Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.9.1 Adds Auto Overclocking for AMD-Powered PCs

It seems like new drivers from AMD are always bringing additional features these days, and yesterday the company released Radeon Software Adrenalin version 21.9.1 with – get this – new features! The one that caught my eye was “Auto Overclocking for AMD Powered PCs” (there was also something about Windows 11 support), which requires both a Ryzen 5000 and a not-so-readily-available Radeon RX 6000 GPU.

Let’s explore this feature, heavily quoting AMD’s blog post on the matter:

“Gamers who have a PC powered by the latest AMD Ryzen 5000 series processor and AMD Radeon 6000 series graphics card can now take advantage of a new, simple to use, auto overclocking feature found in AMD Radeon Software. Beginning with our latest version of Radeon Software Adrenalin ver. 21.9.1, gamers can get a boost in performance from just a simple click of a button.

To access this easy-to-use feature, open up Radeon Software using the hotkey ‘ALT’ + ‘R’, navigate to the ‘Performance’ tab found at the top of the window, and select ‘Tuning’ in the sub tab directly below it.”

“If you have the latest generation of AMD Ryzen and Radeon product installed on your system, a ‘Tuning Control’ section should appear for your system, allowing you to select ‘Auto Overclock’ to increase performance on both your processor and graphics card. We also have a new tuning section for CPUs, allowing you to overclock just your CPU.

When the feature is selected, the system will ask for a restart and once you are back in Windows, you will be good to go!*”

Did you notice that asterisk above? It carries a sinister meaning, as I discovered when scrolling down to find the footnote. Yes, even using AMD’s official software tool to overclock will still void your warranty:

“Overclocking and/or Undervolting AMD processors and memory, including without limitation, altering clock frequencies / multipliers or memory timing / voltage, to operate outside of AMD’s published specifications will void any applicable AMD product warranty, even when enabled via AMD hardware and/or software. This may also void warranties offered by the system manufacturer or retailer. Users assume all risks and liabilities that may arise out of overclocking and/or undervolting AMD processors, including, without limitation, failure of or damage to hardware, reduced system performance and/or data loss, corruption or vulnerability.”

Well, I guess it’s true that nothing in life is free. Not even free overclocking tools. Well, if something bad happens anyway. I look forward to testing this using my 100% realistic test system powered by a Radeon 6000 Series GPU. Or maybe it would be more realistic to test any new GPU feature – from AMD or NVIDIA – in 2022, when cards might actually be widely available again.

I’ll close out this post with the other highlights from this release, which is available from AMD at the usual location. Quoting AMD again:

• Radeon Software Support for Microsoft Windows 11: The new Windows 11 driver from AMD.com brings performance optimizations and powerful features like Radeon Boost, Radeon Anti-Lag and Radeon Image Sharpening to improve performance, reduce latency and enhance visuals on Windows 11 PCs
• AMD Smart Access Memory now supported on Radeon RX 5000 Series Graphics Cards: Unlock exceptional performance when pairing Radeon RX 5000 Series graphics cards with AMD Ryzen 5000 or select Ryzen 3000 Series Desktop Processors and AMD 500-series motherboards

AMD SAM support for RX 5000 Series GPUs might be the bigger story here, given the existing install base. In any case, you can read the full blog post from AMD here.