AMD Adrenalin 22.12.2 drivers significantly increase RX 7900 XT/XTX power efficiency for fps-capped games

AMD mentions in the RX 7900 Adrenalin 22.12.2 driver notes that the power usage during hardware accelerated video playback has been improved and further efficiency improvements are to be expected in future updates. Indeed, the video playback power consumption has decreased, as ComputerBase points out, but the German publication also discovered that the driver significantly reduces power consumption for fps-capped games, an improvement that is not mentioned anywhere in the driver release notes.

As far as video playback is concerned, the RDNA 3 power draw is somewhat improved, yet it still does not match the RDNA 2 efficiency. While the RX 6900 XT draws 34 W during 4K@60 YouTube playback, the RX 7900 XT is now drawing 46 W instead of the initial 71 W, and the RX 7900 XTX is drawing 54 W instead of 80 W. HDR playback also draws less power, with 53 W and 60 W versus the initial 77 and 89 W, respectively.

Moving to fps-capped games, ComputerBase tested Doom Eternal in 1440p and 4K with V-Sync activated for a 144 Hz monitor and the results are quite impressive, especially for the 1440p tests. The power draw in 4K drops from 345 W to 320 W for the RX 7900 XTX, whereas the RX 7900 XT draws 297 W instead of 306. However, in 1440p, the efficiency improvements are quite significant, as the 7900 XTX drops from 248 W to 158 W and the 7900 XT drops from 226 W to 169 W.

The latest Adrenalin 23.1.1 driver does not appear to bring any further improvements, unfortunately.

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