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Ever since AMD launched its new RDNA 3 architecture in December 2022, it’s remained a mystery why they guzzle so much power when in an idle state. After all, why would a GPU do anything other than sip power when you’re just binging YouTube? Regardless, some hardware testers in Germany have seemingly stumbled not on a cause for this behavior but a solution, and it’s a simple one: Just enable variable refresh rate, and poof, the numbers go down instantly. It’s unclear why this is happening, and the site is still waiting to hear back from AMD. But it is good news for Radeon GPU owners as it applies to RDNA 3 cards and older RDNA 2 GPUs.
Computerbase in Germany recently upgraded its testing hardware, inadvertently revealing a previously hidden feature in Radeon GPUs that puts them to sleep when variable refresh rate (VRR) is enabled. The site had purchased a Powenetics V2 to measure GPU power consumption more accurately and updated its 4K 60Hz testing display to a model with a 144Hz refresh rate. The site found that by simply switching on VRR, power consumption plummeted on Radeon GPUs, which had the opposite effect on Nvidia GPUs.
The decline in power consumption when idle if using VRR is a bit surprising.
Credit: Computerbase.de
The report notes that when VRR was enabled on a Radeon RX 7900 XTX, idle power stood at a mere 20 watts. When disabling the feature for testing, they saw that number climb to 104W while running 4K resolution at 144Hz, which is an 81% increase. The site found this also applies to older GPUs like the Radeon RX 6800 XT, which had its idle power consumption fall by 79% when enabling VRR. Our sister site PCMag measured the Radeon RX 7900 XTX’s idle power consumption at 77 watts, in line with Ada Lovelace GPUs.
Tom’s Hardware notes that this simple trick had the opposite effect on Intel and Nvidia GPUs, deepening the mystery. For the flagship Arc A770, idle power consumption increased by 11% with a single monitor. For an RTX 4080, power consumption at idle increased by 25% with a lone display. The site says this is how it should be, though, as the GPU is doing more work by scaling the refresh rate up and down on the fly, so it’s unsure why AMD cards don’t behave similarly.
At this point, nobody knows why this is occurring, but we’ll report back if/when AMD issues an official response. For now, it seems imperative that anyone with a variable refresh rate monitor make sure the feature is enabled. You can turn it on in Windows and AMD’s drivers, but only by enabling it in the drivers will you see the benefits outlined here. The reason for the drivers having to force it to work is another part of the mystery.
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