AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed

AMD releases its new Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition drivers, including some game-changing features.

Published
Updated
4 minutes & 19 seconds read time

Introduction + Breath of Fresh Air

AMD points out that their Radeon Software drivers have been downloaded over 250 million times, with over 70 releases and support for over 75 AAA games with day-one support.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 03

Not only that, but there are over 50 new or enhanced features inside of Radeon Software drivers since their inception three years ago.

Over the next few pages, we'll detail the new Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition drivers, with some benchmarks including SAPPHIRE's Radeon RX Vega 64 NITRO+ that just arrived today (yay!).

Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition In Full

Page 2 [Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition In Full]

AMD hasn't put as much focus on the performance side of the new Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition drivers, with around 10% average increased performance over the previous generation Radeon Software drivers.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 11

I'll include the entire deck here so you can go through them at your own pace, and cover the stand out bits in the next couple of pages.

What's New?

Starting with the performance side of things, AMD is providing a 10-15% average performance benefit in some of the latest AAA games like Project CARS 2 and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 14

For the mainstream gamers who are flocking to eSports-ready games like Overwatch, a huge 14% performance improvement is very welcomed.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 15

AMD has reduced the latency in games like Battlegrounds, Titanfall 2 and others when compared to the previous-gen Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.11.1 drivers with their new Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition drivers.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 16

There's also borderless windowed multi-GPU support now, which is probably not used that much - but there are some multi-GPU gamers (note, no longer CrossFire) that will love this feature.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 17

Frame Rate Target Control now has support for Vulkan.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 18

Compute-focused performance can be enabled for cryptocurrency miners, enabling up to 15% more performance with the new drivers on a Radeon RX 570 4GB graphics card.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 24

Radeon WattMan has some new abilities, where Radeon owners can now save and load their profiles as well as share your custom profiles and then load community-driven profiles. This is a great tweak and very welcomed.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 25

Radeon Chill has been updated, supporting countless games on the market.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 27

There's also a 60% lower average GPU power consumption with Radeon Chill on the new Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition drivers.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 30

AMD has also provided improvements to Enhanced Sync, which now works on all GCN-based Radeon products. Enhanced Sync also now works with Vulkan, notebook products, in multi-GPU mode, and in Eyefinity display setups.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 31

Radeon ReLive is used to capture, stream, and share your gaming moments and has now been updated.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 32

There's an all-new 'Connect' tab in the RSAE drivers that lets you access and manage your Radeon ReLive gameplay capture, and then share them on social media.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 33

In the Connect Tab, there's a Gallery that lets you manage, organize, and upload your gaming memories to social media. Not only that, but you can queue uploads to various social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and even view/trim your video captures.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 34

You can manage your social media accounts from the Accounts tab.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 35

There's also a Resource Center tab that provides informative articles, how-to videos, and real-time Radeon updates.

Radeon ReLive Upgraded

Radeon ReLive receives huge love from AMD with the new Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition drivers, with more performance while capturing gameplay footage.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 38

AMD promises small improvements that will optimize screen capture in games like Rocket League and Battlefield 1, beating out NVIDIA's own GeForce Experience software.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 39

There's support for Vulkan, meaning Vulkan-powered games like DOOM and Wolfenstein II are supported in Radeon ReLive.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 40

Radeon ReLive now supports Borderless Region Capture support, meaning you can capture only what you want - and not the entire screen.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 41

There's also support for Chroma Key, meaning you get the beautiful transparent background for recording/streaming. You can remove entire solid backgrounds with AMD providing support for all RGB backgrounds.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 42

Radeon ReLive's new features include Eyefinity support, which is great for multi-display gamers.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 43

There's even separate audio track support so that you can record your mic audio separate from the game audio.

Radeon Overlay + Performance Monitoring

This is what I've been dying for in drivers: performance monitoring. AMD delivers this with Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition drivers.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 50

The new Radeon Overlay takes care of gamers with system info and gaming performance courtesy of the monitoring/recording side of Radeon Overlay, giving you access to Radeon ReLive, Radeon Chill, FRTC, and more.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 51

The performance monitoring side of things is truly a game-changer, with FPS performance monitoring, built-in performance logging (YESSS), and support for DirectX 9/11/12 and even Vulkan.

This is another surprise from AMD that was baked into the Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition drivers: AMD Link.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 59

AMD Link gives Radeon owners the power to track, record, and socialize from their smartphones. You can track your PC system info and gaming performance and even control Radeon ReLive... all from your smartphone.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 60

In order to connect your smartphone with AMD Link, you can do it with a QR code or manually setting it up.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 61

Once you do, you get access to an Overview menu that lets you navigate through AMD Link with ease.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 62

There's performance monitoring included, with bar graphs that let you monitor your FPS and system info.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 63

Radeon ReLive support is included, with one-touch capture, stream and instant replay features.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 64

There's also a News Feed tab that keeps you up-to-date on AMD products including Ryzen and Radeon.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 67

AMD Link is available for both iOS and Android.

Benchmarks Soon & Final Thoughts

Final Thoughts

Because I was in Hawaii for Qualcomm last week, I didn't have that much time once I was back to get the benchmarks ready for this article, so I thought I'd wrap this up and then properly finish the benchmark results on AMD's fleet of Radeon RX Vega graphics cards.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Drivers Detailed 01

It worked out well as SAPPHIRE's new Radeon RX Vega 64 NITRO+ graphics card today and will be reviewing that card on AMD's new Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition drivers. I'll be benchmarking the new RX Vega 64 NITRO+ against AMD's reference RX Vega 56, RX Vega 64, and the RX Vega 64 Liquid Cooled Edition.

All in all the new Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition drivers are an impressive release with some great new features with the performance monitor and AMD Link, pushing Radeon owners into their smartphones is an awesome step.

PRICING: You can find products similar to this one for sale below.

USUnited States: Find other tech and computer products like this over at Amazon.com

UKUnited Kingdom: Find other tech and computer products like this over at Amazon.co.uk

AUAustralia: Find other tech and computer products like this over at Amazon.com.au

CACanada: Find other tech and computer products like this over at Amazon.ca

DEDeutschland: Finde andere Technik- und Computerprodukte wie dieses auf Amazon.de

Anthony joined the TweakTown team in 2010 and has since reviewed 100s of graphics cards. Anthony is a long time PC enthusiast with a passion of hate for games built around consoles. FPS gaming since the pre-Quake days, where you were insulted if you used a mouse to aim, he has been addicted to gaming and hardware ever since. Working in IT retail for 10 years gave him great experience with custom-built PCs. His addiction to GPU tech is unwavering and has recently taken a keen interest in artificial intelligence (AI) hardware.

Newsletter Subscription
We openly invite the companies who provide us with review samples / who are mentioned or discussed to express their opinion. If any company representative wishes to respond, we will publish the response here. Please contact us if you wish to respond.