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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arcticjoe - Friday, September 7, 2012 - link
A lot of people, like myself, sold their previous gen laptops at discount prices so we could get the latest and greatest GPU. I sold mine for £800 (bought for nearly twice as much last year) and I've spent £1700 on this new 7970m based laptop, but sadly my old one outperforms it in several games. If I had known that there were these issues I would never had switched and if AMD were more honest about the nature of the issue I could had returned my card within the 30 day period.In my honest (and maybe somewhat biased now) opinion, i bought a faulty product because it does not perform as intended and definitely does not live up to AMDs marketing of being nearly twice as fast as 6970m.
hulawafu77 - Thursday, September 6, 2012 - link
Hey Jarred. Nice update on the article in the conclusion. I personally don't mind utilization say in ME3 is only 35% if I have 60 FPS locked VS, that is fine by me. But what is concerning when I see I'm getting 80 FPS in Max Payne 3 with 95% utilization, but 5 minutes in, it drops to 45% and now only have 30 FPS in MP3. That happens in a lot of my games, it's very annoying.iwod - Friday, September 7, 2012 - link
I have always supported ATI and prefer their graphics. And it was the 6630M that finally drove me off.Would any of these improvement works on my 6630M? I think my Thinkpad E420 desperately need some drivers update.
JarredWalton - Friday, September 7, 2012 - link
It looks like the ThinkPad E420 uses PowerXpress 4.0 (aka Dynamic Switchable Graphics), which means it should be supported with the driver release. I know I'll be trying the drivers on that old Sony VAIO C from last year as well.tobi1449 - Friday, September 7, 2012 - link
Jarred do you know if this new driver is just for the lastest generation of AMD cards (and IB/SB graphics from intel)?Or can those who were unfortunate enough to buy a laptop with older AMD graphics (HD5850m) hope for a new driver (would be the first one since about 2 years -.-)?
JarredWalton - Friday, September 7, 2012 - link
If you have a laptop with a 5850, you're probably not even running switchable graphics, right? Or if you are, it would have to be an Alienware solution I think. Anyway, for discrete-only GPUs, you should be able to download the Mobility Catalyst drivers already and update to 12.8 without issues. On the other hand, if there's some laptop I'm not aware of that had PowerXpress 3.0 and a 5850 GPU, you're probably out of luck outside of one launch driver update for Windows 8 (which would of course require you to upgrade to Windows 8...).Vozier - Friday, September 7, 2012 - link
PEOPLE post your game findings and GPU utilization, all problems and issues must be adressed if we want a more complete solution with the new drivers.Nice to see your article update Jarred, we are happy to see our commented concerns are being heard at last. I am rallying people to post their underutilization issues here so you might test more games and contact AMD more directly to show them were the BIG FAIL is.
GPU underutilization is the key issue, most gamers wouldnt mind losing battery life if AMD can give them the option to use their cards to the fullest.
In your own table one can see that some games run on very low %s GPU usage even at ultra settings (skyrim), wich would mean the NEW drivers in enduro 5.5 still need a lot of work on that department. Is also concerning seeing low utilization when lowering the graphics details and quality.
THANKS again for all your work JARRED.
So far you are the only light in a very black sky many 7970M owners are drowning under for months.
regards
Voz
Notmyusualid - Friday, September 7, 2012 - link
Well, for the most part my CF 7970M setup works, but less than 10% of the time I see -some- issue, odd characters flying across the screen etc.And now I ran that Kombuster and saw that I was running on only 1 GPU. I don't recall ever having disabled CF, except for some testing a long time ago over at NBR.
Catalyst control center doesn't even launch.
Jarred, please pick this hot potato up, and bone AMD/ATI until we get resoultion with drivers. 13 pages of comments must show how upset people are...
Thanks for a wonderful site.
Over and out.
JarredWalton - Friday, September 7, 2012 - link
Oh, man... don't even get me started on SLI and CrossFire notebooks. I would never actually recommend one of those -- the minor and major issues that crop up with compatibility and such are just not worth it. Thankfully, GPUs like the HD 7970M (assuming performance gets fixed) and the GTX 680M are now at the point where only seriously high-end gaming really needs more GPU muscle. If you want a 3D laptop, I suppose that's another use for dual GPUs, but I am not at all sold on 3D.Most likely, you'll have to go through Alienware to get new drivers, as they do some pretty custom stuff for switching graphics modes and what not -- but then I haven't played with that particular notebook so maybe not? First things first, though, you need to get drivers installed properly so that Catalyst Control Center will launch. Using hacked drivers probably isn't the way to go here; I'd grab the official Alienware drivers and see if you can bring up the control panel. If that works, then you can see about trying other unofficial drivers.
Notmyusualid - Friday, September 7, 2012 - link
Apologies, for not being clear; it was not my intention to imply that I wasn't using AMD/ATI drivers, or that I was using hacked drivers.I was trying to shed light on the fact that Dell (Alienware) had not provided drivers for me, that work to any acceptable level.
If I use the drivers from the Dell website, I may as well throw my notebook (using the term notebook loosely when referring to an M18X) in the river.
Have a nice day.