AMD's Tuesday Radeon RX 480 Status Update: New Driver By Late Thursday
by Ryan Smith on July 6, 2016 12:45 AM ESTFollowing up on this weekend's statement from AMD about a potential power issue with the reference Radeon RX 480, AMD has just sent over their previously promised update on their progress dealing with the issue.
In short, they are nearly finished preparing their updated driver, 16.7.1, which will be posted "within the next 48 hours" (which at this point is late Thursday). The new driver will offer two solutions to the power problem.
The default solution: shift some of the power load off of the PCIe Graphics (PEG) slot connector, presumably in order to bring power consumption within PCIe spec. Note that AMD doesn't say anything about reducing the total power consumption, and given option #2, it's reasonable to assume that this involves holding the power requirements as-is and shifting the load to the external 6-pin power connector. Based on earlier data this would potentially put the 6-in connector further over spec, but the vast majority of PSUs are very tolerant of this going out of spec.
The optional solution: a toggle that reduces the total power consumption of the card, presumably ensuring both the PEG slot and 6-pin power connector stay below their respective limits. Since the RX 480 is already throttling at times due to power limits, this would further hurt performance, but it's also the most standards-compliant solution (and aptly named "compatibility" mode). AMD notes that this option will have "minimal performance impact", and while we'll have to see the results in the benchmarks, it's worth noting that power consumption is cubic - that is, roughly to the 3rd power of frequency - so a small reduction in frequency can significantly reduce power consumption, as we've seen in the case of the Radeon R9 Nano.
Along with this, AMD is also touting some slight performance optimizations in this driver that they hope will offset any performance loss (though I'd note that these optimizations would have come anyhow). We'll have more on this when AMD ships their driver.
In the meantime AMD's full statement is as follows:
We promised an update today (July 5, 2016) following concerns around the Radeon™ RX 480 drawing excess current from the PCIe bus. Although we are confident that the levels of reported power draws by the Radeon RX 480 do not pose a risk of damage to motherboards or other PC components based on expected usage, we are serious about addressing this topic and allaying outstanding concerns. Towards that end, we assembled a worldwide team this past weekend to investigate and develop a driver update to improve the power draw. We’re pleased to report that this driver—Radeon Software 16.7.1—is now undergoing final testing and will be released to the public in the next 48 hours.
In this driver we’ve implemented a change to address power distribution on the Radeon RX 480 – this change will lower current drawn from the PCIe bus.
Separately, we’ve also included an option to reduce total power with minimal performance impact. Users will find this as the “compatibility” UI toggle in the Global Settings menu of Radeon Settings. This toggle is “off” by default.
Finally, we’ve implemented a collection of performance improvements for the Polaris architecture that yield performance uplifts in popular game titles of up to 3%1. These optimizations are designed to improve the performance of the Radeon RX 480, and should substantially offset the performance impact for users who choose to activate the “compatibility” toggle.
AMD is committed to delivering high quality and high performance products, and we’ll continue to provide users with more control over their product’s performance and efficiency. We appreciate all the feedback so far, and we’ll continue to bring further performance and performance/W optimizations to the Radeon RX 480.
1: Based on data running ’Total War: Warhammer’, ultra settings, 1080p resolution. Radeon Software 16.6.2 74.2FPS vs Radeon Software 16.7.1 78.3FPS; Metro Last Light, very high settings, 1080p resolution, 80.9FPS vs 82.7 FPS. Witcher 3, Ultra settings, 1440p, 31.5FPS vs 32.5, Far Cry 4, ultra settings, 1440p, 54.65FPS vs 56.38FPS, 3DMark11 Extreme, 22.8 vs 23.7 System config: Core i7-5960X, 16GB DDR4-2666MHz, Gigabyte X99-UD4, Windows 10 64-bit. Performance figures are not average, may vary from run-to-run.
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vanilla_gorilla - Wednesday, July 6, 2016 - link
>In the end, who is said to have issues?Impossible to say without knowing details. If NVIDIA is respecting the specifications exactly and everyone else is just a little more forgiving, is NVIDIA "wrong" ?
Morawka - Wednesday, July 6, 2016 - link
Nvidia's display port is 1.4, the RX 480 only has 1.3. This is probably why its not working. The Vive probably requires a certification for it to recognize the device, and since the 1.4 certification process is not done, the pascal series can't provide one. HTC needs to issue a hotfix and not require the certificationbill4 - Wednesday, July 6, 2016 - link
Then why doesn't Nvidia say that? When reached out to by media, Nvidia has refused comment about this Vive/Displayport issue.This leads me to believe they screwed up big time somehow, and know it. However, being Nvidia, they dont have to answer to anybody or provide customer service. Their legions of fanboys will back them regardless and continue to overpay for their products.
noealo - Wednesday, July 6, 2016 - link
Any product with a dual HDMI/DP connector probably just has a DP>HDMI adaptor inside. It is entirely possible that the Vive DP>HDMI adaptor has compatibility issues of its own.A bigger test is how many DP>HDMI adaptors work with the 1080/1070 as there are active/passive types and some require special non-standard support from the card. It is possible with the newer DP standard support in the 1080/1070 some out of spec adaptors don't work anymore.
bill4 - Wednesday, July 6, 2016 - link
amd cards work fineSalbrox - Wednesday, July 6, 2016 - link
But they managed to improve performance on the card is this not better?Michael Bay - Wednesday, July 6, 2016 - link
>maganedOh please. This shit is planned by marketing months ahead of release.
Murloc - Wednesday, July 6, 2016 - link
the improvement would have come anyway if it's due to drivers.smilingcrow - Wednesday, July 6, 2016 - link
Advanced Managed Disasters!prisonerX - Wednesday, July 6, 2016 - link
Your brain is dead