Latest AMD Radeon Driver Reduces Power Consumption RX 6000 Cards with YouTube

AMD last week released the Radeon Adrenalin 21.8.1 drivers. After installing the drivers, the RX 6600 XT's video card consumed very little power when watching YouTube videos and using two monitors. 

There have been no noticeable changes to the clock speeds, but the power consumption of the RX 6700 XT, in particular, has been significantly decreased. For example, when watching a YouTube video in 4K at 60 Hz, it consumes only 18 watts, whereas it used to consume 30 watts when done previously. With the new driver, the RX 6800 non-XT no longer consumes 40 watts when performing the same task but rather 33 watts. Unfortunately, the differences between the HDR image on YouTube and the original image are not significant, as shown in the findings of computerbase.

However, even when the computer was idle or two monitors were being used, the consumption remained alarmingly high. As previously stated, the improvements when watching YouTube content only apply in specific circumstances, such as 4K at 60 frames per second, which is specifically mentioned. Although it is not known what exactly causes the relatively high consumption, it is possible that further improvements will be made.