AMD Adrenalin Update Brings Up to 24% FPS Uplift for Select Mobile CPUs, GPUs

AMD Mobile Smart Access Memory Demo
(Image credit: AMD)

AMD today released a new Adrenalin Driver update, version 22.2.2, with some very unique optimizations for its mobile platforms. AMD boosted system performance in several titles for specific AMD Ryzen 5000 mobile CPUs and Radeon 6000 mobile GPUs. All thanks to optimizations done to Smart Acess Memory.

Besides official support for Total War: Warhammer III, the SAM improvements are specific to several current and older games, including Cyberpunk 2077, Fortnite, Gears 5, F1 2021, Borderlands 3, Battlefield 5, and Assassin's Creed Valhalla.

In Assassin's Creed Valhalla, the Adrenalin update provides up to a 24% increase in performance at 1080P Ultra settings on a Ryzen 7 5800H and Radeon RX 6600M.

With Battlefield 5, AMD promises up to a 23% performance boost in Battlefield 5 at 1080P Ultra settings with a Ryzen 9 5900HX and Radeon RX 6800M.

As for Borderlands 3, you can expect up to an 18% increase in performance using the game's Badass settings at a 1080P resolution with AMD's Ryzen 9 5900HX and Radeon RX 6800M.

F1 2021 will see up to a 17% increase in performance at 1080P with either the game's High or Ultra quality presets, running on a Ryzen 7 5800H and Radeon RX 6600M.

Gears 5 performance was increased by up to 12% with a Ryzen 7 5800H and Radeon RX 6600M at the game's High settings and 1080P resolution.

When playing Fortnite at 1080P Ultra settings, you can expect up to an 11% performance improvement with a Ryzen 7 5800H and Radeon RX 6600M.

Finally, Cyberpunk 2077 shows the lowest performance gains with up to a 10% performance uplift using the game's Ultra quality settings at 1080P resolution with a Ryzen 9 5900HX and Radeon RX 6800M.

These results all compare the new 22.22.2 driver vs. the older 22.2.1 driver. Again AMD says these Smart Access Memory must be enabled to enjoy these performance benefits.

For the uninitiated, Smart Access Memory (SAM) is AMD's take on Resizable BAR, a feature built into the PCI Express interface. The feature allows AMD CPUs to access the entirety of a GPU's VRAM (or frame buffer), which can improve system performance depending on the game.

We aren't sure what improvements AMD has made in these specific games, but these results are massive. Hopefully, we'll see similar gains with desktop GPUs if there's more performance to be extracted from SAM alone.

Swipe to scroll horizontally
GameSetting22.2.222.2.122.2.2 vs. 22.2.1
Overall Performance (13 Games)1080p Medium129.8129.9-0.0%
 1080p Ultra89.789.9-0.2%
 1440p Ultra66.166.3-0.3%
 4k Ultra35.936.0-0.2%
Borderlands 31080p Medium280.1284.9-1.7%
 1080p Ultra184.8185.0-0.1%
 1440p Ultra131.3131.0+0.2%
 4k Ultra70.069.9+0.2%
Far Cry 61080p Medium194.7189.3+2.8%
 1080p Ultra164.3157.1+4.6%
 1440p Ultra140.8139.5+0.9%
 4k Ultra85.684.8+0.9%
Flight Simulator1080p Medium139.7140.5-0.6%
 1080p Ultra79.381.0-2.1%
 1440p Ultra77.279.9-3.3%
 4k Ultra50.451.3-1.8%
Forza Horizon 51080p Medium229.1229.2-0.1%
 1080p Ultra150.0150.7-0.5%
 1440p Ultra129.2130.1-0.7%
 4k Ultra91.291.2-0.1%
Horizon Zero Dawn1080p Medium207.2205.3+0.9%
 1080p Ultra182.6182.1+0.3%
 1440p Ultra160.1160.2-0.1%
 4k Ultra84.685.1-0.6%
Red Dead Redemption 21080p Medium191.5191.0+0.2%
 1080p Ultra132.0134.4-1.8%
 1440p Ultra112.0112.9-0.7%
 4k Ultra76.376.5-0.3%
Watch Dogs Legion1080p Medium172.7172.0+0.4%
 1080p Ultra127.9127.0+0.7%
 1440p Ultra98.197.3+0.8%
 4k Ultra57.857.8-0.0%
Bright Memory Infinite (DXR)1080p Medium62.762.6+0.1%
 1080p Ultra48.648.6-0.0%
 1440p Ultra28.728.5+0.6%
 4k Ultra12.712.7-0.2%
Control (DXR)1080p Medium113.7113.7+0.0%
 1080p Ultra73.474.8-1.9%
 1440p Ultra46.346.7-0.9%
 4k Ultra22.021.9+0.3%
Cyberpunk 2077 (DXR)1080p Medium46.746.7+0.1%
 1080p Ultra40.340.3-0.2%
 1440p Ultra25.125.0+0.2%
 4k Ultra11.111.1-0.2%
Fortnite (DXR)1080p Medium82.683.6-1.3%
 1080p Ultra45.546.0-1.0%
 1440p Ultra27.327.7-1.4%
 4k Ultra12.812.9-0.6%
Metro Exodus Enhanced (DXR)1080p Medium150.1150.1+0.0%
 1080p Ultra66.766.8-0.1%
 1440p Ultra50.049.8+0.3%
 4k Ultra26.926.9+0.0%
Minecraft (DXR)1080p Medium60.461.2-1.4%
 1080p Ultra50.250.4-0.5%
 1440p Ultra31.131.2-0.4%
 4k Ultra15.215.2-0.1%

Update: Jarred tested the Radeon RX 6900 XT on our new GPU testbed, with an Alder Lake Core i9-12900K processor, using a suite of 13 games — six of which have ray tracing enabled. The results aren't nearly as impressive as what AMD promises for certain mobile configurations, and in fact tend to fall within the margin of error for testing. Resizable BAR (aka, SAM) was enabled with both sets of drivers. You can see the results above.

Aaron Klotz
Contributing Writer

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

With contributions from