Drivers & Software

[atman777]

Hello, I've recently purchased Sapphire RX 570 ITX for occasional light gaming and I have some questions.

1. Does Wattman (or any other 3rd party utility for that matter) include option similar to the one present in Nvidia inspector "Prefer maximum performance"?
Seems like extremely important option especially for the currently infamous AMD's downclocking/FPS drops issues - do people at AMD seriously think people are buying relatively powerful discrete gaming GPUs mainly to save power?
Honestly I'm quite perplexed by this behaviour.
The only thing similar is the "Power limit" percentage setting but that seems to be tied to the power draw and not displayed FPS.
Another thing coming to mind is the "Chill" function which allows to set min and max FPS but then it's presented as a another motherloving power-saving feature so I'm quite doubtful about that.

2. There's a strange issue with the fan curve in Wattman (driver ver.19.11.2) where for the love of God it just denies to be set lower than 38 % no matter what I do which is quite irritating. Manually editing the xml doesn't help at all. The lowest value is stubbornly set to 38 % from 0°C. Is this a known bug of this "great" SW? Or a Sapphire specific issue?
Of course I can set the curve any way I like in say MSI Afterburner (or certain version of Trixx, some versions don't work properly - shitty coding there Sapphire), but then I need 2 apps eating limited resources to control my GPU.
And another related thing - the "Min Acoustic Limit" should help maintain set frequency by increasing the fan speed and it seems like it's always on. Does it somehow interfere with manually set fan curves in wattman or other apps? How does it work exactly, anyone cares to explain? AMD really works in mysterious ways.
I sure as hell won't subject myself to that ridiculous automatic default fan setting - 0 revs till 50°C then sudden "explosion" of revs and then the same abrupt dead silence of 0 revs. What the actual sexual intercourse Sapphire/AMD.

3. Also there seems to be some issues with the overall (in)stability of the GPU especially when idle - I left the PC for half an hour and came to black screen and had to hard reset. Not quite sure whether it's HW or drivers' issue or what but it definitely doesn't inspire much confidence in AMD solutions. In another instances turning the display on and off solved it.

I'm considering returning the card (still within 14-day period), because for a few hours of gaming a week there seems to be a lot of hassle with this product.

Too bad my reincarnated baked Gainward HD 4870 controlled by extremely lightweight and easy-to-use Ati Tray Tools went to silicon heaven after 9+ years of service.
Maybe I'll just stick to my backup GT 710 and play only 2D games or 3D games from 15+ years ago.
I wanted to support AMD and to be honest their cards are cheaper here than comparable Nvidia alternatives (roughly 40 % or so in mid-range GPUs), but they're surely not making it easy.

Have a nice and productive day.

Edit. Would you recommend any specific previous driver version for the RX 5XX series based on your positive experience which may work better than 19.11.2? Or should I try the most recent one?

[shonk]

they do need this as a tick box when in a game i want my gpu to downclock never

but the only way around it atm is to set state 7 as min and max on the gpu core

and the same for the memory but this results in huge power use on the desktop

[atman777]

Thanks for your input regarding the unwanted underclocking while gaming but huge power draw aside that would mean clicking through the not the most responsive Radeon SW to get to Wattman (I should be able to get there from main screen in one click IMO, as it's probably the most important/used part of the SW along with game profiles) and set it like this every time before launching a game. That's just mightily inconvenient. Only if there were keyboard shortcuts for setting clocks if it's somehow impossible to imitate Nvidia's solution. The moral is that you shouldn't get used to superior third-party apps unless you want to be disappointed.

What about the fan curve - anybody (with any card, not just Sapphire RX570) experiencing similar limitations in Wattman while being able to set it any way you like in other apps? It's rather frustrating when the product doesn't work properly with the official SW whereas there are no issues in say MSI Afterburner.

And I'm still confused as to how exactly the "min acoustic limit" affects the fan curve (maybe no one really knows or knows but doesn't want to share the information). And why there's not a simple toggle switch to turn it on/off.

[jl5086]

I must concur that I have the same frustrations, my old RX580 would automatically ramp right up to 1450mhz/2050mhz mem,  and stay there no matter what until the second I closed the game or software.  That was very reliable, therefore I always got what I expected for performance.  With this upgrade to an RX 5700 XT, some games actually play WORSE on this new card, while some no longer work at all,  I can watch during almost all games and since I have v-sync enabled (60hz) the game will be at 60fps +/-1 and every few seconds the mem clock will drop from 900mhz to 150mhz!  Just long enough for the fps to drop to 30, then it goes back up!  The GPU clock will also go from 2050, down to 300mhz, with similar results in fps loss,  but they also do it independently of each other,  so one second it's the memory dropping, then next the clock speed of the GPU.  The only way in game to slap it back awake is to run the game in 4k ultra, then it clocks right up and tries to stay,  but then it's maxed out and can only give 30fps anyway.  Even if I run the games at 1080p, low everything, no AA,  then the GPU is only utilizing about 20% yet the clocks still drop down to 150mhz, then back up to 800 or so, and I get the same results, every time I move around, or the scene gets busy my FPS drop from 60 down to 35 or less!   That is very unplayable when it makes you nauseous because the screen is jerking around so much!  My RX580, same game, 1440p, ultra, msaa x4, 60fps steady! , PLUS it only cost me $175!     As far as Wattman is concerned,  I don't really care about the sound of the blower, I wear NC headphones and my PC is out of the way,  So I prefer my fan curve pretty aggressive while gaming.  So that pretty much ruled out even experimenting with any of the "AUTO" overclock, under-volt or memory features, since they absolutely lock you out of ALL other options when you use them! and there is no way I was going to use their "default" fan curve, especially with an overclock, since at it's max they have it at like 40%, and that's when the GPU is at 100 degrees!   The stupidest part is that there is absolutely no reason they shouldn't let the user RAISE the fan curve with the auto overclock on,  it would only help!  At this point I don't trust this GPU to "automatically" do anything, given the way it can't even control itself under normal conditions.

[prodoctor1987]

Same FPS issues,... My 4 year old Nvidia card works better in some games,... Never had FPS drops. 5700 XT AUTO POWER SAVING my *** ! Such ****. 

[jl5086]

One more VERY frustrating note,  This RX 5700XT has problems running Vulkan titles at the appropriate (and usually set in game) display refresh rate,  it will set my display (4k screen) to 30hz.  It does it with every other monitor I have tried, if the game settings ley you choose the refresh rate, say 24, 30 or 60hz, it is still always at 30hz.  It doesn't matter if I have the resolution at 4k, 1440, 1080 or even 720p,  the only way to get the games to display at 60hz is to play it in windowed, or windowed borderless.   Just to make it more insulting, every game that does this has the Powered by AMD/Ryzen, so you would think it would be optimized to work better on THOSE systems!  I don't hold my breath anymore for answers from AMD on this issue though,  it seems people are far 5noiseyer about other issues I guess.