What you need to know
- The latest AMD driver appears to significantly reduce power consumption for Radeon RX 6000-series GPUs.
- The reduction in power consumption only happens in certain non-gaming scenarios.
- Idle power consumption drops as much as 72% on certain RX 6000-series GPUs.
The RX 6700 XT, RX 6800, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6900 XT were tested by TechPowerUP. The RX 6800, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6900 XT showed reductions in idle power consumption at 1440p resolution. Those cards dropped from 25W to 5W, which is a massive reduction of 72%. Multi-monitor power consumption stayed almost exactly the same in testing. The RX 6800, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6900 XT saw a reduction of up to 30% for media playback.
The best graphics cards are normally rather power-hungry. The power reductions that come in this recent update won't save you energy when playing the best PC games, but they'll take up less power at other times. People use gaming PCs for things other than gaming, and saving power while watching a moving or having your PC sit idle can add up in terms of savings.
It's a bit odd that AMD didn't highlight these reductions in its release notes for its latest driver. TechPowerUp suspects that it could be because even after the reductions, AMD's GPUs still use more power than NVIDIA's offerings.
Regardless of if they were highlighted by AMD, if these tests hold true on other people's PCs, it's good news for people with the latest GPUs from AMD.
