AMD's Radeon RX 9070 Non-XT GPU has been BIOS modded by a user at PCGamesHardware, leading to better performance than the XT variant.
Modding A Non-XT AMD Radeon RX 9070 GPU With The BIOS of An XT Variant Leads To Much Better Performance
The AMD Radeon RX 9070 & RX 9070 XT graphics cards might be based on the same Navi 48 GPU, but they are distinctly configured in regards to their core specifications. Each card has a different BIOS that is configured specifically for them. The XT model features more cores & while some may think it's easy to unlock these cores on the RX 9070 Non-XT variant, that isn't the case anymore, as it used to be.
With that said, flashing a graphics card with the BIOS of a different model can lead to performance improvement and that is certainly what PCGamesHardware forum member, Gurdi, tried out.
- RX 9070 Non-XT Without BIOS Mod: 2140-2610 MHz @ 220W
- RX 9070 Non-XT With BIOS Mod: 2480-3030 MHz @ 317W
For testing, an ASUS PRIME variant of the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GPU was used and the BIOS that it was flashed with was from the same variant, the ASUS PRIME Radeon RX 9070 XT. At stock, the GPU features a clock speed of up to 2.6 GHz and a TGP of 220W but with the new BIOS, the card runs at up to 3.1 GHz and has a TGP of 317W. There's no change in the number of cores since those are cut out or disabled entirely out of the die.
The user shared the performance of the vBIOS modded AMD Radeon RX 9070 Non-XT GPU in a range of synthetic tests, and it looks like the card was able to outperform a reference Radeon RX 9070 XT, which is definitely a surprise considering the XT models have more cores. Another thing noted was that the ASUS PRIME RX 9070 XT GPU uses 3 x 8-pin connectors while the RX 9070 Non-XT variant features just 2 x 8-pin connectors, which should still be enough to feed its TGP.
The forum member also mentions that the gaming performance of his modded AMD Radeon RX 9070 GPU sits ahead of the Radeon RX 9070 XT. All of this is interesting, but we should point out that flashing a BIOS on GPUs comes with its risks and users should take extra precautions in doing so. For those who have had experience with vBIOS flashing on GPUs, they can try this out as the BIOS is available at TechpowerUp.
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
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