RX6800XT Core frequency issues at low GPU usage

[deaththekid021]

Hello, Tech Tippers

 

To give some background, recently my RTX 3090 decided to crap out, no video out, not being detected in windows on multiple systems

 

During the meantime of RMA'ing it to EVGA, I've decided to drop in a RX 6800XT that I had laying around to hold me over, but lord I'm struggling

 

Right out of the gate feature wise I was aware I would be losing g-sync, and ray-tracing but come to also find out that I also lost the ability to have windows run 120hz refresh rate to my main monitor an Alienware AW3418DW(I'm guessing this is tied to g-sync)

 

However, the biggest issue is the severe downclocking the RX 6800XT is doing at low gpu usage where the core frequency would drop as low as 80hz!

 

These frequency drops has resulted in a choppy experience with anything that isn't putting load on the gpu. Which is driving me frankly nuts having 1080p youtube playback suddenly drop to 240p, choppy retro emulation, and desktop usage (it's choppy as I'm writing this post as well)

 

GPU temperatures are fine 52-75 degrees idle-load

 

As I became aware the frequency is closely tied to gpu usage as when I put actual load on the gpu it runs like a dream with stable advertised boost frequency

 

Using HWinfo to monitor the gpu core frequency, and I've set the min frequency in Adrenalin -100hz from max boost frequency, used MPT to disable the lower power states to ensure the gpu would stay in P1, also used DDU in safe mode removing the previous nivida drivers and AMD drives as I've initially suspected driver issues and did some clean reinstalls of Adrenalin and checking the GPU manufacture site and the vbios collection on techPowerup and couldn't find an newer vbios than whats on the GPU currently, re-enabled re-bar support as my mobo disabled it when I swapped out my 3090, and did multiple power drains on the system (removing system from power and holding the power button in for 5-10secs then plugging it back into power and then turning the system back on)

 

I guess, at this point I would like to know if this is what the average experience is for modern AMD graphics so that AMD can come out and say "Oh our new gpu's are more power efficient then nvidia b/c we aggressively throttle the gpu power at idle or low load" as I've been using nvidia as my main gpu vendor day 1 so was kind of looking forward to seeing what AMD was bringing to the table to compete with nvida. But it seems like to me that all the memes I've seen bashing AMD had some truth behind them

 

My system is as follows:

CPU: I9 10900X OC'ed to 5GHz

Memory: 32gb 4x8gb G.Skill Trident Z 3000MHz

Mobo: Asus Rampage VI APEX with latest bios

PSU: Corsair HX100i

GPU: Yeston RX 6800XT 16GB

[191x7]

Try disabling the Ultra Low Power State (ULPS). And Multi-plane Overlay (MPO) from Windows.

[Alinz]

Using Radeon Chill in adrenalin software could help with this issue also, set a base fps which will be hit comfortably and set max to whatever you like.

 

Ive personally also seen good results by using enhanced sync in certain games (such as rdr2, i had the same problem you had in that game and for some reason this seemed to have solved that issue)

[deaththekid021]

Thank you for the suggestions above, will give both a shot and test and see over the weekend and post again on the experience

[deaththekid021]

Reporting back, using both suggestions, performance has certainty improved for low GPU usage applications, made sure to reset More Power Tools back to stock config(re-enabling c-states on the gpu)

 

apricate it

[191x7]

4 hours ago, deaththekid021 said:

Reporting back, using both suggestions, performance has certainty improved for low GPU usage applications, made sure to reset More Power Tools back to stock config(re-enabling c-states on the gpu)

 

apricate it

Just don't use Radeon Chill. Thats a feature that does more harm than good in most games/cases.