Flashed 16 5700XTs back to stock. Some clocks are now lower than expected

pclausen

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I have 16 5700XTs that I flashed back to stock ROMs using the amdvbflash utility. I had the original rom images saved from when I did the memory straps.

Once I was done, I ran the Superposition benchmark to check if the performance was as expected. It was for most of the cards, but a handful showed less than expected results.

So I used GPU-Z to collect the details for each card. This is what I found:

summary.jpg


If we look at the Sapphire Pulse cards, for example, we can see that the first 3 and the 5th are running at the factory OC settings as seen here:

Pulse_factory_OC.jpg


But Pulse cards 4 and 6 are running the standard clocks. We can also see that cards 4 and 6 are running a different BIOS and has a different device ID. Amdvbflash won't allow me to flash the rom image from the other Pulse cards because the Device IDs don't match.

I can of course OC the cards manually, but I want to get them back to stock form if at all possible.

Any idea what's going on or how to correct?
 
Are there different versions of the Pulse cards like a regular and then an "OC" version? Seems like they are different cards since the Device IDs are different. Techpowerup has a pretty good data base where you can search by Device ID to see the differences IIRC.
 
If you were mining with them using hiveos, under the overclocking menu there was a flash bios spot there. There, you can upload the bios file you wish to flash and there is a flag to override, allowing you to force in whatever bios you wish. There is also an override setting with the windows utility, but I think it was a command line flag. I found just doing it in hive was easier. I used the method above to flash an RX 470 with an RX 570 bios. Works well.
 
If you use the DOS Bootdisk version of AMDvbflash (which is supposed to be more reliable, but who knows), here are the command line arguments-

<option/s>:
-fp Force flashing bypassing BIOS P/N check.
-fa Force flashing bypassing already-programmed check.
-fv Force flashing bypassing newer BIOS version check.


You would just use -fp and force it to use the bios that you want. I agree with kirbyrj though that it's likely just a variation of that model and supposed to be those clock speeds. There's probably a way to do the same thing with the version that runs in Windows as well.
 
Appreciate the feedback. I did take a peak at the Techpowerup database, and I don't see different versions of the Pulse card. I may try flashing the "faster" bios using either hiveos or DOS.

But it does seem like that's just the way the cards came since I put the original unmodified BIOS back on each card. I didn't bother to check the performance originally before modifying them, or I would have caught the rather large performance differences.
 
Do the cards have a little BIOS switch on them that switches between a "quiet" bios and an "OC" one?
 
Yep, most (if not all of the cards) have that switch. I tried both settings and got the same performance/clocks on both setting with the one Pulse I was testing with. I'll see if the other cards behave differently. All these cards were purchased used back in October 2020, so who knows what the previous owner did with them. The Gigabyte ones were NewEgg refurbs.
 
1900mhz memory is wrong and directly correlates to the low scores. Stock should be 1750mhz.That's a really hefty overclock, and very likely the cause of the artifacting with the one gigabyte card.

Search the bios version on techpowerup and try flashing a verified stock bios. I've come across some hilariously bad bios mods over the years, and quickly learned to never trust anything other than a verified stock file.

Or, try flashing one of the other "good" bios file from another card (for exmaple, flash Pulse 1 bios to Pulse 4 and re-test)

Edit: This is the stock gigabyte file. Note, "memory clock 1750mhz": https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/215291/gigabyte-rx5700xt-8192-190828
 
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Yeah, the issue is I can't do that in Windows, I get this even when using the -fp option:

pulse_4_rom_fail_take4.PNG


So I'll try the DOS version and then hiveos if all else fails I suppose.
 
SSID != P/N

"amdvbflash /?" and read up on the various -f options. You can chain them together if more than one thing doesn't match.
 
I tried the DOS version with all the -f options and still I get the same error:

IMG_1499.JPG


That 068 BIOS (E426) on Pulse cards 4 and 6 isn't even in the TechPowerUp database as being valid for a Sapphire Pulse. I'm going to try to upload that 068 BIOS to their database.

EDIT: The 068 BIOS is in their database, but is unverified, which is probably why I didn't see it.
 
Using hiveos was the ticket. GPU-Z now looks correct and I get the expected result in Superposition. I should be able to fix the rest of the GPUs that have odd timings now as well.
 
Using hiveos was the ticket. GPU-Z now looks correct and I get the expected result in Superposition. I should be able to fix the rest of the GPUs that have odd timings now as well.
most retail/non-patched versions of amdvbflash won't allow a force flash when the ssid is mismatched. Youl have to dig up a patched version, or yeah, just use Hive as it's included in their distro
 
Got all the trouble cards flashed using hiveos and then ran Superposition again and updated the GPU-Z information.

Much better:

summary.jpg


One of the ASRock and the Red Devil still score a little low, but I'm good with the numbers overall and those silly memory clocks are gone.

Not only does Gigabyte 3 no longer artifact, it got one of the highest scores.
 
Got all the trouble cards flashed using hiveos and then ran Superposition again and updated the GPU-Z information.

Much better:

One of the ASRock and the Red Devil still score a little low, but I'm good with the numbers overall and those silly memory clocks are gone.

Not only does Gigabyte 3 no longer artifact, it got one of the highest scores.
Good on you for testing all your cards btw. Im doing my part as well with a very similar methodology before selling mined cards (flash to stock and test in superposition). With the great crypto selloff upon us, there's going to be a TON of untested cards hitting the market with shitty bios mods like that.
 
most retail/non-patched versions of amdvbflash won't allow a force flash when the ssid is mismatched. Youl have to dig up a patched version, or yeah, just use Hive as it's included in their distro
hive just makes it easy....worth it to sign up for hive just to flash a bios....
 
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