Jayztwocents experimented with the GIGABYTE RTX 5090 AORUS Master by flashing a 1000W BIOS on it, which is originally made for the ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5090.
GIGABYTE RTX 5090 AORUS Master Maxed Out with Custom BIOS, Delivering 10% Improvement in Performance at 900W
GeForce RTX 5090 officially runs at a default TDP of 600W but with manual overclocking and at full load, it's usual to see it consuming higher power. Flash a custom BIOS, and you may unlock over a 1000W but at the moment, there aren't a lot of such BIOSes, and the handful of them are made for the GeForce RTX 5090 D, a Chinese variant, which was recently discontinued.
Cards like ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5090 D and GALAX RTX 5090 HOF received their unofficial 2001 XOC BIOSes recently but the ROG Astral RTX 5090 (non-D) also has a custom 1000W BIOS, which enables increasing the watage. Even though this particular BIOS is made only for Astral RTX 5090, you can apparently make them work on other editions through some tweaks as shown by JayzTwoCents. Apart from being able to flash the custom 1000W ASUS BIOS on the ZOTAC RTX 5090, he was able to flash it on the GIGABYTE RTX 5090 AORUS Master as well.
This did introduce some problems, like the disabling of the first fan on the GPU, which Jay replaced with a custom fan for higher airflow. Moreover, the GPU had problems running stress tests at 1600W, which can be achieved through increasing the power limit in MSI Afterburner with this XOC BIOS, so, Jay had to reset to the default 1000W power rating for the card with the new BIOS. With stock clocks, the card was able to draw up to 800W but only delivered a margin performance boost. However, with overclocking, he was able to push the GPU to deliver 10.3% higher score in 3DMark Port Royal, which also helped him secure the top 100 rankings in the world.
It was interesting to see that unlocking the 1000W power limit wasn't enough for the GIGABYTE card to deliver higher performance since the BIOS didn't automatically increase the core and memory clocks. With the help of an AC unit for improved cooling performance and manual overclocking, GIGABYTE RTX 5090 AORUS Master was able to achieve 10% better performance but at 900W, which is a 33% increase in TDP.
Now since this 1000W BIOS was originally made for the Astral RTX 5090, it not only works flawlessly on the ASUS card, the card seems to respond well even at 1600W. The GIGABYTE RTX 5090 AORUS Master uses 50A power stages compared to 80A power stages on the Astral edition, which explains why the RTX 5090 AORUS Master wasn't able to handle all that extra power. Nonetheless, with increase power limit, one shouldn't expect GPUs to offer a similar increase in performance as the GPUs often hit their limit sooner.
About the author: Sarfraz Khan is a hardware reporter with a focus on PC components and the builder community. With years of experience writing about PC hardware and laptops, his work has been featured on several reputable technology publications. Sarfraz's hands-on experience is demonstrated through his first-person accounts of using and comparing different hardware configurations, providing practical and relatable insights for everyday users. His technical analysis is respected by peers in the enthusiast community and has been cited by specialized hardware sites such as Germany's Igor's Lab.
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