The full potential of the AMD Radeon RX 5700 has been locked away from customers, hidden behind synthetic obstacles on energy and GPU clock velocity. But there’s a simple, non-invasive strategy to entry the true efficiency of the second-string Navi GPU, and a strategy to squeeze nearly $500 price of RTX 2070 Super-level gaming body charges from this $350 graphics card, and we’re going to point out you ways.
The RX 5700 has had a little bit of a tough journey since its launch in July. Its larger sibling, the RX 5700 XT, is the one which’s taken all of the plaudits for its tempting value and efficiency virtually on par with the considerably costlier Nvidia RTX 2070 Super. But after the value switcheroo, the “double Jebait” as Scott Herkalman calls it, which noticed the value of the RX 5700 XT drop from $449 to $399, and the RX 5700 from $379 to $349, the 2 Navi playing cards had been out of the blue too shut for consolation.
The $50 pricing delta between them meant it was robust to realistically suggest the weaker card when the XT model had higher specs, was sooner, and will overclock additional too. The improve value was price paying, and that has left the RX 5700 in a little bit of a limbo the place it’s struggling for relevance.
But it didn’t must be so… in actuality there’s virtually no efficiency distinction between the 2 playing cards, apart from what AMD has artificially created by locking customers out from accessing the total potential of the second-string Navi GPU. By default the RX 5700’s GPU frequency has a tough 1,850MHz restrict imposed upon it by the WattMan overclocking too and also you shall not move.
The RX 5700 XT, however, permits customers to push the frequency slide all the best way as much as 2,150MHz, and offers the choice for +50% energy the place the RX 5700 is barely allowed +20%. This all implies that the lower-tier Navi GPU has been totally castrated with regards to easy overclocking whereas the XT card will get all of the glory.
| Radeon RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary Ed. | Radeon RX 5700 XT | Radeon RX 5700 | |
| GPU | AMD Navi 10 | AMD Navi 10 | AMD Navi 10 |
| Lithography | 7nm FinFET | 7nm FinFET | 7nm FinFET |
| Compute items | 40 | 40 | 36 |
| RDNA Cores | 2,560 | 2,560 | 2,304 |
| Memory | 8GB GDDR6 | 8GB GDDR6 | 8GB GDDR6 |
| Memory bandwidth | 448GB/s | 448GB/s | 448GB/s |
| Boost clock | 1,980MHz | 1,905MHz | 1,725MHz |
| Game clock | 1,830MHz | 1,755MHz | 1,625MHz |
| Base clock | 1,680MHz | 1,605MHz | 1,465MHz |
| Transistors | 10.3bn | 10.3bn | 10.3bn |
| Die dimension | 251mm2 | 251mm2 | 251mm2 |
| TDP | 225W | 225W | 180W |
| Price | $449 | £429 | $399 | £380 | $349 | £340 |
With our reference card we may simply push all of the sliders to the max on the RX 5700 and run with none issues, or any significantly spectacular efficiency enhance both. That ensured the RX 5700 XT may retain a major efficiency lead.
And you’ll be able to see why AMD wanted to impose the clock velocity restrictions once you see how the RX 5700 performs with out them… it’s simply able to delivering XT ranges of gaming body charges and does so with a decrease peak temperature too. And all for $50 much less.
The 256 RDNA core disparity between the 2 playing cards’ GPUs seemingly really makes little to no distinction in-game when the clock speeds are on a degree taking part in subject.
How to unlock the AMD RX 5700
If you need to unlock the total potential of the RX 5700 there are actually two major strategies. One is invasive, everlasting, and includes fully changing the VBIOS of your costly new graphics card, whereas working the chance of totally bricking it and rendering it naught however a dear paperweight. The different is virtually risk-free and sinply requires a bit of software program wrangling.
Guess which one we suggest…
Now, I really like bricking costly {hardware} as a lot as the subsequent human – and I’m fairly damned good at it too – however I’m really a fairly large fan of AMD’s Navi GPUs and would really really feel kinda unhealthy turning one into a lot silicon slag.
Thankfully a neighborhood member over at Igor’s Lab, going by the identify of hellm, has created the MorePowerTool – download here. It’s a helpful little bit of software program which lets you change all the Overdrive options, limits, energy, frequency, and fan settings on your GPU. It’s a strong little device, which provides you an enormous quantity of management over your card.
You can dig proper in and tweak to your coronary heart’s content material, however messing round an excessive amount of with the settings can result in some points, so it’s time for that patented SE7EN|titleonly disclaimer time…
Whenever you’re messing round along with your tech, and pushing it past its default settings, you will be swimming in murky guarantee water, so if something goes unsuitable you would possibly wrestle to get it repaired or changed. You have been warned.
But realistically for those who’re cautious, affected person, and above all not too grasping, you shouldn’t run into any issues utilizing the software program. But, y’know, disclaimers, your individual danger, and all that.
Once you’ve downloaded and put in the MorePowerTool I’d suggest going and grabbing the RX 5700 XT VBIOS from TechPowerUp for ease of use. If you need to go fancy you’ll be able to even obtain the 50th Anniversary Edition VBIOS.
Boot MorePowerTool and make it possible for the drop down menu on the high is studying your GPU. Click the ‘Load’ button and choose the VBIOS you simply downloaded from wherever you left it. Then it ought to present up the brand new frequency and energy limits within the software program, providing you with a far much less restricted GPU to play with.
There are different tweaks you are able to do to the fan curves, and even push the frequency and energy limits even additional, however that means lie dragons. Or at the least melted silicon.
Then you have to ‘Write SPPT’ to avoid wasting your new settings and exit the software program. You’ll have to restart your PC to have them accessible in WattMan so you will get on along with your tweaking.
Access the total potential of your RX 5700
Once you’re restarted your PC you will note the brand new frequency limits in WattMan. And how do you entry WattMan? Well, that may very well be a information in itself, such is the best way AMD has buried it inside the Radeon Settings software program…
Click the ‘Gaming’ tab, hit the ‘Global Settings,’ after which the ‘Global WattMan’ tab. Then click on the ‘Frequency/Voltage’ swap half means down the column on the left and also you’ll be introduced with a shiny new frequency/voltage curve. And as a substitute of the 1,850MHz restrict to the X axis you need to now see 2,200MHz – for those who went for the 50th Anniversary VBIOS.
Now it’s only a query of normal Navi overclocking and undervolting.
I like to make use of the Heaven 4.zero benchmark when overclocking because it’s a free GPU-stressing take a look at that can fortunately loop in a window in your desktop. Over which you’ll tweak utilizing both MSI Afterburner or AMD’s WattMan and see the impression of your changes on the fly and reset issues for those who begin to see the odd artifact on-screen.
Initially we tried the height overclock we managed from our reference RX 5700 XT card – 2,130MHz with a voltage of 1,146mV. Predictably it instantly fell over and we needed to restart the PC.
If you’re doing it by yourself card I’d suggest simply ensuring that the Heaven take a look at runs fortunately in a loop with the up to date settings cribbed from the downloaded VBIOS earlier than really moving into and altering the frequency curve. Push the frequency up in 5 – 10MHz bumps, making use of the settings as you go, and regulate the Heaven window for any flashes of color, errant pixels, or stars.
When you begin to see these you already know you’re pushing your silicon too far.
In the tip we landed on a 2,005MHz remaining goal for our GPU’s clock velocity and set it to a 1,176mV voltage, a stable undervolt on what you’d different clever see. This is what retains the GPU temps down and permits our reference RX 5700 to run cooler than the XT.
Compared to the 1,850MHz restrict of the default RX 5700 card that’s an honest frequency hike, particularly when the inventory clocked model solely runs as much as 1,677MHz in our testing. Our unlocked RX 5700 however will run in-game at 1,963MHz. It does peak at 83°C below these settings, however that’s properly inside the technique of the Navi GPU, although it does chug down a good bit of additional juice to get there too.
How quick is an unlocked AMD RX 5700?
With the unlocked overclock in place, and working completely steady, we had been in a position to see gaming efficiency on par with the RX 5700 XT. And in some instances it was really barely outperforming what we’d seen in Navi benchmarks.
That’s as a result of although the XT has extra RDNA cores at its coronary heart, our unlocked GPU was working, on common, with a barely increased frequency. In Far Cry New Dawn and F1 2019 we had been seeing the RX 5700 working just a bit faster as these titles are much more excited by increased clock speeds than nearly anything.
Assassin’s Creed delivered the very same GPU efficiency, whereas Metro Exodus and Shadow of the Tomb Raider had been nonetheless ever so barely behind the XT.
All our testing has been carried out at 1440p with the utmost in-game settings utilized, so you’ll be able to anticipate a fair larger body charge enhance for those who had been to check the 1080p default and unlocked body charges.
Across the board we’re taking a look at between 10 and 20% efficiency enhance with the unlocked overclock, which fully bridges the hole between AMD playing cards, and it additionally reels within the RTX 2070 Super from Nvidia too. That’s a $350 card getting as much as $500 ranges.
Even then it’s not placing undue stress on the Navi GPU. At 83°C it’s not getting that scorching – particularly when AMD claims temperatures above 100°C are fine on Navi…
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