AMD details driver fix for Radeon RX 480’s controversial, spec-exceeding power draw - martindigh1976

AMD engineers are putting in extra hours this holiday weekend after troubling issues arose concluded the Radeon RX 480's power run—issues that could theoretically (simply non likely) equipment casualty lower-end motherboards in extreme luck, though AMD disagrees.

UPDATE: See AMD's official statement about the incoming driver mess at the end of the article.

Scorn on the face of it being rated atomic number 3 a 150-watt card, Tom's Ironware found that AMD's graphics card used an average of 168W low-level load. Intrigued, the site employed the use of exotic test equipment to ascertain exactly how a good deal baron the RX 480 pulled from both the PCI-E expansion slot in the motherboard as well as card's six-pin power connection (which hooks directly into the power cater) and launch something even more alarming: The card pulled up to a banging 90W over the motherboard's PCI-E slot, far prodigious the 75W maximum the slot is rated for.

German site Golem.de observed superposable conduct, as did TecLab.

PC Position performed even deeper examination shortly afterward. It found similar results to Tom's at baseline levels and witnessed Witcher 3 consuming over 190W of sustained power draw when the RX 480 is overclocked, with 95W of that approach via the PCI-E slot. Worse, PC Perspective discovered that AMD's notice drew 7 amps over the PCI-E slot's +12v rail, which is rated for 5.5 amps maximal. The Radeon RX 480 besides overdraws the board's solitary 6-pin power connector, though that's less worrisome because it's not passing through your motherboard. (Those are clean some high-level findings; it's worth reading PC Perspective's comprehensive report.)

Brad Chacos

The PCI-E slots on an Asus X99 Opulent motherboard.

So what, you ask? PC Perspective spoke to anonymous motherboard vendors, who said that while 95W spikes through the PCI-E connector aren't a big deal, free burning power levels that high could possibly fry a motherboard's pins and connectors.

That's shuddery, merely we can't be sure whether the RX 480's spec-exceeding power draw is a serious issue in the real life yet. The John Major motherboard vendors have been beefing up the quality of their components for years. That said, AMD's positioned the Radeon RX 480 as the identity card that brings agio-choice play to the people. In that location's a good chance the $200 graphics card will excite in some systems with tush-budget motherboards, which power wind up with unbalance OR damage from the RX 480's out-of-spec top executive draw.

Fortunately, AMD says a software-based fix is incoming:

"As you have sex, we continuously tune our GPUs systematic to maximise their performance inside their given power envelopes and the speed of the memory port, which in this case is an unprecedented 8Gbps for GDDR5. Recently, we identified select scenarios where the tuning of some RX 480 boards was not best. Fortunately, we privy adjust the GPU's tuning via software ready to resolve this issue. We are already examination a driver that implements a fix, and we will provide an update to the community on our progress on Tuesday (July 5, 2016)."

So I guess we'll try Sir Thomas More on Tuesday. If the software system fix involves reducing the top executive draw for the RX 480, that'll most likely turn down performance in the reference editions of the card as well, especially since Polaris' performance is closely tied to the wit's power limit.

Brad Chacos

IT's too bad that 6-pin connector on the AMD Radeon RX 480 ISN't an 8-pin.

The real bummer: This all could've been avoided if AMD had just used an 8-pin or 2x 6-pin power connectors. I'd expect many custom RX 480s from AMD's partners to beef up the card's pins, both to increase the card's overclocking potential and to completely sidestep this troubling superpowe usance issue.

It's a damned shame AMD overreached with the individualistic 6-pin connector rather than acting information technology safe. The Radeon RX 480 redefines what's possible with a $200 graphics card, and so consumes far inferior power than the experient R9 390/390X that it's comparable to public presentation-heady. Oh well. Again, while you'atomic number 75 waiting to hear more from AMD on Tuesday, I'd highly commend version PC Perspective's exhaustive analysis on the RX 480's power draw issue. IT's leading.

UPDATE:Here's AMD's promised update in full:

"We promised an update today (July 5, 2016) following concerns around the Radeon RX 480 draftsmanship excess current from the PCIe charabanc. Although we are confident that the levels of reportable power draws by the Radeon RX 480 do not put away a risk of damage to motherboards or other PC components based on expected usage, we are serious approximately addressing this theme and allaying great concerns. Towards that destruction, we assembled a worldwide team this past weekend to investigate and develop a driver update to improve the power trace. We're pleased to report that this driver—Radeon Software 16.7.1—is now undergoing final examination and will be released to the public in the next 48 hours.

In that number one wood we've implemented a change to address power distribution connected the Radeon RX 480 – this change volition lour current haggard from the PCIe bus.

Separately, we've also enclosed an option to reduce total magnate with marginal performance impingement. Users will find this as the "compatibility" UI toggle switch in the Global Settings menu of Radeon Settings. This toggle is "murder" by default option.

Eventually, we've implemented a collection of performance improvements for the Polaris architecture that output performance uplifts in popular game titles of up to 3%. These optimizations are designed to improve the performance of the Radeon RX 480, and should well offset the performance impact for users who choose to activate the "compatibility" toggle.

AMD is loving to delivering superiority and high functioning products, and we'll continue to provide users with more assure over their merchandise's performance and efficiency. We appreciate each the feedback indeed far, and we'll continue to make for further performance and performance/W optimizations to the Radeon RX 480."

Editor's note: This article was originally published on July 3, 2016, only was updated along July 6 with AMD's statement on the incoming driver.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/415517/amd-promises-fix-for-radeon-rx-480s-controversial-spec-exceeding-power-consumption.html

Posted by: martindigh1976.blogspot.com

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