INVESTIGATION: Poor Performance & Power Draw Issues Impacting AMD Radeon RX 9070

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Performance Feedback
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We are aware of issues impacting players using the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT, including low GPU power draw and substantial drops in performance.

In early April, we raised this issue with AMD, who are now conducting an internal investigation. We’re also exploring the issue on our side.

In the meantime, we would really appreciate it if those who are using the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT and experiencing issues in Darktide could answer the questions below:

  • Do you have SMT (Simultaneous Multithreading) enabled?
    • IF YES: Is there an improvement with it disabled?
  • Which driver version are you using?
  • Do these issues occur only in Darktide?
  • Have you confirmed that all redundant GPU drivers have been uninstalled? This is especially important if the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is an upgrade and another GPU was previously installed in the same PC

Thank you for your support as we investigate this issue with AMD.

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I have an RX 9070 XT and it runs Darktide well but sometimes and in some maps there’s micro stuttering.

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Hi Julia. Thanks for letting us know that the team is looking into this problem and taking it quite seriously, especially taking it up with AMD directly. There are plenty of new 9070/9070XT owners that would love to see this get resolved.

To answer your questions:

  • Yes, SMT has been disabled in Bios, as well as manually configured using Process Lasso with some minor performance improvements (alongside fewer worker threads)
  • Adrenaline driver version has ranged from release 25.3.1 to the current new optional 25.4.1. Same issues regardless of driver.
  • Darktide is the only game I play that has these stutters and low power draw
  • Completely removed previous drivers using DDU (restart in safemode etc)

If any other information is required I am happy to provide.

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thanks for looking into this issue as the power draw issues have been really annoying.
. yes smt is enabled and disabling it does nothing
. im using driver version 25.4.1
. yes these issues only occur in darktide
. yes i used DDU to uninstall all previous drivers

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  • SMT is enabled, I have not tried disabling it.
  • Adrenalin 25.4.1
  • Darktide is the only game I’m observing massive power draw drops and FPS dips. Other games do have some stutter (Helldivers 2, same engine!) but they’re not as drastic as Darktide.
  • Yes, I’ve DDU’d the old Nvidia drivers before installing the AMD Adrenalin suite.
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Thanks for the reply and effort in helping to fix it.

Regarding answers

  • Do you have SMT (Simultaneous Multithreading) enabled?
    • IF YES: Is there an improvement with it disabled?
    • A: I tried disabling it in bios but they seem to have moved the option somewhere. Give me some time, will look up and then retry. Although with 5080 with same CPU there was no perf difference.
  • Which driver version are you using?
  • A: The latest one: 25.4.1
  • Do these issues occur only in Darktide?
  • A: Yes, I tried bunch of other games like Battlefield/Assassins Creed Shadows/GTA V enhanced and even space marine 2. None of them have this issue.
  • Have you confirmed that all redundant GPU drivers have been uninstalled? This is especially important if the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is an upgrade and another GPU was previously installed in the same PC
  • A: The windows install is fresh, there were no other drivers present.
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  • SMT is enabled, no improvements when disabled,
  • Driver version: 25.4.1,
  • The main issue is the fluctuating power draw, which in turn causes noticeable dips. Happens in Darktide and Vermintide 2.
  • Yes, clean Windows install on a new drive.
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W Fatshark momen but it gives me this

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Hi @FatsharkJulia, I’m so glad you acknowledge the issue and actively working on it with AMD.

  • SMT on or off doesn;t change much
  • latest Adrenaline 25.5.1
  • Darktide is my most probelmatic game in terms of stuttering, so yes
  • clean windows install with 9070xt, DDU every GPU driver update

I applied fixes from post, tomorrow will post how it looks like on stock settings: I fixed stutter and textures not loading in! (Texutre streaming config file change)

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Game has heavy stutters every *teen seconds. I’m playing with RT and FSR4 quality on 3440x1440 screen, experience looks like this:

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Edit: this is about 60s tour over Mourningstar lobby.

I see that the card can achieve very playable RT expeience, but these ocassional stutters kinda ruin it

Edit2: completely stock config file:

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Although this tour had less big spikes the overall lows and avg are noticeably lower that the case with fixes.

Edit3: 8 Minutes of staring at the wall…

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1 Like
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Check out the frame rate when I try to change cosmetics.

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Do you have SMT (Simultaneous Multithreading) enabled?
    Yes via Process Lasso, may have some minor improvement

Which driver version are you using?

latest: 25.5.1

Do these issues occur only in Darktide?

yes. no issues in Jedi Survivor, Expedition 33, or Cyberpunk

Have you confirmed that all redundant GPU drivers have been uninstalled?

yes clean install of windows

Couple of things that seems to have really improved performance:

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Another success story for my streamer settings. Lets go.

Performance is still not great but i’ve found this really does help