AMD PowerPlay

AMD PowerPlay
Design firm Advanced Micro Devices
Type dynamic frequency scaling

AMD PowerPlay is the brand name for a set of technologies for the reduction of the energy consumption implemented in several of AMD's graphics processing units and APUs supported by their proprietary graphics device driver "Catalyst". AMD PowerPlay is also implemented into ATI/AMD chipsets which integrated graphics and into AMD's Imageon handheld chipset, that was sold to Qualcomm in 2008.

Besides the desirable goal to reduce energy consumption, AMD PowerPlay helps to lower the noise levels created by the cooling in desktop computers and extend battery life in mobile devices. AMD PowerPlay has been succeeded by AMD PowerTune.[1]


History

The technology was first implemented in Mobility Radeon products for notebooks, to provide a set of features to lower the power consumption of the laptop computer. The technology consists of several technologies; examples include dynamic clock adjustments when the notebook is not plugged into a power socket and allowing different backlight brightness levels of the notebook LCD monitor. The technology was updated with the release of each generation of mobile GPUs. The latest release is ATI PowerPlay 7.0.

Since the release of Radeon HD 3000 Series, PowerPlay was implemented to further reduce the power consumption of desktop GPUs.


Currently supported products

The official ATI support list[2] lists only the ATI Radeon 3800 series desktop cards, but PowerPlay is also a listed feature of all Radeon HD 3000/4000/5000 series products. Independent reviews indicated that the latter was already lower power compared to other 3D cards, so the addition of PowerPlay to that line was clearly intended to address an increasingly power, heat and noise conscious market. The ATI Radeon HD 2600 line - which does not support PowerPlay - was being phased out in favour of the 3000 series at the same price points that also support PCI Express 2.0, DirectX 10.1 and faster GDDR3 memory.

The entire ATI Radeon Xpress line is also supported for single board computers which tend to be power sensitive and used in large installations where configuration and boot image control are major concerns.

Support for "PowerPlay" was added to the Linux kernel driver "amdgpu" on November, 11 2015.[3]

Desktop versus laptop

The main difference between the desktop and laptop versions is that the desktop version cuts the features which are aimed at notebook usage, including variable LCD backlight brightness. The PowerPlay technology for Radeon desktop graphics features three usage scenarios: normal mode (2D mode), light gaming mode and intensive gaming mode (3D mode), replacing notebook scenarios (running on AC power or battery power). Tests indicated that the lowest core clock frequency of an RV670 GPU core can reach as low as 300 MHz with PowerPlay technology enabled.[4]

Feature overview for AMD APUs

Features of AMD Accelerated Processing Units
Brand Llano Trinity Richland Kaveri Carrizo Bristol Ridge Raven Ridge    Desna,
Ontario,
Zacate 		Kabini,
Temash 		Beema,
Mullins 		Carrizo-L
Platform Desktop, Mobile Desktop, Mobile Mobile, Desktop Desktop, Mobile Ultra-mobile
Released Aug 2011 Oct 2012 Jun 2013 Jan 2014 Jun 2015 Jun 2016 Mar 2017 Jan 2011 May 2013 Q2 2014 May 2015
Fab. (nm) GlobalFoundries 32 SOI 28 14 TSMC 40 28
Die size (mm2) 228 246 245 244.62 TBA TBA 75 (+ 28 FCH) ~107 TBA
Socket FM1, FS1 FM2, FS1+, FP2 FM2+, FP3 FP4, FM2+ AM4, FP4 AM4 FT1 AM1, FT3 FT3b FP4
CPU architecture AMD 10h Piledriver Steamroller Excavator Zen Bobcat Jaguar Puma Puma+[5]
Memory support DDR3-1866
DDR3-1600
DDR3-1333 		DDR3-2133
DDR3-1866
DDR3-1600
DDR3-1333 		DDR4-2400
DDR4-2133
DDR4-1866
DDR4-1600 		DDR3L-1333
DDR3L-1066 		DDR3L-1866
DDR3L-1600
DDR3L-1333
DDR3L-1066 		DDR3L-1866
DDR3L-1600
DDR3L-1333
3D engine[lower-alpha 1] TeraScale 2
(VLIW5) 		TeraScale 3
(VLIW4) 		GCN 1.1
(Mantle, HSA) 		GCN 1.2
(Mantle, HSA) 		GCN 1.3
(Mantle, HSA) 		TeraScale 2
(VLIW5) 		GCN 1.1
Up to 400:20:8 Up to 384:24:6 Up to 512:32:8 Up to 768:48:12 80:8:4 128:8:4
IOMMUv1 IOMMUv2 IOMMUv1[6] TBA
Unified Video Decoder UVD 3 UVD 4.2 UVD 6 TBA UVD 3 UVD 4 UVD 4.2 UVD 6
Video Coding Engine N/A VCE 1.0 VCE 2.0 VCE 3.1 TBA N/A VCE 2.0 VCE 3.1
GPU power saving PowerPlay PowerTune N/A Enduro
Max. displays[lower-alpha 2] 2–3 2–4 2–4 3 4 TBA 2 TBA
TrueAudio N/A ✔[8] N/A[6]
FreeSync N/A ✔ N/A
/drm/radeon[9][10][11] ✔ N/A ✔
/drm/amd/amdgpu[12] N/A Experimental ✔ N/A Experimental
  1. ↑ Unified shaders : texture mapping units : render output units
  2. ↑ To feed more than two displays, the additional panels must have native DisplayPort support.[7] Alternatively active DisplayPort-to-DVI/HDMI/VGA adapters can be employed.

Feature overview for AMD graphics cards

Features of AMD Radeon GPUs
R100 R200 R300 R400 R500 R600 R650 R700 Evergreen Northern Islands Southern Islands Sea Islands Volcanic &
Pirates Islands 		Arctic
Islands
Released Apr 2000 Aug 2001 Oct 2002 May 2004 Oct 2005 May 2006 Nov 2007 Jun 2008 Sep 2009 Oct 2010 Jan 2012 Sep 2013 Jun 2015 2016-Q2/Q3
Instruction set not publicly known TeraScale instruction set GCN instruction set
Microarchitecture TeraScale VLIW5 TeraScale VLIW4 GCN 1.0 GCN 1.1 GCN 1.2 GCN 1.3
Microarchitecture type Fixed pipeline Unified shader model
DirectX 7.0 8.1 9.0 9.0b 9.0c 10.0 10.1 11.0 12.0 12.1
Shader Model 1.1 1.4 2.0+ 2.b 3.0 4.0 4.1 5.0
OpenGL 1.3 2.0 3.3 4.4 4.5
Power saving ? PowerPlay PowerTune PowerTune & ZeroCore Power TBA
Unified Video Decoder N/A Avivo/UVD UVD+ UVD 2 UVD 2.2 UVD 3 UVD 4 UVD 4.2 UVD 5.0 or 6.0 TBA
Video Coding Engine N/A VCE 1.0 VCE 2.0 VCE 3.0 TBA
TrueAudio N/A ✔ TBA
FreeSync N/A ✔ TBA
Max. displays1 1–2 2 2–6 TBA
Max. resolution ? 2–6x 2560×1600 2–6x 4096×2160 @ 60 Hz TBA
/drm/radeon ✔ N/A
/drm/amd/amdgpu N/A WIP? experimental ✔ TBA

See also

References

  1. ↑ "AMD PowerTune vs PowerPlay" (pdf). AMD. 2010-12-01.
  2. ↑ http://www.amd.com/us/products/technologies/ati-power-play/Pages/ati-power-play.aspx
  3. ↑ "Add amdgpu powerplay support". 2015-11-11.
  4. ↑ PC Watch image. Retrieved December 3, 2007. Notice the core speed in current clock settings section in gray.
  5. ↑ "AMD Mobile “Carrizo” Family of APUs Designed to Deliver Significant Leap in Performance, Energy Efficiency in 2015" (Press release). 2014-11-20. Retrieved 2015-02-16.
  6. 1 2 Thomas De Maesschalck (2013-11-14). "AMD teases Mullins and Beema tablet/convertibles APU". Retrieved 2015-02-24.
  7. ↑ "How do I connect three or More Monitors to an AMD Radeon™ HD 5000, HD 6000, and HD 7000 Series Graphics Card?". AMD. Retrieved 2014-12-08.
  8. ↑ "A technical look at AMD’s Kaveri architecture". Semi Accurate. Retrieved 6 July 2014.
  9. ↑ Airlie, David (2009-11-26). "DisplayPort supported by KMS driver mainlined into Linux kernel 2.6.33". Retrieved 2016-01-16.
  10. ↑ Airlie, David (2009-11-26). "DisplayPort supported by KMS driver mainlined into Linux kernel 2.6.33". Retrieved 2014-07-02.
  11. ↑ "Radeon feature matrix". freedesktop.org. Retrieved 2016-01-10.
  12. ↑ Deucher, Alexander (2015-09-16). "XDC2015: AMDGPU" (PDF). Retrieved 2016-01-16.

External links

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