AMD RX 9070 unlocks XT performance with BIOS update

Radeon RX 9070 beats its XT counterpart using BIOS-modded firmware

Members of the PC Games Hardware forums have successfully installed Radeon RX 9070 XT firmware (BIOS) on AMD Radeon RX 9070 GPUs, enabling a higher power limit and higher GPU clock speeds.

While this firmware mod doesn’t add extra shaders to AMD’s RX 9070 (as they are lasered off), giving AMD’s RX 9070 more power and higher clock speeds had a huge performance impact. With this mod, an overclocked Radeon RX 9070 can achieve performance levels that match or exceed AMD’s RX 9070 XT. However, an overclocked RX 9070 XT can surpass this thanks to its extra 512 stream processors.

(Image from PC Games Hardware)

BIOS modding reveal the impact of AMD’s RX 9070 TDP limits

This BIOS mod, which was done on an ASUS RX 9070 Prime OC, highlights how limiting AMD’s RX 9070 BIOS settings are. With access to a higher power budget, users of this GPU can overclock it much further.

Compared to a stock Radeon RX 9070, firmware-modded cards achieve 15-20% performance gains. However, while these hacked GPUs are stable in games, they are not stable at idle. However, this issue could be fixed in the future by modders.

(Data from 3D center)

Honestly, it is exciting to see modders extract the latent potential of new PC hardware. It reminds me of the golden age of overclocking, when much larger performance gains could be achieved by those willing to put in the effort. Today, the gains that can be achieved through overclocking are more limited. New high-end PC components have much less untapped performance. For lower-end parts, overclocking restrictions and power limits often prevent overclockers from having some real fun. Either way, the days of easy performance gains are over. Regardless, it will be interesting to see how the RDNA 4 overclocking scene develops.

You can join the discussion on modders achieving RX 9070 XT performance with RX 9070 GPUs on the OC3D Forums.