AMD to limit performance of Radeon GPUs in games to cut-down power consumption

For many years all developers of graphics processors for notebooks limited display refresh rates in cases when they did not matter in order to cut-down their power consumption. In addition, designers of GPUs reduced performance of chips in cases when it was not required. One of the things that no one has done yet is to limit performance of GPUs in games where incredible framerates do not matter. Apparently, this is what AMD is going to do.

Chris Hook, ‎director of global marketing of computing and graphics at AMD, this week said that AMD is working on a new technology called dynamic frame rate control (DFRC) that is designed to limit frame-rates in games where they do not matter by limiting performance and power consumption of graphics processing units. The DFRC technology is designed to reduce power consumption of GPUs, which is an important thing for notebooks.

“Earlier this week I got to play with our new Dynamic Frame Rate Control feature in a (coming soon) version of Catalyst and it was awesome,” said Chris Hook, reports 3DCenter. “Being able to limit your FPS to 60fps on a game where it doesn't matter too much if you're able to get 150FPS. The power savings were mind blowing.”

AMD’s DFRC technology will complement existing technologies that AMD has to limit power consumption of its APUs, CPUs, GPUs and platforms. In general, it should allow AMD to improve battery power of high-performance notebooks with powerful graphics processors. Theoretically, the feature could be implemented on desktop computers too in a bid to reduce noise created by cooling systems of modern graphics cards.

AMD did not say when exactly we should expect the arrival of DFRC.

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KitGuru Says: It will be interesting to see how AMD plans to determine whether additional framerate is needed or not. Will it incorporate a frame-counter into the drivers and will use some kind of intelligent mechanism, or will it allow end-users to decide where to limit actual performance? Turning DFRC on by default will make hardcore gamers unhappy, whereas leaving it deactivated means that casual users will never turn it on…

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