Rx 5700 vs Rx 5700 XT

[Aidan.69420]

Im build a Gaming pc and plan on using a Ryzen 5 3600 and was wondering if paying an extra $100 CDN is worth it to upgrade an Rx 5700 to the XT variant.  I would like to play at ultra but also want to save money where I can.  Is it worth the upgrade? (I play Rainbow Six Siege, Red Read Redemption 2, Modern Warfare 2019, and Minecraft with shaders mods and texture packs)

[RobFRaschke]

Are you interested in BIOS flashing or powerplay table mods?

[Aidan.69420]

Just now, RobFRaschke said:

Are you interested in BIOS flashing or powerplay table mods?

This is my first pc build ever, so I’m kinda learning as I go, so I do not know what either of those are lol.

[RobFRaschke]

8 minutes ago, Aidan.69420 said:

This is my first pc build ever, so I’m kinda learning as I go, so I do not know what either of those are lol.

*Most* 5700s can use the bios of their exact big brother counterpart 5700xt. There are some lists which will outline which 5700s can use which 5700xt bios that have been verified to work and it will unlock the wattage and speeds available to the 5700xt but not the extra cores. Those are likely cut off in silicon.

 

Powerplay tables are going to net you similar results, if not a bit more actually, but require a bit more fiddling in software to get working. There are a few guides around that have the basics of it.

 

Either option will get a 5700 up to within a couple percentage points of a stock 5700XT for nothing but your time. A 5700XT could yet do better with powerplay tables as well, but by lesser margin because it's already much closer to maximum clocks.

[Midnitewolf]

There is about a $50 difference between the 5700 and 5700 XT.  With the 5700 you could bios flash it to a 5700 XT and get nearly the same performance as a 5700 XT.  However for $50 difference, I don't think it would be worth the time and effort involved to flash the bios, plus I am pretty sure that doing so voids your warranty. 

[steelo]

15 minutes ago, Midnitewolf said:

There is about a $50 difference between the 5700 and 5700 XT.  With the 5700 you could bios flash it to a 5700 XT and get nearly the same performance as a 5700 XT.  However for $50 difference, I don't think it would be worth the time and effort involved to flash the bios, plus I am pretty sure that doing so voids your warranty. 

What is this relashing you speak of? LOL

[Midnitewolf]

18 minutes ago, steelo said:

What is this relashing you speak of? LOL

I am not super familiar with the process but you can flash the bios on a 5700 with the bios from a 5700 XT to trick the 5700 into thinking it is a 5700 XT.  Generally speaking I think you can achieve about a 10% performance boost on the 5700 which will put you very near the stock, low end performance of a 5700 XT.

 

The potential issues are screwing something up and "Bricking" your brand new 5700, plus it voids the warranty   I guess technically there could be other "unforeseen" problem that can occur in terms of driver compatibility or because your using your GPU outside of design specifications but from the ongoing discussions about this, most people don't seem to be too worried.  There is also the time investment to perform all the bios flash and tweaking to consider.

 

As far as how to do it, just Google "5700 to 5700 XT bios flash" and you will probably be able to find at least 1/2 dozen guides.

[BTGbullseye]

5 minutes ago, Midnitewolf said:

I am not super familiar with the process but you can flash the bios on a 5700 with the bios from a 5700 XT to trick the 5700 into thinking it is a 5700 XT.  Generally speaking I think you can achieve about a 10% performance boost on the 5700 which will put you very near the stock, low end performance of a 5700 XT.

 

The potential issues are screwing something up and "Bricking" your brand new 5700, plus it voids the warranty   I guess technically there could be other "unforeseen" problem that can occur in terms of driver compatibility or because your using your GPU outside of design specifications but from the ongoing discussions about this, most people don't seem to be too worried.  There is also the time investment to perform all the bios flash and tweaking to consider.

 

As far as how to do it, just Google "5700 to 5700 XT bios flash" and you will probably be able to find at least 1/2 dozen guides.

It's also highly recommended to NOT do that unless throwing $350 in the trash is something you're fine with doing.

[steelo]

Just now, BTGbullseye said:

It's also highly recommended to NOT do that unless throwing $350 in the trash is something you're fine with doing.

Hopefully I will not be able to convince myself to do this...

 

I often talk myself into doing stupid things with electronics because I'm a tinkerer and have a problem...LOL

[Midnitewolf]

2 minutes ago, BTGbullseye said:

It's also highly recommended to NOT do that unless throwing $350 in the trash is something you're fine with doing.

Agree. If your buying a 5700 to pinch pennies, I also don't feel it wise to be potentially risking $350 card just to get an extra 10% performance boost.  Either accept it is going to be 10% slower or spend the extra $50 to go the 5700 XT.    I mean you have to consider that even if your struggling to hit 60 fps, 10% is only 6 fps difference. I am not even sure you would notice the difference on most games.  Honestly I feel modding and OC'ing are generally for people who enjoy the tinkering and hobby aspect of computers rather than for someone scraping pennies to put together a decent PC.  

[steelo]

On 12/19/2019 at 2:27 PM, Midnitewolf said:

Honestly I feel modding and OC'ing are generally for people who enjoy the tinkering and hobby aspect of computers rather than for someone scraping pennies to put together a decent PC.  

And thats my problem...

[KaitouX]

Aren't cards with Dual BIOS basically no risk? If something goes wrong you could just use the other BIOS.

[Midnitewolf]

55 minutes ago, KaitouX said:

Aren't cards with Dual BIOS basically no risk? If something goes wrong you could just use the other BIOS.

Theoretically yes but I would think there is always a possibility that something could go catastrophically wrong when using a bios that was not meant for the GPU your using it on like the bios allowing for a power limit that your silicon can't handle or something like that.  I mean more than likely all the 5700 is, is a chip that binned worse than the ones they used in a 5700 XT and there is no way of knowing the tolerances AMD allows aside from it being at least good enough to run at stock 5700 voltages and heat levels.   I think we are talking way out on the theoretical limb here but I have at least heard of people with dual bios still ending up with a brick during even a normal bios flash so I would think using a non-standard bios could result in the same outcome.

 

I will defer to anyone who has more experience than me with this however.