9070 AMD Encoding (H264/HEVC/AV1) using 90%+ CPU?

As the title says, I just grabbed a 9070, did a full uninstall using DDU to get the NVIDIA drivers off (coming from an RTX 3060 12GB) before installing.

I was a bit surprised Resolve didn't prompt me to do any GPU optimization like it usually does after a hardware change. Anyway, I'm on studio and when choosing AMD encoding, aside from being slower than NVENC on the same projects it seems to use 90% of my GPU & CPU when rendering. NVENC would barely touch my CPU, which meant I could be productive at other tasks while doing an encode. Oddly when I do a native Encode GPU use is at 99% and CPU use around 68%. CPU is a Ryzen 5700G (I know... I'm moving over to AM5 soon enough and this GPU was the first step in the upgrade).

Is this just the nature of the AMD encoder? I tried AV1, H264 and H265. I usually target an 80K bitrate for 4K footage. I tried Constant QP (HUUUGE file sizes), constant bitrate and peak constrained VBR, all did the same thing.. they went ham on my CPU. It's actually faster to render things using Native to my target bitrate, which also uses up most of my CPU and a lot of GPU.

Is this just the nature of the AMD encoder, is it really this bad compared to NVENC? Or is this card just not playing nicely with Resolve yet because it was just released?

Timeline and Fusion performance are better... MUCH better so there's that.

I'm on Studio and sse neural engine optimization on AMD is checked, as is hardware decoding so I think the software is seeing my hardware just fine.

5700G is an APU. You sure Resolve is not using the integrated GPU to encode instead of the discrete GPU? I would make sure to plug in the monitor into the 9070 and disable the iGPU from bios.

You can also check in Task Manager in the Video 0 or Video 1 (or however these are set on your 9070) if the encoders are being used.

5700G is an APU. You sure Resolve is not using the integrated GPU to encode instead of the discrete GPU? I would make sure to plug in the monitor into the 9070 and disable the iGPU from bios.

You can also check in Task Manager in the Video 0 or Video 1 (or however these are set on your 9070) if the encoders are being used.

The IGPU is disabled in the bios, all 3 monitors are plugged directly into the 9070 and I have access to the newest AMD encoders in OBS and AV1 encoding which would not be possible with the IGPU. Also, when I had the 3060 installed Resolve couldn't see it at all since it's disabled (I bring this up because my laptop can see both the AMD integrated graphics and the NVIDIA discreet graphics).

I've since tested this in handbrake and OBS... whether it's encoding or decoding it utilizes the CPU at 100%.

These cards apparently have hardware media encoding/decoding built in... so I wonder why Resolve (and other apps) can't tap into it? Or... is this just how it is with modern AMD cards (maybe a 7000 series user can chime in? what happens when they render?).

[Peter Chamberlain]

Free or Studio version?
Which specific version of Resolve?

Free or Studio version?
Which specific version of Resolve?

I have a Studio license. Version 19.1.1 Build 8

I'm wondering if there's an issue with my GPU or its software, as the CPU goes to 90-100% when encoding H264/H265/AV1 even when I choose the AMD renderer, it does the same in Resolve, OBS and Handbrake. When I was using NVENC the CPU was barely used when encoding.

Does the 9070 & XT let you use CBR for AV1? Problem with my 7800XT is the card automatically chooses what bitrate to render with AV1, it won't accept a higher constant bitrate