AMD’s driver lowers power consumption for the Radeon RX 6000 series

AMD recently released Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.4.1 with a bunch of new updates and improvements. Something that is not officially mentioned, but as Techpowerup discovered is that the drivers significantly reduced the energy consumption for several cards in the Radeon RX 6000 series.

In a comparative test against previous drivers, power consumption drops significantly at rest for the RX 6800, RX 6800 XT and RX 6900 XT. All models go from drawing about 25 W to significantly lower 5 W. The tests also show up to 30 percent lower power consumption during video playback. This can mean major improvements for users, as it in turn leads to lower heat generation and noise levels.

A common denominator for the affected graphics cards is that they all use the graphics circuit Navi 21, and it is likely that this is a correction of a previous error in the software. This is evidenced by the fact that the energy consumption of the RX 6700 XT, which is based on the Navi 22, is unchanged. Why AMD did not include documentation for it can only be speculated, but one possibility is that the problem is not fully resolved yet. For example, the higher power consumption remains when using multiple screens.

Techpowerup, which performed the tests, speculates that AMD has not chosen to lift it as Nvidia has a continued large advantage with its RTX 3000 series. Despite significant advances in video playback, the Radeon RX 6800, RX 6800 XT and RX 6900 XT draw around 35 W, while the Geforce RTX 3070 is said to draw 18 W and the RTX 3080 is at 27 W.

Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.4.1 is available for download via AMD’s website.

Have you noticed any difference in power consumption with the latest drivers?