Powercolor rx 5600 xt: assembly ensures "your cards run within spec"

You will already know from our analyzes that the launch of the RX 5600 XT has brought some disappointment to assemblers and users, especially the media after seeing instability in the new BIOS with which AMD intended to maximize its new GPU. But in the PowerColor RX 5600 XT they have it clear: they claim that their cards are completely stable in the face of this rise in memory and GPU.

PowerColor dispels doubts with its message "It is running within specifications"

Shortly after you have seen a review from us or from other media, you will know that all the graphics cards updated their BIOS in-extremis within hours of their official launch. Faced with the price drop of the closest Nvidias in performance, AMD gave free rein to the assemblers to increase the frequency of GDDR6 memories from 12 Gbps to 14 Gbps, along with the TDP of 150 to 180W and the clock frequency of the chipset. to what each one deemed appropriate.

What happened? Well, as always, some assemblers took the opportunity to get the most out of the card by making these modifications, while others were cautious and left the memories at their stock speed of 12 Gbps for having slightly more coated chips.

Among those that boosted to 14 Gbps are PowerColor and Sapphire as the fastest followed by Gigabyte and Asus, whose GPUs we've had a chance to test. And among those who did not want to take the step, there is, for example, MSI, which reported failure rates on its cards after making the frequency increase. To which PowerColor has responded forcefully in a statement that can be translated as:

Notable concern for users

And it is not for less, since we would be spending around 370-420 euros some graphics cards of which we do not know if they are really going to be completely stable or not, in addition to being able to affect their useful life, we all know the call " silicon lottery ”.

To this is added the fact of having to manually update the BIOS to those users who have bought them in this first batch. It is a simple process but not many dare to do it.

The experience that we have had is that indeed there are stability problems in some cards in this series, the MSI itself chose to play it safe and left the memories at 12 Gbps increasing TDP and frequency. While Gigabyte was the most aggressive in its upgrade, Asus opted for a somewhat more conservative setup, though those 14 Gbps did come.

Here's a comparison between GPU clock speeds on PowerColor models before and after their BIOS update:

Model	SKU	Profile	BIOS v1 Game / Boost Clock (MHz)	BIOS v2 Game / Boost Clock (MHz)
Red Devil Radeon RX 5600 XT	AXRX 5600XT 6GBD6-3DHE / OC	OC	1560/1620	1660/1750
Silent	1420/1600	1495/1620
Red Dragon Radeon RX5600 XT	AXRX 5600XT 6GBD6-3DHR / OC	OC	1460/1620	1560/1620
Silent	1375/1560	1460/1620

What follows from this is that some manufacturers chose to install GDDR6 chips rated for 12 Gbps to save on costs, while others decided to place the maximum capacity ones to be safe.

The solution to the problems is easy, everyone chooses to implement 14 Gbps chips and end the problem, but then what will happen to those users who already have their RX 5600 XT?

OC3D.net Source