The AMD Driver Thread

gpuerrilla · 27 Dec 2018 at 08:52

Brazo said:
Yes ok some exaggeration

But very noticeable for someone who is a silent pc fanatic. @Dicehunter I used to have the strix 1080 and yes that was a great cooler and very quiet. The Saphire pulse isn’t as good

Much exhaggerated. I also have a palit 1060 and the sappire vega is the same noise if not quieter when running the same rpm. If you are a noise connoiseur then you either drop it to water cooling or setup the case properly where they have voltage reduced fans to keep the noise down and use vibration dampening grommits etc.

Personally I love a quiet setup but as it comes at a price I am happy to adjust it so that its not irritating but keeping the components cool.

Just for reference I have both vega and 1060 mining @100% usage on a 30% fan speed and I cannot hear them over the case fans.

Brazo · 27 Dec 2018 at 09:30

Th0nt said:
Much exhaggerated. I also have a palit 1060 and the sappire vega is the same noise if not quieter when running the same rpm. If you are a noise connoiseur then you either drop it to water cooling or setup the case properly where they have voltage reduced fans to keep the noise down and use vibration dampening grommits etc.

Personally I love a quiet setup but as it comes at a price I am happy to adjust it so that its not irritating but keeping the components cool.

Just for reference I have both vega and 1060 mining @100% usage on a 30% fan speed and I cannot hear them over the case fans.

I get the feeling that it may have been higher than 30% now with all these comments. Even though I set the fan curved to the lowest possible on 18.12.3 it was actually quieter in gaming since I rolled back. So perhaps reporting 30% but a lot higher. Either way it’s shoddy work AMD.

I too used to have a 1060 and it was the quietest air card I’ve ever had. Yes I have my case set up with rubber grommits on all fans but you won’t find many true silent pc fans using water cooling. Whilst they are quieter under load the thought of constant pump noise is a complete no no. I (and I admit I go too far!) want no more noise than a ‘stone’ at idle/low power. I can put up with some fan noise at gaming but reading some rtx2070 reviews on air cooling that my well be my next jump.

gpuerrilla · 27 Dec 2018 at 11:12

I know where your coming from @Brazo as my next build will go towards a quiet prioritised setup. For an air blower card the 1060 was impressive I think it has to go above 50% to be loud enough to notice. This is why the Sapphire pulse has to be equally high as its in the same rig and when I am tinkering would not be able to say one card is noisier than the other.

The buggy driver should not be used, I think I am on 18.12.1 and its pretty solid so will not change this unless I am confident the newer driver is going to be worth it.

Brazo said:
I can put up with some fan noise at gaming but reading some rtx2070 reviews on air cooling that my well be my next jump.

The 1070 in not as good as the vega, maybe the 2070 is slightly better overall but for the cost difference it would not be advisable until them prices drop by a large enough chunk.

Winky_The_Winking_Turtle · 28 Dec 2018 at 06:58

How do I get everything working nicely together?
Boot up PC, have to manually apply Undervolt profile because it doesn't automatically do it on start up for whatever reason.
AMD's fan curve sucks, so have to go into MSI Afterburner, move the fan curve back and fourth to make it change, and apply.
Bit of a faff to do every fresh boot.
Not to mention I can't rebind keys for overlays, etc. on AMD drivers for whatever reason too!

gpuerrilla · 28 Dec 2018 at 09:44

I have seen AB cause some issues and remove it to see if instability goes away.

Dicehunter · 28 Dec 2018 at 10:20

Th0nt said:
I have seen AB cause some issues and remove it to see if instability goes away.

I stopped AB from launching with the OS and Wattman keeps all my settings, If I launch AB then Wattman defaults back to Balanced.

gpuerrilla · 28 Dec 2018 at 11:51

Dicehunter said:
I stopped AB from launching with the OS and Wattman keeps all my settings, If I launch AB then Wattman defaults back to Balanced.

Are we agreeing it can throw settings off? I agree that if your having issues you need to uninstall it and set driver back to defaults before you start tinkering elsewhere.

Dicehunter · 28 Dec 2018 at 12:45

Th0nt said:
Are we agreeing it can throw settings off? I agree that if your having issues you need to uninstall it and set driver back to defaults before you start tinkering elsewhere.

Yep, I uninstalled AB ages ago, Not had any issues since.

gpuerrilla · 28 Dec 2018 at 14:02

Dicehunter said:
Yep, I uninstalled AB ages ago, Not had any issues since.

Its a flexible program but when Wattman is part of the driver set or even OverdriveN would be my order before touching AB when using AMD.

YB2ndBEST · 29 Dec 2018 at 00:18

So finally picked up BFV a couple days ago and was a bit perplexed at the amount of fps and inconsistent frame times I was getting. BF1 runs beaaaaaauuuuttifullyyy maxed out and didn't think BFV was that much better looking to warrant such a drop in performance. I tried everything from overriding AA and AF in the driver settings, checking my overclock, changing the rendered frame counts, and then finally disabling / turning graphical fidelity down

Frames were still all over the place and this was on the 18.12.2 driver.

Just for poops and laughs I rolled back to 18.11.2 and reset all the graphics options back to ultra and sure enough it's beautiful and smooth with glorious frame rates at 1440p just like BF1!!!!

Anyone else get a performance degradation with the latest driver and BFV?

gpuerrilla · 29 Dec 2018 at 09:34

Downloading Mass Effect Andromeda to see how this FX cpu performs. I have been on RoE but that game is strangely done there is no way in telling as it looks to still be in beta.

scotty63 · 29 Dec 2018 at 09:41

I'm staying on 18.11.2 untill they sort all this out.

shankly1985 · 29 Dec 2018 at 11:48

YB2ndBEST said:
So finally picked up BFV a couple days ago and was a bit perplexed at the amount of fps and inconsistent frame times I was getting. BF1 runs beaaaaaauuuuttifullyyy maxed out and didn't think BFV was that much better looking to warrant such a drop in performance. I tried everything from overriding AA and AF in the driver settings, checking my overclock, changing the rendered frame counts, and then finally disabling / turning graphical fidelity down Frames were still all over the place and this was on the 18.12.2 driver.

Just for poops and laughs I rolled back to 18.11.2 and reset all the graphics options back to ultra and sure enough it's beautiful and smooth with glorious frame rates at 1440p just like BF1!!!!

Anyone else get a performance degradation with the latest driver and BFV?

Nope BF5 is running so smooth for me.

1440p maxed out settings.

YB2ndBEST · 30 Dec 2018 at 05:12

shankly1985 said:
Nope BF5 is running so smooth for me.

1440p maxed out settings.

Unless it's due to relive... I consistently get higher fps than you while using the older driver. I was averaging about what you're seeing in your video, give or take a few, when I was on the same 18.12.2, but I was getting spikes and dips that you clearly aren't. Almost all the time that I'm looking at my fps I'm over 100 (even in rotterdam) unless it's like 3 tanks and 2 planes destroying the area I'm in then I'll get in the high 80's. That opening area in rotterdam I'm high around 95 - 99fps then as I approach the bridge it's in the 100's creepign to 110ish just for any comparison. I too play 1440p maxed out. Beautiful game!!!

Without recording we are probably identical frametimes at this point. Not sure why it's not like that on the latest driver for me though

I wanted it for AC: odyssey.

gpuerrilla · 30 Dec 2018 at 10:06

Th0nt said:
Downloading Mass Effect Andromeda to see how this FX cpu performs.

Tested this last night and it plays extremely well. Not a bad title at all, got it on the Origin basic deal.

shankly1985 · 30 Dec 2018 at 14:18

YB2ndBEST said:
Unless it's due to relive... I consistently get higher fps than you while using the older driver. I was averaging about what you're seeing in your video, give or take a few, when I was on the same 18.12.2, but I was getting spikes and dips that you clearly aren't. Almost all the time that I'm looking at my fps I'm over 100 (even in rotterdam) unless it's like 3 tanks and 2 planes destroying the area I'm in then I'll get in the high 80's. That opening area in rotterdam I'm high around 95 - 99fps then as I approach the bridge it's in the 100's creepign to 110ish just for any comparison. I too play 1440p maxed out. Beautiful game!!!

Without recording we are probably identical frametimes at this point. Not sure why it's not like that on the latest driver for me though I wanted it for AC: odyssey.

I not sure Relive is taking away much frames from me tbh
I think I always have had this much frame rate even before the end of year driver. Had to say for sure without a fair benchmark of the older and new drivers.

I'll look at my settings again am sure I have the latency settings enabled gives lower fps for better input lag or is it the other way around.

burgundy · 30 Dec 2018 at 16:13

Maybe I'm doing something wrong or I'm misunderstood but I thought the purpose of undervolting was to reduce power draw & temperatures.

Using the 18.12.1 drivers I set power limit to 50%, state 7 voltage 1070mV and state 6 1040mV (didn't touch frequency), GPU-Z log recorded a 20% increase in temps & power draw during a fire strike extreme stress test.

Steampunk · 30 Dec 2018 at 17:17

burgundy said:
Maybe I'm doing something wrong or I'm misunderstood but I thought the purpose of undervolting was to reduce power draw & temperatures.

Using the 18.12.1 drivers I set power limit to 50%, state 7 voltage 1070mV and state 6 1040mV (didn't touch frequency), GPU-Z log recorded a 20% increase in temps & power draw during a fire strike extreme stress test.

But did the clock speed stay at boost instead of downclocking? You undervolt so that the card stays cool, and thus can stay at it's boost speed instead of thermally throttling down. You get performance that way, but it can generate more heat than letting the card downclock to its baseline speed.

I'd run the test again, and with the powerlimit set lower to see the difference, while keeping and eye on the clock speed. You might prefer a halfway solution by lowering the powerlimit to 20 or 30. This should reduce power/heat for a little cost in performance.

burgundy · 30 Dec 2018 at 18:46

Steampunk said:
But did the clock speed stay at boost instead of downclocking?

Stock the clock speed hovered around 1442 Mhz according to GPU-Z, with my undervolt 1544 MHz. I just ran another fire strike extreme stress test with power limit set to 30%, clock (1544), temps (71c) and GPU only power draw (218w) were virtually identical to when it was set to 50%.

Stock with the latest drivers (instead of the 18.12.1 drivers I'm using now) I was getting lower clocks (hovered around 1400) but temps were 10c lower and GPU only power draw was 30w lower.

DragonQ · 30 Dec 2018 at 22:33

Martini1991 said:
So, the fan curve isn't dynamic, it's static points?
When it hits X it will do Y. Rather than dynamically adjust. That's just typical AMD laziness.

Or just preference. I've always done it this way in Afterburner because if your fan is constantly changing, the pitch and general sound it makes will also constantly change. If it's only switching between 2 or 3 static values the change is far less annoying and noticeable IMO.