The recent controversial PCIe power draw issue on the RX 480 has caused quite a stir among the PC enthusiasts community after several claims on RX 480 not meeting the bar for PCIe compliance testing with PCI-SIG which could potentially get your motherboard fried. AMD today published an update on the PCIE power draw issue with a promised new driver – Radeon Software 16.7.1, to get the issue fixed in the next 48 hours.
AMD claimed that the new driver is meant to address the overall power distribution on the RX 480 to reduce the current drawn from the PCIe slot down to a level below the PCIe slot limit to prevent potential damage caused by over drawing power from the PCIe slot. An optional “Compatibility Mode” that will addresses the overall power draw of the RX 480 is introduced as well, meant to reduce the total power draw according to your system with minimal impact to the overall performance.
Theoretically, reducing power draw will causes the graphics card’s performance to drop but AMD seems to be very confident with its new driver as the company promised an improvements of up to 3% in popular game titles.
