Which revision of RX 5700 XT is best?

[Steo]

I'm considering buying an RX 5700 XT since I use Linux, and the open source Mesa drivers are much more ideal here than Nvidia's closed source ones. I'm wondering has anyone had any experience with this GPU yet? I had a VEGA 64 Strix before and it ran really hot, while also being really loud. I don't want to make the same mistake of getting a card with a bad cooler, so I'm hoping someone here might know which revision would be best to buy.

[boggy77]

Tier S The best (Highest end PCB, exceeding cards)

AMD: Reference with custom cooler

Gigabyte: Aorus

MSI: Gaming X

Powercolor: Red Devil

Sapphire: Nitro+

XFX: Thicc III

 

 

[Guiltyxz]

Just don't get one with a blower style fan, I have a 5700 with a blower fan its its not as bad as the Vega 64 but its still bad.

[Smackaroy]

Gigabyte xt gaming oc. Just don't get the asus tuf that thing overheats 

[Steo]

I seen that people gave the TUF bad reviews on Amazon, so I thought avoiding that one made sense. I was looking at the Gigabyte OC actually, but thought I'd rather hear others opinions first. Apparently some revisions of the card have a plastic back plate instead of a metal one it seems.

 

EDIT: The Thicc III actually has a decent deal, the Thicc II was the one that had the plastic plate iirc, but the III should be OK.

 

EDIT 2: I decided to go with a Gigabyte OC one on an Amazon Warehouse deal. It worked out way cheaper, and I can always return it if there's an issue.

[Steo]

So after receiving the Gigabyte OC version of the card, I'm having issues with the driver crashing or the computer randomly rebooting in game. This was on Windows, where I got a D3D device error and the game crashed, then a while later I tried again only to have the screen go black and the computer reboot. There's nothing in the event viewer but an unexpected shutdown.

 

On Linux (which I had tried first) , within seconds of first running GTA, the computer crashed on the main menu of the game, with a checkerboard like pattern of my desktop wallpaper and steam. I tried again and it was working fine, but then I had it freeze just after changing settings in the menu and unpausing the game. The music was still playing, but nothing else would respond, so I had to force off the computer.

 

I've seen that others had similar issues, but I'm not sure if they ever managed to resolve them. Could this card just be faulty? 

[Grabhanem]

4 minutes ago, Steo said:

So after receiving the Gigabyte OC version of the card, I'm having issues with the driver crashing or the computer randomly rebooting in game. This was on Windows, where I got a D3D device error and the game crashed, then a while later I tried again only to have the screen go black and the computer reboot. There's nothing in the event viewer but an unexpected shutdown.

 

On Linux (which I had tried first) , within seconds of first running GTA, the computer crashed on the main menu of the game, with a checkerboard like pattern of my desktop wallpaper and steam. I tried again and it was working fine, but then I had it freeze just after changing settings in the menu and unpausing the game. The music was still playing, but nothing else would respond, so I had to force off the computer.

 

I've seen that others had similar issues, but I'm not sure if they ever managed to resolve them. Could this card just be faulty? 

I've heard that that can be a PSU issue- several people have said that upgrading their PSU has fixed it. However, that's just internet hearsay- take it with a grain of salt.

[Steo]

What I'll do to rule that out is use it in another computer here with a 650 watt PSU. If it doesn't crash then it's a possibility, though this PSU used to work with a VEGA 64 so I'm not sure how likely it is to he the culprit. Still better to rule it out I suppose.

[Steo]

So I tested the GPU in another machine on Windows with the latest drivers, it seemed to work pretty well for some time playing GTA, but then upon restarting the computer and launching GTA again, it started to exhibit the same issues again, in fact, even worse than it was in my computer.

 

After researching online a bit more, I noticed many people complaining about the 20+ drivers. They mentioned that 19.12.1 seemed to work well, so I decided to just try it out with low expectations. Surprisingly, it worked perfectly all night, I played GTA Online for hours, and even started messing about with the power limit and clock speeds without having a single issue. 

 

I'm not sure what was going on that it froze in Linux twice, but I'm hoping that was just a coincidence. Hopefully the card will work properly again tomorrow from a cold boot, and if so, I'll try the latest drivers again under Windows just to see if the problem returns to rule it out. 

[Steo]

I'm returning this one and I'm going to purchase a replacement. It kept crashing no matter what OS I was running. I tried different drivers on Windows and it would just black screen in the middle of a game or throw a D3D error.

 

Even on Arch Linux I kept having my system freeze, and it was fine until I replaced the GPU. I tried different kernels and different versions of Mesa, I can only put it down to a faulty card since many others have the card work perfectly fine for them under Linux. I know people complained about the drivers, but this has to be worse considering some people report to have their cards working fine.

[Nayr438]

I personally have 2 systems setup with the similar hardware with a 5700XT, both running chaotic-aur/mesa-git , chaotic-aur/lib32-mesa-git , and chaotic-aur/linux-tkg-pds-zen2.

One system on Manjaro and one on Arch.

You may try those packages, if it still has issues, I would place fault on the card.

 

For Windows, I have never been able to get a fully stable experience on either system.

[Steo]

I have used the exact same driver and kernel on Arch, but still had issues with the system randomly freezing. I think it's possibly a hardware problem, since my system was fine beforehand, and I did buy it from Amazon warehouse as used. I never had an issue with anything from the warehouse before, so I assumed it would be fine.

I'm going to return it and buy a new sealed one instead, that way I'll know there's no hardware issues. I'll report back once I receive it, I'll be staying on the pds zen2 kernel with the mesa-git drivers also.

[Nayr438]

I throw this here to, since I managed to forget it on my arch system. Make sure you grab chaotic-aur/xf86-video-amdgpu-git as well. it got me when I was enabling freesync and xorg kept crashing.

[Steo]

Thanks for the info, I'm just waiting for the refund to be processed, then I'll be purchasing another 5700XT. I'll keep a note of all these things and be sure to uninstall the Nvidia stuff once I get the card.

 

My entire system just kept freezing randomly, Windows event log had no info about the crash, and either did journalctl in Arch. The system would just stop responding entirely.

 

As for the card itself, I'm now looking at the XFX Thicc III or one of the Sapphire Nitro+ ones. The Thicc III doesn't have all these flashy LEDs, but it would perform it's intended task, which is the main thing. I liked how quiet the Gigabyte OC was, but part of me feels like buying the same card again would result in the same scenario. I know that's highly unlikely, but I can't help but feel that way lol.

[durppe]

I've been using Linux 5.6-rc1 and Linux 5.6-rc3 and mesa-git and so far there's no problem on the (Arch) linux side of things. 5.5 didn't like me, so... I don't have freesync though, maybe that's where everything goes downhill from.

 

(My 5700XT is an XFX Thicc III Ultra, it's louder than I expected but not deafening... I've never heard a Nitro+ or another high end GPU myself so I can't compare it)

[Steo]

I ended up getting the Sapphire Nitro+ Special edition and it seems to be working so far. I have one small issue under Linux though which I also encountered with the other 5700XT, sometimes the HDMI audio cuts out for a second randomly. Does anyone else have any issues like this with a 5700XT under Linux?

[Steo]

After testing a bit longer, it seems that this issue persists under Windows for me too. I haven't yet tried the generic audio driver, but this shows that the problem isn't just within Linux. I don't seem to get the audio dropout on my monitor via HDMI, just on the TV, which is an LG B8 OLED. I'm not too sure why the TV is being fussy or whether I can change anything to make it work properly, but the main thing for now is that the GPU itself does work properly and hasn't given me any issues with freezing or crashing this time around.