AMD's new driver radically reduces power usage on Radeon RX 6000 GPUs

AMD has some rather impressive power consumption improvements in its new Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.4.1 drivers, with the Radeon RX 6800, Radeon RX 6800 XT and Radeon RX 6900 XT all seeing great reductions with idle and media playback power consumption.

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The new Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.4.1 drivers include a bunch of new tricks, including a new version of AMD Link software that can be installed onto your PC and lets you stream up to 4K 144Hz content from your RDNA 2-powered Radeon RX 6000 series GPU to an ultra-low-power notebook, tablet, or smartphone.

But then TechPowerUp noticed some impressive power consumption improvements on the higher-end RDNA 2-based Radeon RX 6000 series graphic cards -- where with idle power and media playback the power consumption has been improved greatly over the March 21.3.2 drivers. We're looking at ~50W of power consumption with media playback on the Radeon RX 6800, Radeon RX 6800 XT and just over 50W power usage on the Radeon RX 6900 XT -- reduced to around ~35W.

Idle power consumption numbers are even more impressive, dropping from just under 30W on the Radeon RX 6800, Radeon RX 6800 XT and Radeon RX 6900 XT to just 7W or so with the new Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.4.1 drivers. Great to see from AMD.