As several others I am experiencing audio stutters, drop outs, cuts or however you would want to call it, when passing the audio via HDMI directly, or via a Display Port to HDMI cable, to an Audio Video Receiver (AVR). From what I have read at least the RX 5000 and RX 6000 series are affected.
I personally have a RX 5600 connected to an Onkyo TX-NR696.
What I found out so far:
Until October 2020, the problem was independent of the source. All Music, Videos, Games, Browser audio (e.g. Youtube, etc.) had that problem. Also passed through audio (DTS, Dolby Digital, etc.) was (sometimes) stuttering. I didn't make a note about which multi-channel audio was stuttering, if it was only Dolby Digital, DTS HD-MA, DD+, or whatever, I don't know. Fact is, some movies and series had stuttering audio.
Make note that the problem is also independent of the OS. I have a dual boot with Win 10 and Linux Mint 20, using the official 'amdgpu' driver, where I have exactly the same problem.
In October 2020 AMD claims they have fixed the problem in driver version 20.10.1, but it persists. They appear to have solved the problem for multi-channel audio only.
I experience no problems anymore when selecting a 7.1 (or 5.1) channel setup in Windows 10. Also passing through audio when watching movies seems to work just fine.
As soon as I select stereo output as a speaker setup, the problem is back. Leaving the audio channels to 7.1 is a workaround, no permanent solution. I do want to output audio as stereo, e.g. when listening to music. I want the AVR to upmix using one of it's Dolby ProLogic IIx, THX Music, etc. upmixing algorithms. If I select a 7.1 channel output I get 8 channels, 6 of which are silent. Only front left and front right are used for the stereo audio, but then my receiver "thinks" it is multi-channel already, so there is no way to upmix using one of the fancy algorithms of the AVR I want to use.
I don't expect anyone here to solve my problem, that must be done by AMD. I am just trying to group all complaints regarding this topic in one thread in the hopes to raise some awareness. Maybe AMD is scanning this forum and I expect they take care about the thread with most posts.
So please, if you experience the same problem, name your chip and AVR. Maybe we can gain some insights whether there is some correlation regarding the used AVR, or the chipsets that AVR is using?
Anything else, like which game you are playing, which version of Windows you are using, etc. is not of interest. I also don't care to read about any pointless suggestions like "have you tried updating Windows", "did you set the PCIe generation to GEN3 instead of GEN4" and others, unless you are abso-**bleep**ing-lutely sure this solves the problem.
I have this problem since July of this year. I do not want to waste any more of my precious lifetime with this topic and am therefore giving AMD until end of January to fix it. If it is not fixed until then, I will put my RX 5600 on eBay for what it is worth to me, which is one measly dollar and I will get a NVidia card instead.
