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Radeon 7900m makes a strong performance start, but battery life suffers

Grim5

Grim5

Grim5

Soldato
Joined
6 Feb 2019
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The new 7900m GPU has appeared in an Alienware laptop and its performance is quite strong, trading blows with the mobile RTX4080


However the power draw problems with RDNA3 are still here and are not resolved. The 7900m can idle at up to 100w and as a result the top of the range Alienware can burn through its battery in 90 minutes while doing light weight tasks like web browsing, where as the Nvidia Rtx4080 mobile version of the same laptop in the same conditions will last 270 minutes, 3 hours longer than the 7900m.
 
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Personally never bought a laptop in this kind of range to run it on battery, it is just an extra convenience factor. My 3070 laptop is plugged in 99% of the time I'm using it.
 
Rroff said:
Personally never bought a laptop in this kind of range to run it on battery, it is just an extra convenience factor. My 3070 laptop is plugged in 99% of the time I'm using it.
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I think that's why AMD isn't yet launching entry and mid range RDNA 3 models, because battery life does matter there, where as you're right, at the enthusiast level, as much as a meme it's, like you, people leave their laptop always plugged in and never move it, so power draw or battery doesn't matter
 
Grim5 said:
I think that's why AMD isn't yet launching entry and mid range RDNA 3 models, because battery life does matter there, where as you're right, at the enthusiast level, as much as a meme it's, like you, people leave their laptop always plugged in and never move it, so power draw or battery doesn't matter
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One of the reasons I have such a setup, it saves or isn't feasible lugging a PC around if away for work for a few weeks or staying with family, etc. etc. as touched on in your post if using something on battery it tends to be a lighter physically and more moderate spec - though these days I tend to use a Windows tablet for that rather than a traditional laptop.
 
I can't see anyone gaming on a laptop using battery

I've got a g14 with a 1660ti in it, but off battery it can't push the 1660ti to max out, I'd dread to think higher cards.
 
100w idle is insanity

However as most said, I wouldn't game on battery, even my Asus ROG Ally I rarely game on battery, on a train I'm near a plug socket and I'd plug it in too.
 
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Grim5 said:
However the power draw problems with RDNA3 are still here and are not resolved. The 7900m can idle at up to 100w and as a result the top of the range Alienware can burn through its battery in 90 minutes while doing light weight tasks like web browsing, where as the Nvidia Rtx4080 mobile version of the same laptop in the same conditions will last 270 minutes, 3 hours longer than the 7900m.
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Big oof!!!!
 
Damn, that idle power usage is crazy. I thought the idle issues with RDNA3 was generally only present with dual monitors? Didn't think a laptop would have the issue too
 
Idle at 100w yikes!!
No way that is good for general laptop thermals either. Nevermind the GPU itself.
My 4080 Legion doesn't go over 100w in balanced mode playing a game :)
Will hit 150w and 85c temp in performance mode.
 
I am surprised nobody at AMD especially guys at the top are getting fired for this. How can a laptop at idle be pulling more than my 7900xt does. This thing sips juice at idle and the laptop chip should be sipping even less due to the nature of a laptop and it's battery. It's got to be a software issue and how these kinds of errors get out the door is beyond me.
 
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Martini1991 said:
I can't see anyone gaming on a laptop using battery

I've got a g14 with a 1660ti in it, but off battery it can't push the 1660ti to max out, I'd dread to think higher cards.
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Might be "ok" on bigger chips, slow+wide is generally more power efficient for GPU performance than fast+narrow.
 
Jeepers that is bad.

My Zephyrus G16 never games on battery (would be completely pointless as it limits to 30FPS as there isn't enough power available), but general use it runs for hours - as the 3080 is asleep.. Even enabled it doesn't pull full power (~120w in the G16's case) unless actually running a task that requires it (plugged in). Also the case for the multiple dGPU laptops we have at work for the Design team. A couple have Radeon RX6600M's which don't exhibit this behavior (high idle draw). Heck even my wife's Flow Z13 with its stupid Core i9 12900H lasts around 5 hours with her writing away, listening to Spotify/YouTube videos and having god knows what open for book ideas.

The days of gaming laptops lasting minutes unplugged in general use is long gone (some exceptions exist*) thanks to modern power saving technologies like Optimus and whatever AMD call their version (plus core parking / sleep states / turbo etc on the CPU side of things).


How this sort of thing got past the base level of testing (either AMD or Dell/Alienware) is baffling and leads to terrible optics.


*From memory of some Jarrod's tech videos he had a couple of laptops from Acer and Dell that exhibited higher than expected power draw and thus shorter battery life. Not sure if these were fixed as not covered in the review.
 
www.notebookcheck.net

Radeon RX 7900M Alienware m18 R1 bugs addressed via display driver workaround

If you're experiencing display issues, Dell recommends rolling back your driver to v31.0.14076.3, A01. And if you're not, then don't update your display drivers at all even if AMD Adrenalin says otherwise. The latest drivers should be avoided for now until they are properly optimized for the...
www.notebookcheck.net www.notebookcheck.net

The recently-released Alienware m18 R1 was the very first laptop model in the world to ship with the new Radeon RX 7900M GPU designed to compete against the mobile GeForce RTX 4080. In our full review of the model, we found the AMD GPU to nearly rival the RTX 4080 in many titles while saving buyers over $500 USD. Nonetheless, we noted several major issues including black screens and freezes upon bootup. Thankfully, a quick fix is already available.


According to Dell, owners of the AMD-powered Alienware m18 R1 should install this specific display driver which is an older version from September 2023. Newer drivers, which we installed on our review unit, have not yet been optimized for the Alienware m18 R1 as of this writing which led to many of the issues we experienced. Users should therefore disable any Radeon auto-update features and stick with the older v31.0.14076.3, A01 driver for now even if AMD Adrenalin recommends otherwise. Dell themselves will push the update when newer drivers become ready at a future date.


After rolling back our display driver to the one Dell suggested, we can confirm that many of our issues had disappeared. The main screen would exhibit no wake-from-sleep or boot issues and even WLAN battery life would improve to 3.5 hours. Only more minor bugs would remain such as the inability to run 3DMark Speed Way, Blender Classroom HIP, or Baldur's Gate 3 on Vulkan.


In short, early adopters interested in the latest AMD-powered Alienware should therefore have nothing to worry about so long as they stick to a very specific display driver.
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videocardz.com

Alienware M18 issues can be resolved by using older RX 7900M GPU drivers, despite software recommending updates - VideoCardz.com

Alienware M18 (Ryzen 7945HX/Radeon 7900M) laptop issues can be fixed by using older AMD GPU drivers The only laptop with a Radeon RX 7900M on the market is having a rough start. There are both positive and negative developments regarding the Alienware M18 gaming laptop, manufactured by Dell. As...
videocardz.com videocardz.com

It appears the newest drivers were not working properly with the Dell specific implementation of the RX7900M and Notebookcheck needed to use the one from the Dell website!
 
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