Adrenalin Software Edition 19.10.1 Performance Analysis featuring the Red Devil RX 590 with 36+ Games

As a BabelTechReviews regular feature, this Adrenalin Software Edition 19.10.1 Performance Analysis will chart the performance of more than 36 PC games using the latest drivers that released last week. We will compare these drivers with 19.6.1 from June before the RX 5700 Series released using the the Red Devil RX 590.

We benchmark at 1920×1080 and at 2560×1440 resolutions using the latest games, and we also recently added Borderlands 3 and Gears 5.

We use a Core i7-8700K which turbos all 6 cores to 4.8GHz, an EVGA Z370 FTW motherboard, and 16GB of T-FORCE XTREEM DDR4 at 3866MHz. The games tested, settings, and hardware are identical except for the driver versions being compared.

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Test Configuration – Hardware

Intel Core i7-8700K (HyperThreading and Turbo boost are on to 4.8GHz for all cores; Coffee Lake DX11 CPU graphics).

EVGA Z370 FTW motherboard (Intel Z370 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 3.0/3.1 specification, CrossFire/SLI 8x+8x), supplied by EVGA

T-FORCE XTREEM (2×8 GB, dual channel at 3866 MHz), supplied by Team Group

Red Devil RX 590 8 GB , at stock Red Devil speeds, on loan from PowerColor

, at stock Red Devil speeds, on loan from PowerColor EVGA Nu Audio PCIe soundcard, supplied by EVGA

480 GB Team Group SSD

1.92 TB San Disk enterprise class SSD

2 TB Micron 1100 SSD

Seasonic 850W Gold Focus power supply unit

EVGA CLC 280mm CPU water cooler, supplied by EVGA

Onboard Realtek Audio

Edifier R1280T active speakers

EVGA DG-77, mid-tower case supplied by EVGA

Monoprice Crystal Pro 4K

Test Configuration – Software

AMD’s Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition 19.10.1 is compared with 19.6.1

VSync is forced off

AA enabled as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified

Gaming results show average frame rates in bold including minimum frame rates shown on the chart next to the averages in a smaller italics font

including minimum frame rates shown on the chart next to the averages in a smaller italics font Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games

Windows 10 64-bit Home edition v1903. All DX11 titles were run under DX11 render paths. DX12 titles are generally run under the DX12 render path unless performance is lower than with DX11; Hitman 2, Borderlands 3, and TW: Warhammer II are run on both pathways. Four games use the Vulkan API.

Latest DirectX

All games are patched to their latest versions at time of publication

Wattman

OCAT

Fraps, latest version

36+ PC Game benchmark suite & 3 synthetic tests

Synthetic

Firestrike – Basic & Extreme

Time Spy DX12

Superposition

DX11 Games

Grand Theft Auto V

The Witcher 3

Fallout 4

Rainbow Six Siege

Overwatch

For Honor

Ghost Recon Wildlands

Mass Effect: Andromeda

Prey

ARK: Survival Evolved

Project CARS 2

Middle Earth: Shadow of War

Total War: Warhammer II

Star Wars: Battlefront II

Monster Hunter: World

Kingdom Come: Deliverance

Final Fantasy XV

Conan: Exiles

Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4

Hitman 2

Just Cause 4

Resident Evil 2

Devil May Cry 5

Far Cry New Dawn

Borderlands 3

DX12 Games

Gears of War 4

Civilization VI

Sniper Elite 4

Forza 7

Total War: Warhammer II

Total War: Vermintide

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Battlefield V

Hitman 2

Metro Exodus

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2

Anno 1800

F1 2019

Gears 5

Borderlands 3

Vulkan Games

DOOM

Wolfenstein: Youngblood

Strange Brigade

World War Z

AMD Control Center Radeon Settings

All AMD settings are set with all optimizations off; Vsync is forced off, Texture Filtering is set to High, and Tessellation uses application settings. These same settings are used across all drivers so that the driver performance of each edition can be compared identically. We used Wattman to set power and fan limits to their maximums to prevent throttling.

Adrenalin Software 19.10.1 Edition can be downloaded starting here. The release notes are found here. The included highlights below are taken directly from AMD’s website:

Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.10.1 Highlights Support For AMD Radeon™ RX 5500 desktop graphics products

AMD Radeon™ RX 5500M mobile graphics products

GRID™ Fixed Issues Borderlands™3 may experience an application crash or hang when running DirectX®12 API.

Borderlands™3 may experience lighting corruption when running DirectX®12 API.

Display artifacts may be experienced on some 75hz display configurations on Radeon RX 5700 series graphics system configurations.

Radeon FreeSync™2 capable displays may fail to enable HDR when HDR is enabled via Windows® OS on Radeon RX 5700 series graphics products system configurations.

Some displays may intermittently flash black when Radeon FreeSync is enabled and the system is at idle or on desktop. Known Issues Radeon RX 5700 series graphics products may experience display loss when resuming from sleep or hibernate when multiple displays are connected.

Toggling HDR may cause system instability during gaming when Radeon ReLive is enabled.

Call of Duty®: Black Ops 4 may experience stutter on some system configurations.

Open Broadcasting Software™ may experience frame drops or stutter when using AMF encoding on some system configurations.

HDMI® overscan and underscan options may be missing from Radeon Settings on AMD Radeon VII system configurations when the primary display is set to 60hz.

Stutter may be experienced when Radeon FreeSync is enabled on 240hz refresh displays with Radeon RX 5700 series graphics products.

AMD Radeon VII may experience elevated memory clocks at idle or on desktop. Important Notes AMD Ryzen™ Mobile Processors with Radeon™ Vega Graphics FAQ for Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition can be found here. Package Contents The Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.10.1 installation package contains the following: Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.10.1 Driver Version 19.30.25.10 (Windows Driver Store Version 26.20.13025.10004) The Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.10.1 installation package can be downloaded from the following links: By clicking the Download button, you are confirming that you have read and agreed to be bound by the terms and conditions of the End User License Agreement (“EULA”). If you do not agree to the terms and conditions of these licenses, you do not have a license to any of the AMD software provided by this download. Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition 19.10.1 Driver for Windows® 10 64-bit Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition 19.10.1 Driver for Windows® 7 64-bit

### Let’s head to the charts to compare the driver changes from the earlier Adrenalin Software 19.6.1 Edition to the latest Adrenalin Software 19.10.1 Edition which released last week. The Summary Charts

Below are the summary charts of more than 36 games and 3 synthetic tests. Each game’s performance is charted to compare the driver progression of the latest Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition 19.10.1. The highest settings are chosen, the driver versions and the specific settings are listed on the charts. The benches were run at 1920×1080 and at 2560×1440. Open each chart in a separate window or tab for best viewing.

Most results show average framerates and higher is better. Minimum framerates are next to the averages in italics and in a slightly smaller font. The games benched with OCAT show average framerates but the minimums are expressed by frametimes in ms where lower numbers are better.

Drivers 19.10.1 performance in column one is compared with 19.6.1 in column 2. Yellow text indicates a “win” for the highest performing result between 19.10.1 and 19.6.1, and if the performance is equal, both sets of numbers are given in yellow text.

There are mostly minor incremental performance changes with our Red Devil RX 590 using the latest Adrenalin Software 19.10.1 drivers from 19.6.1. We see a few performance changes from Grand Theft Auto V and Anno 1800 dropping a few frames to much larger drop-offs with Gears of War 4 and Civilization VI that we cannot explain. On the other hand, Black Ops 4 and ARK: Survival Evolved each gained performance.

Let’s head to our conclusion. Conclusion: We recommend that RX 590 owners should probably upgrade to the latest Radeon Adrenalin Software Edition 19.10.1 from any previous driver set because there are some advantages that might be useful, depending on which game you are playing. We found this driver to be stable for most of our tested games. Over time, Adrenalin software drivers show mostly continued positive performance improvement which may be more notable in some of the newer games. There were a few regressions, but also some performance improvement between 19.6.1 and 19.10.1. We are continuing to add new games to our benching suite with an eventual goal of 50. If you would like to make requests for other games to be added or dropped, please let us know in the Disqus comment section below. Next week we will post a virtual reality (VR) comparison using the Vive Pro focusing on performance headroom with the RTX 2080 Ti. Happy gaming!