graphics.
With that out of the way, let’s look at the history of AMD’s switchable graphics as well as where they intend to go in the near future.
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TokamakH3 - Friday, September 7, 2012 - link
Reading the article, one would never know the P170EM he has is much less powerful than an exactly spec'd MSI or Alienware system, all because of Enduro.sirizak - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
Can we get a comment from Anand in here that he is taking this issue up with AMD? He may just have enough reputation to wake them from their slumber on this ongoing and damaging issue.Please Anand, help us fight the good fight!!
silverblue - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
I think the fact that Jarred works at AT should be more than enough. :)If AMD are having developmental issues, it'd be nice if they could open up their development more, get more external help. Not every gamer shies away from diagnosing a good problem, and there's a lot of clever people out there who can at least pinpoint issues with certain hardware configurations. All too often, complaints drown everything else out.
hulawafu77 - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
Unfortunately AMD is giving the cold shoulder to everyone on this issue. Caveman on Rage3D has confronted a stone wall when inquiring about progress on Enduro. AnandTech did reach out to AMD and all they got was a rumored fix with two drivers for a 12 month period with proper GCN support. That's incredible...We have one tweet for the customers, that's it. Nothing more. If it wasn't for Anandtech here, we wouldn't eve know there is a suppose Enduro 5.5 in the works, if that is actually being worked on. Andandtech was not given a test build on the driver to see if it actually works.
JarredWalton - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
This whole article is a result of us "taking it up with AMD". I know people who already bought the product want it fixed yesterday, but that's just not the way things work, especially with driver development. Mess up the drivers in some small way and everyone gets BSODs. Heck, they could have everything ready for the drivers to release and just need to do a solid two months of QA before sending it out to the public. I won't share the specifics, but let me just say that if AMD had given me the beta driver and I had tried to do the install on my own, I'm pretty sure that I would have ended up doing a full reinstall of my OS and apps. That's not because the driver is broken, but the install routine wasn't fully optimized at the time (two weeks ago). That's part of what they're still working on, along with other performance optimizations.Seanzky - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
Quick question, Jarred. I'm not trying to put you on the spotlight here, but maybe you know. Obviously, we've already tried reaching out to resellers and even Clevo. Do you think their silence to our inquires means they ignored us or do you think they actually relayed our concerns to AMD? Because if it were the latter, I would think AMD gave them the same assurance AMD gave you which the resellers would do well to relay to us. Your article, I call it the "great hope for Enduro", is the first I've ever heard of AMD working on anything remotely related to the issues we're experiencing. Honestly.What are your thoughts on those because I feel like resellers are somewhat avoiding us based on some of the feedback I've seen. I just want to know this isn't my imagination or paranoia.
JarredWalton - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
I think the resellers were trying to avoid telling people that there are no immediate fixes available. I'm sure they brought it up with AMD, and AMD's response was likely, "We're working on it but don't have a definite time for when our fix will be available." When that happens, the best thing from the reseller's standpoint is usually to say nothing. I'm not saying it's best for the consumers, mind you, but it's better to keep your mouth shut than to admit to problems, and if anyone is really vocal you just let them return the product.As for AMD, I commented above just a second ago that I'm betting the driver team eventually had to come back and tell marketing and management that they needed a solid six months of time to fix and test the new drivers before they could address the problems with Enduro. Management was likely pissed, but what can you do when your drivers aren't working the way you want? It's not like you can just hire new people or do a quick hack that makes everything better, so you have to wait, and again silence is often better than promising something you can't deliver (yet).
The fact that AMD gave me a firm deadline of October 31 for the public release of the drivers I'm using is really good news. Last year when I ripped on DSG (pre-Enduro but essentially the same), AMD told me they were working on getting regular driver updates "soon" and independent AMD and Intel driver installs "after that". I asked for some time frame and got hemming and hawing. This time, we have a date, we have beta (or maybe pre-beta) drivers in hand, and I really do expect AMD to at least get the 9.0 series Enduro Catalyst drivers out by the end of October, and hopefully sooner. I think those drivers will still have issues, but provided all of the framework is in place for future updates, things can only go up from there.
Seanzky - Friday, September 7, 2012 - link
I hope your optimism ends up right over my lost of faith in AMD. It would really suck, to say the least, if this was AMD taking us for another spin.andrewaggb - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
I've always stuck with non-switchable graphics despite the worse battery life because I wanted a guarantee of driver updates.This sounds terrible though. And deleting threads and not responding sounds a lot like people trying to cover up a problem. That makes me not very optimistic that a new magic driver will fix the problem.
Best of luck. I've had excellent driver feedback/response from AMD in the past, so it's sad to hear things have gone way down hill.
hulawafu77 - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
So do we all with high performance. But AMD is now implementing switchable graphics muxless design to even their high end products.Let's just hope AnandTech's inquiry into switchable graphics support is correct and AMD is taking this seriously.