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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Wolfpup - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
Whoops, a few spelling mistakes, and I mean to say why is Anandtech supporting this junk, not AMD...I know why AMD is, Nvidia, and apparently OEMs that would rather have all sorts of complaints about their systems not working but be able to post a longer battery life on the box.JarredWalton - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
Please give me a list of problems with Optimus that don't involve Linux. I've asked for this -- to you specifically -- numerous times in previous comments. And just for the record, you CAN'T disable Optimus with a BIOS tweak. The only way to get rid of Optimus on a laptop that has it is to buy a new laptop -- unless the laptop was designed to allow that (e.g. some Alienware models). An Optimus GPU has no direct connection to the display outputs, so if you want to turn off the iGPU you would have no display at all.As to what consumers want working dynamic graphics support: *I* want it, and most people that want a laptop that can both play games as well as last more than three hours on battery want it. Colleges and universities are full of students that carry around laptops, and those who play games all want Optimus or a similar technology. In fact, it's so desirable that even Apple has gone the switchable graphics route on MacBook Pro laptops for the past three years (though granted they only have to support a very small subset of hardware and their own OS).
In an ideal world, we'd have a discrete GPU that can do basic work like an IGP while only consuming <1W. The problem is that when you have higher end GPUs that have 2GB RAM and all the other stuff, idling at 1W isn't likely to happen any time soon. They need to be able to shut off all VRAM except for a small amount, power down nearly all of the GPU (maybe 48 CUDA cores or 80 Stream Processors could stay active), and drop clocks way down. Then they need to be able to power all the other components back up without any delays and gracefully handle scaling of power use with demands. As complex as switchable/dynamic graphics might be, doing all of the above is even more so. That's why AMD and NVIDIA are working on Enduro and Optimus (though I assume there's also work being done to bring idle power use way down as well).
Vozier - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
I think MANY users are pleased with switchable grapchis, just no GAMER users are.But dont mix things, this article is some of the best news we can get about ENDURO and its improvements.
I know is late for many, but dont trash it, you might as well get the thing removed...
LETS BUILD
not DESTROY....
regards
Voz
extide - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
I am a more knowledgeable consumer than you, own a P150EM with a 680m and am GLAD it has Optimus and that was a feature I WANTED.Optimus/Enduro when working CORRECTLY IS ACTUALLY what everyone WANTS. It is supposed to save battery and get the best gaming performance, which is what everyone wants. Right now it just doesnt work correctly in all cases, and that's what people don't want.
As a side note I don't think Optimus on the 680m is actually working correctly, I think it is running the dGPU all the time and not shutting it down all the way, but that is a whole different topic.
JarredWalton - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
If it's running the dGPU all the time, your battery life should be around 60 to 90 minutes tops -- less if you're using the GPU to play a game. Also, at least on the P170EM, Clevo clearly hasn't invested a lot of effort into optimizing power states when the system is idle or under a light load. I'll have the full review shortly, but basically the P170EM (NVIDIA or AMD variant) draws around 20W while idle; it should be more like 10-11W, indicating there's a whole lot of extra power being used by the motherboard and other accessories. Big OEMs like Dell, Samsung, Sony, HP, etc. usually put a lot more effort into power optimizations and it shows.Hrobertgar - Friday, September 7, 2012 - link
About 2 years ago, I bought a Dell XPS with 420M and switchable graphics, not because I wanted switchable graphics, I just liked the systems specs. The first thing I did was tell the system to use the dGPU 100% of the time, as I use it plugged into the wall 99% of the time (it just means I can travel with a game capable system).My experience was that when playing WoW unplugged it lasted for maybe 20-30 minutes. Fortunately that is a rare situation, but I can relate to the suggestion in the article that switchable systems should probably default to dGPU if its plugged in and iGPU if its battery power. I mean the entire point of having the dGPU is to use it, and if its plugged in to the wall then I don't care about power usage as a Laptop uses less than a desktop already, so why throttle beyond that.
For those that think NVIDIA can do no wrong: A couple months ago I updated BIOS and drivers and somewhere in the process my frame rates cratered. Not being as fancy as many of you it took me a while to discover that one of the updates reverted to default iGPU 100% of the time. The new software prevented me from going 100% dGPU as before, and I basically had to tell it that internet and games should use dGPU, and I have added a dGPU usage icon to verify that is the case, and my frame rates were restored. I do not know if the issue was Dell or Intel or NVIDIA, but I do have an NVIDIA system and there was a small issue, with the switchable graphics.
JarredWalton - Friday, September 7, 2012 - link
Normally, with Optimus you can just set the global profile to use "High-performance NVIDIA processor" and you're done. Of course, some of the newer driver profiles have things like iexplorer.exe, firefox.exe, chrome.exe, and probably a bunch of other "light" processes set to the Integrated graphics (which will override the global profile). In practice of course, I prefer to simply set Optimus laptops to "Auto" and things work properly 99% of the time for me.YMMV, naturally -- personally, I don't want my laptop running the dGPU all the time if I don't need it, as it's simply more heat being generated. More heat means the fans work harder, creating more noise and also potentially wearing out sooner rather than later. But then, I have a desktop for regular non-travel use, so it's not quite that critical that my laptops perform optimally all the time.
seapeople - Saturday, September 8, 2012 - link
I cannot fathom how any knowledgeable person could think switchable graphics are a universally bad thing on laptops. If you're a 100% gamer, that's what desktops are for. If you're a heavy gamer, same thing. Desktops are cheaper, more reliable, easier to upgrade, and give much better performance. If you're so freaked out about it that switchable graphics seem like the devil to you, THEN GET A DESKTOP.For the rest of the population, switchable graphics allow you to get at least 2x and maybe more battery life while your laptop runs cooler and quieter for almost every non-gaming application out there. It's a big deal.
arcticjoe - Saturday, September 8, 2012 - link
What about people who travel a lot, or are in college or need a mobile platform. Should I waste money on buying a gaming PC and a laptop for mobile work, or just get a machine that does both instead?Current gen laptops are very close to high end PCs in terms of performance, - most can overclock their CPUs to 4ghz+ and GPUs are quicker than last gen's flagship cards (GTX 580 and Radeon 6970).
johnxfire - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
I've got a 7970M on my P150HM since my HD6990M died and I was too damned to send in my whole laptop to get it repaired.The 7970M without Enduro is a dream. Really fast, temps stay below 80c. Hopefully the P150/170EM owners will get to experience the fullest of their 7970Ms.