[PLUS] Efficiency Guide for Radeon RX 6000 – Don’t be afraid of power limits, undervolting and BIOS mods

The Big Radeon 6000 Efficiency Guide

While all eyes are on the new Radeon 7000 series, the user base of the 6000 series graphics cards is expanding in the background. The prices for RDNA 2, which fell from summer 2022 to the end of the year, allowed many users to seize the moment by catching up on the previously postponed graphics card purchase. There were good reasons for this: A number of models, especially from RX 6800 and up, cost only half of their former maximum price. And the performance of these cards is by no means yesterday’s.

But what about the efficiency of the replaced model series compared to the new generation? For example, can AMD Navi 21 cards compete with the new Navi 31 models? Not with factory settings, that’s for sure. Because the maximum power consumption has hardly increased compared to the 6900 XT/6950 XT, the 7900 XT/X calculate more efficiently than their predecessors. Not only do they offer higher performance, but also more fps per watt.

But the advantage can be caught up. The AMD graphics card community is known for coming up with creative solutions, and these become more mature the longer a generation is on the market. This guide shows what is possible today when tuning the efficiency of the 6000 series. We use it to answer the following questions: power limit, undervolting, fps or frequency limit – where are the most fps per watt?

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Part 1 (PCGH 03/23)

• Hardware, Software, Test Conditions – Why Time Spy? – What is measured?
• Starting with the Wattman, four efficiency candidates
• Candidates at -10% power limit (230 W)
• Candidates at standard power limit (255 W)
• Candidates at +15% power limit (293 W)
• And the winner is: Undervolting
• Dynamometer power limit?
• Expose BIOS options with MorePowerTool
• Get MPT ready to go
• Increase power limit

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