The undisputed leaders of the computer equipment market have to make great efforts to maintain their top positions. AMD is a clear example of this: as a direct competitor to Intel in the field of CPUs and nVidia in the field of graphics chips, it strives to constantly improve its products, supplementing them with tools that help increase performance and comfort of use. One such tool is the Radeon Chill feature found in the Adrenalin Edition driver suite.
What is the purpose of the Chill function in the Radeon settings
The main purpose of Radeon Chill technology is to change the FPS (frame rate) depending on the game situation. What gives such adaptability? Firstly, it reduces power consumption, which is an important factor for powerful modern computers. Secondly, it reduces the noise level and the temperature regime of the graphics adapter. Finally, the use of Chill allows you to increase the smoothness of movements.
Strictly speaking, AMD started using this technology for the first time in Radeon Software Settings, starting from v.16.50, but then it didn’t go further than experiments and thorough testing.
Interestingly, a utility with exactly the same name was released by HiAlgo, and in 2016 this little-known graphics software manufacturer was acquired by AMD. The product began to be upgraded, and if HiAlgo Chill focused only on games using DirectX 9, then the Radeon Chill function can be used in all products using DirectX 9-12 and the Vulkan API.
And now briefly about the essence of technology. The intelligent dynamic FPS change assumes that if the gameplay becomes more active, the frame rate will be increased to meet current needs. In passive scenes that do not require active load on the GPU, the frame rate is reduced, which reduces the load on the video card, reduces its heating and power consumption. For laptops, the latter factor is especially important because it increases battery life.
But how much do all of these indicators improve in terms of numbers? In other words, should you enable Radeon Chill or not?
Here are the results of a demonstration test on a computer with good equipment (AMD Ryzen 5 3600X 3.8 GHz series CPU, ROG STRIX RX580 graphics card with 8 GB of memory from ASUS, 16 GB RAM, 1920 × 1080 monitor, Windows 10).
According to the results of many hours of testing in World Of Tanks, it turned out that with the Radeon Chill function inactive, the graphics processor consumes an average of 65 watts, with the active one – 120 watts. That is, it was possible to save 45 W, or 28% of electricity. The decrease in the operating temperature of the video adapter was 17%, which is also very good – from 66°C to 55°C.
The results are decent, and if you at least occasionally monitor the parameters of the video card in games and see that it is operating at extreme or close temperatures, then turning on Radeon Chill is very useful. But even on weak hardware, the function is useful, because it saves the picture from jerking, making the sequence of frames smoother.
How to enable/disable Radeon Chill
Activating the Radeon Chill feature is very simple. We go to “Radeon Settings”, in the top menu select the item “Games” and the sub-item “Computer games”.
A list of installed games will appear, select the one you need and activate Radeon Chill by moving the slider to the “On” position. After that, it will be possible to set the minimum and maximum FPS – we set the limit values, focusing on the characteristics of your monitor.
So, if the operating frequency of your monitor is 60 Hz (and it is always indicated with some margin), to achieve the optimal ratio between picture quality and performance, you should try to specify 60 (minimum) and 80 (maximum) frames / second.
As soon as you start moving the mouse intensively (for example, to quickly shoot at an object located to the side), the FPS will almost instantly be changed to the maximum level, and in calm scenes it will be reduced to a minimum. This is how this technology works.
In the same way, you can disable the function if it is not necessary to use it.
Conclusion
Of course, active players should take a closer look at Radeon Chill. The field for experiments is unplowed here. And if you prefer one or two games, then all the more it is enough to take measurements several times to understand how much this feature helps to save energy costs and make the gameplay smoother. If anything, opting out of using it is as easy as turning it on.