While AMD’s new RX 7900 series GPUs, especially the XT version, sold for MSRP levels, testers noted that the cards suffered from some high power consumption issue. In cases of video playback and multi-monitor connections, both the 7900 XTX and the XT exhibit very high power consumption (using TechPowerUp).

If we were to guess, it looks like AMD’s entire GPU will be active instead of just the media engine block and the display processing block, when running these tasks.

AMD fixed one of these issues today with its latest WHQL version 22.12.2. Although the video playback has been fixed somewhat, the multi-screen power bug still apparently remains. AMD also notes problems with high refresh rate monitors.

The issues fixed in this release are:

• Corruption can be encountered when using super virtual resolution with multi-display configurations.
• A system crash may occur when changing display modes with 4 display configurations.
• While loading Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales™, an app crash or driver timeout may occur after enabling ray tracing settings.
• Improvements in power consumption during hardware-accelerated video playback. Further power efficiency improvements are planned for future releases.

Meanwhile, the known issues are as follows:

• High idle is observed when using selected high resolution and high refresh rate displays.
• Intermittent app crashes or driver timeouts may occur when using Radeon Super
• resolution with some extended display configurations.
• Video stuttering or performance degradation may occur during gaming plus video playback with some extended display configurations.
• Stuttering can be seen in UNCHARTED™ 4: A Thief’s End during the opening game sequence.
• While playing Valheim™, an application crash or driver timeout may occur using the Vulkan® API. Any user who may experience these issues should opt for the DirectX® API as a workaround.
• Some virtual reality games or applications may experience lower performance than expected.

You can download the new driver 22.12.2 from AMD website.