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AMD Details Driver Fix For Radeon RX 480's Controversial, Spec-Exceeding Power Draw (pcworld.com)
AMD's 150-watt Radeon RX 480 apparently draws more power than it is supposed to. According to Tom's Hardware blog, AMD's new graphics card used an average of 168W under load. Furthermore, the publication found that card pulled up to a whopping 90W over the motherboard's PCI-E slot, far exceeding the 75W maximum the slot it rated for. PC Perspective's findings were similar, with Witcher 3 title consuming over 190W of sustained power draw when the RX 480 was overclocked. Worse, the blog discovered that AMD's card drew 7 amps over the PCI-E slot's +12v rail, which is rated for 5.5 amps maximum. These issues could theoretically (but not likely) damage lower-end motherboards in extreme circumstances, writes PCWorld. The chip company last week addressed the concerns, noting that it will soon release a software fix. In a new statement to PCWorld, the company adds:"We promised an update today (July 5, 2016) following concerns around the Radeon RX 480 drawing excess current from the PCIe bus. Although we are confident that the levels of reported power draws by the Radeon RX 480 do not pose a risk of damage to motherboards or other PC components based on expected usage, we are serious about addressing this topic and allaying outstanding concerns. Towards that end, we assembled a worldwide team this past weekend to investigate and develop a driver update to improve the power draw. We're pleased to report that this driver -- Radeon Software 16.7.1 -- is now undergoing final testing and will be released to the public in the next 48 hours. In this driver we've implemented a change to address power distribution on the Radeon RX 480 -- this change will lower current drawn from the PCIe bus. Separately, we've also included an option to reduce total power with minimal performance impact. Users will find this as the "compatibility" UI toggle in the Global Settings menu of Radeon Settings. This toggle is "off" by default. Finally, we've implemented a collection of performance improvements for the Polaris architecture that yield 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 substantially offset the performance impact for users who choose to activate the "compatibility" toggle.
These cards may or may not damage your motherboard, but there is zero doubt that in the default configuration -- not some out of spec hacked BIOS configuration -- they are not compliant with the PCIe standards.
Putting that PCIe logo on the box is therefore deceptive marketing and AMD should be held accountable here.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Does the software update effects performance? I bet it just throttles the card
So it's going to draw to much directly from the PSU instead then?
I mean, if the default mode doesn't reduce overall power draw, but it does reduce draw from the motherboard, that means it must increase draw from the 6 pin PCIe connector. If the card can draw up to 190W, and only 75W of that is coming from the motherboard, that means 115W is being drawn over a 6 pin PCIe connector which is only designed to have 75W pulled from it. I fully expect the issue to simply move from burned out motherboards to burned out power supplies.
It says so right there in the article, you get a choice of keeping the same performance, or dropping power draw. That means that if you don't lower the power draw, these cards are going to continue to draw 190W in some cases, and in doing so, draw 115W of that over a 75W 6 pin PCIe connector instead of over the motherboard PCIe connector. Burned out PSUs instead of motherboards, here we come!
Without you, I'd end up buying unfixed crap like this! And at full price, too!
Stupid sexy Flanders.
AMD has smart people working for them, how they missed this and launched the card I'm at a loss to explain...
Unless they didn't miss it and hoped no one would notice... Or the left hand didn't talk to the right hand...
As for the extra power coming from the 6-pin PCI-E connector, that doesn't bother me so much, most modern power supplies can do that just fine.
I said *most*, some won't be able to, this is indeed a problem, but for most people the fix is just to update the drivers and the few that it isn't, to put it in "compatibility mode"
The problem is, the people who need *compatibility mode* are exactly the people who won't know that and won't do it.
I think it is a mistake to not make compatibility mode the default and let people manually adjust to the higher draw mode.
At least most people putting in such a high end card will be putting in ridiculously overpowered gaming PSUs
That's the thing - the RX480 isn't really a high end card. It's pretty firmly low end to mid range.
High powered? This is their budget card, not their flagship model (that has not been released yet).
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
foder e morrer
Ironically, they were reports of X99 and 990FX motherboards killed, so high end boards aren't sized for oversized PCIe slot current either.
For the 6pin, no need to give a crap.
A 400W PSU is likely fine.
They're gonna under clock the card to make it work. Some lawyer's gonna notice and walk away with a few million...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Climate change will thank you
You don't need to put in "ridiculously powerful gaming PSUs" for a 150W card. You most likely just need an ordinary, decent quality PSU, one that can actually deliver the power it promises on the box. Seasonic or be quiet! are some of the common choices.
Ezekiel 23:20
First of all, they're stating that it drew more power when overclocked. Yes, that's how overclocking works. Second, since when do graphics cards draw anything other than fan power from the PCI-E slot when they have external power hooked up? I've been told by many people that it draws nothing from the motherboard in that case. You can't even run a GPU on 2 separate power circuits from a PSU safely anyway.
I would just wait for the third party solutions that come with an 8 pin connector.
So AMD messed up on the reference design. Once the XFX, Sapphire and Asus versions come out, how many people would still spring for the reference version?
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
publish a new review with the now throtteled cards.
Is it a surprise that overclocking the card causes it to draw more power than it was designed for? Is it a surprise that as designed it is close to the limits of the power specs of the bus? It seems the problem isn't the card, but forcing the card into a configuration that it wasn't designed for. Here's a car example - back in the day, when they had distributors, you could manually changed the timing to improve performance. However, if you advanced the timing, too much, you could damage the engine. Is that the fault of the distributor, the engine or the person trying to "overclock" their car?
I know of two people who've lost their PCIe slot due to these bastards. I was considering getting one for my system, but no longer. I'm still a HUGE fan of AMD, but this is gross negligence.
No, but it does mean that the person's posts are now trackable by clicking on the person's username on their post. You can tell what posts he's made on Slashdot or made an account for just one post and maybe see what posts he's made on other sites under that username though there's no guarantee that the person on other sites using that username is the same person.
Alternatively if the Coward had provided a link to a forum where he (or somebody) discussed the failure, that could help too. I try to always post under my username though the Post Anonymously checkbox is easy to hit accidentally on my phone.
fuck the lot of you
i post ac because if the industry i work for at the top levels and for three decades (high tech in finance/banking/investment) knew what I REALLY thought, I'd never work again.
Yeah WTH?! Overclocking can draw more power? Whodathink? If the company established a "sorry no overclocking or you void your warranty" policy the same morons would be all up in arms about taking away their freedom to do what they want with hardware they've paid for. You ca't have it both ways geniuses.
Granted there was likely some carelessness here, probably in communication between the engineers who designed the cards and the performance folks (as well as the actual card vendors who sell out of the box overclocked hardware), but really, I wouldn't really trust the judgement of anyone who is actually surprised by things like this. And I'd like to keep AMD around, if for no other reason than to nip at the heels of Intel and Nvidia to keep them in check so they don't just rest on their laurels and stagnate in monopoly heaven. I've run numerous cards from both companies, and I have an R9 Nano in a smaller box (and really have only good things to say about it so far (coil whine notwithstanding)).
On a forum where people bitch about being tracked in the slightest, this is okay. Dafuqsbro
Well, the good news is you won't freeze in the wintertime, as long as you can afford the electric bill. People should not be buying this junk. They need to demand that they open source their damn drivers.
*sigh* the decline continues. It's a reflection of our politics, too. We need a dictator to whip people back into shape. I like that guy from the Philippines, with Trump as VP. He should treat AMD execs like drug dealers and put a bounty on their heads. Maybe then they will get scared into producing something that works! We need FORCE! we need POWER! But AMD is consuming it all.
The best-selling brand of power supply by far right now is probably EVGA. I just got my first one on the basis that they have become the go-to, I'll find out in a little while what I think of it. Corsair and Cooler Master are probably both more popular than Seasonic or be quiet.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Different ac here. I post anon most of the time even though I'm logged in. Why? 'Cause I often have mod points (often as in once or twice a week) and posting and modding are prohibited in the same discussion.
Some people actually noticed performance improvements when using lower power settings.
Ezekiel 23:20
If you've worked "at the top levels" in tech/finance for 3 decades, you could have retired 2 decades ago.
Burned out PSUs instead of motherboards, here we come!
Exceedingly unlikely. The excess power draw through the motherboard was already being fed by the PSU.
Most PSUs have a single 12V rail that supplies all components in the system, including the motherboard.
As a result, the 12V rail is typically rated to supply most of the PSU's wattage. I would expect no issues unless the total system draw is near the PSU's capacity.
E.g., I have a 400W Seasonic PSU that can supply ~350W on the 12V line. I have an older GPU rated for 200W, and it has worked fine for years.
Swapping in the RX 480 with its 150-180W draw would cause no issues---especially after this driver fix. All power above the 75W limit for the PCIe slot will now be drawn from the ancillary power connector, as it should be. This is the same as previous cards, among them the 250-300W monstrosities marketed as Fury/Titan.
---
According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
Several Corsair and Cooler Master PSUs *are* Seasonics rebadged. And no, EVGA power supplies are not at all common choices.
Sorry, but this article is about overclocking, which - by definition - means pushing the hardware beyond the specifications of the vendor. You choose to do something with it, that the vendor did not intend. If you choose to push the hardware beyond the specifications provided by the vendor, then the results are solely your responsibility too. You may feel that, because you bought and own the hardware, it's up to you to do whatever you wish with it: but that only goes so far. If you choose to set the hardware on fire - because you feel that it's your unalienable right to do with it whatever you want - and then you proceed to stick your hands in it (ouch, that hurts!), then that's entirely your fault, and not the fault of the hardware vendor.
Yeah, because we all know that your Slashdot ID is just as traceable as your actual name, social security number, etc.
Get over yourself.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
AC has delusion, methinks. Or maybe he cleans the offices of the top level....
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
" It seems the problem isn't the card, but forcing the card into a configuration that it wasn't designed for."
This is exactly the issue, but the nvidia launches have had AMD worried about benchmark results so they chose a power/clocking profile that is too much for the board as it was designed. So they're backpedaling and offering a setting to make the card a few percents slower in the driver revision talked about in the blurb.
The car analogy is a car making company made a small fuck up.
No. Now go back to troll school, and apply yourself this time.
Some people actually noticed performance improvements when using lower power settings.
That's because they bundled this fix with some new driver optimizations. I'm guessing if you applied the same optimizations at the higher power, it would perform even better (or maybe be just more cpu limited).
Yet another unnecessary class action lawsuit will be filed where the class members will receive coupons and the lawyers millions for providing no ultimate benefit to the consumer (in 3 . . . 2 . . .1 . . .).
Except the article I read wasn't saying anything about new drivers, only about different settings.
Ezekiel 23:20
Oh, come on... anybody with any sense knows that if you actually work at the top levels of your industry, if anyone knows what you really think and disagree with it, they'd never work again.
Thus defeating the purpose of not allowing people to both mod and post. I really do wish they'd fix that bug one way or another, either by allowing people to post and mod in the same discussion or by closing the loophole that allows you to check the 'Post Anonymously' button while you are logged in and mod the discussion and while they are at it, log the IP address for 24 hours to prevent you from being able to mod simply by logging out. That covers the biggest loopholes, but it's all the same to me if they simply do away with it. Though I apparently seem to be on some sort of moderation blacklist since I was never given mod points ever again since around the time there were a lot of people complaining they were banned from moderating on account of participating in a particular thread I have no memory of taking part in. Googling thread Slashdot banned from moderating returns no relevant hits. Maybe I should try emailing banned@slashdot.org?
Different AC, yet again. I routinely bypass all of the measures you just proposed with this wonderful thing called a vpn. I never get the "slow down cowboy" or "you have to wait ten minutes to post" messages. I can spam all day long til my heart's content. Someone with hack in their name should already know this.
Ah, but the hackwrench name comes from the name of Gadget Hackwrench who was a fictional character in the show Disney's Rescue Rangers and had little to do with what the word hack has come to mean with computers and more really old school working with machines. Still there is no excuse, but I did say something along the lines of the most obvious loopholes. I am also poor, so while I know of VPNs I am not routinely in contact with the technology to experiment with, though I have seen claims of lifetime VPN for more money than I am willing to shell out. I have been experimenting with P2P though, and of course the potential of the business going kaput. I hadn't realized that VPN solutions were that complete or that Slashdot vetted posts by IP address instead of username as opposed to potentially in addition to username. Spammers have poisoned TOR addresses. I figure it might be a matter of time before they poison VPN addresses as well.
It's positioned as midrange. "Budget" makes it sound like it's lowrange.
The 190W draw when overclocked is not AMD's problem. If you use the card in an unspecified way and it exceeds its specifications, it's your problem. The excessive power draw from the PCIe bus is certainly a problem and they should fix it in the default configuration. Aside from that, if they can't get the card down to 150W total they should switch to an 8 pin power connector or dual 6 pin connectors. I suspect that third party overclocked cards will do that in any case even if the reference design remains unchanged.