Clockwork: Tuning Tools for AMD Graphics Chips

CoreCtrl is a free program aimed specifically at GPUs and graphics chips by AMD. With just a few clicks, you can call up performance profiles for various scenarios on the desktop. The relatively new project can already be found in the software sources of some popular distributions. On Ubuntu starting in version 24.04, Fedora version 39 or later, Debian ``Sid,‘’ Arch Linux, and Gentoo, you can install CoreCtrl quickly using the built-in package managers. CoreCtrl’s GitLab website also has an external repository (PPA) for Ubuntu with the latest releases of the tool.

If CoreCtrl finds a supported AMD graphics chip in your system, it will display a window with two tabs at the bottom after launching. By default, you will see a global performance profile in the PROFILES tab, while SYSTEM shows you detailed hardware information for AMD chips. Clicking on one of the hardware components displays tiles with information below the control bar. The active component is highlighted in red in the control bar. The Software tab lists the Linux kernel version as well as the version of the important Mesa graphics library. Version details for OpenGL and Vulkan and the graphics cards’ IDs round off the collection of information.

A customized profile can help you tweak the performance of AMD GPUs and CPUs based on the clock frequency; this means that you can keep the fan noise down if you want to concentrate on your work or go for maximum performance if noise isn’t an issue. To do this, click on PROFILES to enable the settings for a Global Profile. The monitoring view that is then displayed shows the utilization of the individual AMD components. CoreCtrl provides information on the current load and clock speed for the CPU; plus the clock speed, bandwidth, and memory utilization for GPUs; and the temperature and fan speed for graphics cards.

Depending on the CPU and GPU types, CoreCtrl will show you the configuration options available for fine-tuning. For example, there are usually options for power management, plus today’s AMD graphics cards support fan control. Many newer AMD graphics chips let you tweak the maximum performance. Fan speed curves can be specified for graphics cards as a function of the temperature. After modifying the parameters, don’t forget to press the Apply button. If you want to make the changes permanent, you also need to press Save.

To create your own profile, click on the plus sign in the top right-hand corner of the application profile window. A dialog opens to let you type a name for the new profile; you can then make this the default profile if so desired. As soon as you press OK to confirm, CoreCtrl transfers the profile to a list in the main window, where you can click to open a configuration dialog with the available settings. You can save the changes by pressing the Apply button top right.

If a profile you created manually does not have the desired effect on performance, simply call Restore to restore the previous default settings. You can press Save to save the individual settings in the profile permanently if desired.

In many cases, CoreCtrl lets you overclock graphics processors. Whether the hardware is suitable for this can quickly be determined. The corresponding settings dialog is simply not displayed for graphics processors not intended for overclocking by the AMDGPU kernel driver. But if overclocking is possible, you can use the controls to specify a performance mode for the GPU and manipulate the clock speed of the graphics memory.

As always, it’s important to keep an eye on the temperature of the GPU or graphics card during overclocking and to up the fan speed to match. Also, overclocked components require more power from the existing power supply unit; it will need to have sufficient power in reserve to support overclocking.

RadeonTop is a terminal program that is suitable for plain vanilla pure monitoring of AMD graphics cards. It supports many old and new AMD Radeon chips. The software can be found in the repositories of most distributions, which means that you can normally conveniently install RadeonTop using the built-in package manager. The project’s GitHub page also describes the manual installation procedure for the software.

If there are several graphics cards in the system, RadeonTop can address a specific one, but not several simultaneously. The -b parameter, followed by the number of the appropriate PCI bus in hex, selects the desired card. If you want to monitor two or more cards at the same time, you will need to call up the program in separate terminal windows.

The tool visualizes various technical details about the graphics cards in your system in the form of a bar chart. The terminal window is divided into two columns: On the left, the technical parameters are shown along with the load, which is given as a percentage, while bar graphs on the right show the matching values. The VRAM and Shader Clock values are important indicators of how busy a graphics chip is. However, they only describe the utilization; RadeonTop does not show the fan speed or temperature of the graphics processor.

Besides legacy system monitoring, RadeonTop also gives you a snapshot of the AMD graphics chip’s utilization. Among other things, it shows how well hardware-accelerated graphics output from video players and browsers is working. The CoreCtrl tool offers gamers and users who aren’t worried about experimenting a number of overclocking options for AMD chips. Although automatic throttling largely rules out damage to the hardware at excessive temperatures above 85 degrees, the system may become unstable so make sure to take the right precautions. It makes a great deal of sense to carry out a few tests with the graphics hardware running at full load.