RDNA 3 High Idle Power Draw Issue Fixed in Latest Driver Update

AMD’s RDNA 3 GPU architecture has been drawing more power than expected due to a bug that first cropped up in December 2022.

AMD has released a new graphics driver for their RDNA 3 GPU/iGPU’s which fixed high idle power issues experienced by Radeon RX 7000 users. The issue has, so far, been resolved by the latest AMD Adrenalin Edition 23.7.1. This has solved the issue in Windows, we are not sure if it has overed all incidents of the issue.

Additionally, the fix seems to be not just for the RX 7900 XT, where the issue was initially discovered, but for all the RX 7000 series GPU’s. The fix was applied to all RX 7000 cards as it was discovered, after the first report, that the issue affected the whole RX 7000 family – which is now more than just the high-end SKU’s with the release of the Radeon 7600.

“Improvements to high idle power when using select 4k@144Hz FreeSync enabled displays or multimonitor display configurations (such as 4k@144HZ or 4k@120Hz + 1440p@60Hz display) using on Radeon RX 7000 series GPUs” – AMD driver release notes.

Other fixes for RDNA 3 include fixing occasional stuttering in VR games and applications and fixing the crashing and timeout issue with the video editing application DaVinci Resolve.

If your favourite game or application uses the Vulkan API, you may appreciate that support for additional Vulkan extensions have been implemented by AMD in the Adrenalin Edition 23.7.1 update.

The list of know issues with RDNA 3 is still a much longer list than the implemented fixes, but at least we know AMD is actively working on ironing out these issues.

It should also be mentioned that AMD has temporarily disabled the “Factory Reset” driver install feature. In March 2023, it was reported that the aforementioned option was bricking Windows Installs. There is not a workaround; AMD recommends users run its AMD Cleanup Utility if they desire or need to start fresh.