AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition Overview

Introduction

AMD's Radeon Technology Group (RTG) has not had the best of years when it comes to hardware, with RX Vega perhaps a victim of hype. Some of this fault lies with the audience, but AMD deserves some flak too. Where they do not deserve any and on the contrary merit props galore is with the way their Radeon Software team has gone from strength to strength in the last few years. With the release of Radeon Catalyst Omega in 2014, gone was the dated software that no one really used and in came a more modern user interface and the beginning of an annual release of major updates throughout. In 2015, we saw the Radeon Software Crimson Edition, which then added screen capture with the popular 2016 release titled Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition. We covered a 6-month update to it back in July which introduced one of our favorite features, Enhanced Sync, and a small tease of an on-screen display at the time gave a hint towards what to expect in the 2017 major release. Indeed, AMD also hyped this version themselves by releasing a teaser video a couple of weeks ago which unveiled the name: Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition.

No, that is not a typing error, but neither is it deliberate to merely be able to trademark the word as some originally thought. In AMD's own words,

Named after the vibrant Adrenalin Rose, Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition continues AMD's commitment to releasing major driver updates annually. The fully redesigned and supercharged Radeon Software Crimson Edition in 2015 received the highest user satisfaction rating of any AMD software ever, while Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition continued the 90 percent user satisfaction for 12 straight months in a row.

These are strong words, and the use of a rose fits well with the "shade of red" theme AMD and RTG have adopted for their brand. Thus, with high expectations set forth once again, we delve into an overview of the driver release today, which includes some of our own findings and thoughts as well.