Stefan Mileschin

AMD is working on a new software feature for its Radeon graphics cards, which it calls "Dynamic Frame Rate Control." Revealed informally to the web, by AMD director of PR Chris Hook, who goes by the handle "AMD_Chris" on various forums, Dynamic Frame Rate Control, or DFRC, is a frame-rate limiter, which gives you power savings when you reduce frame-rates. This probably works by reducing clock speeds to achieve the desired frame-rates.

Sounds a lot like V-Sync? Well the way AMD describes it, DFRC is a frame-rate limiter with a slider. Whereas V-Sync makes the GPU spit out frame-rates to match the monitor's refresh-rate. When a game runs, say, 100 FPS, and you enable V-Sync to bring that down to 60 FPS, your GPU is still running at 3D-performance clocks, unless the 3D load is way too low, and the driver decides to change the power state altogether. DFRC probably achieves lower frame-rates by underclocking the GPU, and increasing the clocks, whenever the scene gets more demanding, and the output FPS drops below the target. Hook describes the energy savings with DFRC as "mind blowing." This peaks our curiosity.

http://www.techpowerup.com/208152/am...l-feature.html