AMD’s recent graphics driver update, Adrenalin Edition 23.12.1, offers a host of improvements and additions that will greatly benefit portable gamers in the future.
Perhaps the most important update that piqued our interest is the brand new power saving options that should massively improve the life of your AMD powered devices.
Let’s take a look and see why these updates should positively effect the future of handheld gaming PCs, a niche of portable gaming that has been absolutely blowing up.
AMD Power Saving
The brand new AMD HYPR-RX Eco mode, introduced in the Adrenalin Edition 23.12.1 driver update, is said to offer up to 68% power savings. Which is quite impactful for laptops and handheld gaming devices.
This Eco mode is something you can activate literally at the press of a single button within the AMD UI to conveniently boost your battery life.
We know that battery length is probably the number one complaint of any handheld PC device.
Companies like AYANEO have been making noticeable improvements to their battery life. Their most recent AYANEO Kun leverages an AMD Ryzen 7 7840U chipset paired with an enormous 75Wh battery, as well as the most current performance management and heat dissipation available.
This combination gives the KUN just over three hours of continuous game play, beating the average of one to two hours on a Steam Deck and ASUS Rog Ally.
A 68% improvement means the difference of an extra hour of game play on one of these ultra powerful handheld gaming devices, which is all the difference in the world when you’re at a crucial point in your game.
Combine that with all of the other improvements being made in these devices, and we will surely start to see multiple hours added to our battery life in the next few years.
When Will We See These Improvements?
The Adrenalin Edition 23.12.1 driver update with AMD HYPR-RX Eco will first support Radeon 7000 Series graphics and RDNA 3 platforms.
AMD has also clarified that this new feature “does not include support for handheld gaming devices.” Which means that we will not see this new improvement on our handheld PC devices just yet.
But more support will absolutely be added in the near future. Surely handheld gaming devices is a particular branch of AMD powered computers that will greatly benefit from these power saving features. And AMD absolutely knows that this is something we want.
So this news will inevitably make incredible impact on the future of handheld PCs from companies like Ayaneo, Asus, Lenovo, and Valve.
The most popular of the existing handheld PCs, the Steam Deck, features an RDNA 2 chip which is not currently on the supported platform list.
But again, we anticipate the supported platform list to continue to grow in subsequent updates.
So the next couple of years are looking VERY good for handheld PCs, in both the hardware and software improvements that will lend themselves to better gaming for all of us.
