Up to 25% more performance is obtained when the AMD Radeon RX 9070’s XT BIOS is flashed.
It is not a new idea to flash the BIOS of a more powerful GPU onto a less potent SKU from the same GPU family. However, because power and frequency are handled more loosely, it can allow for a significant improvement in performance. On the r/Radeon subreddit, u/noVa_realiZe posted precisely this. The guy loaded the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT BIOS onto his PowerColor RX 9070 non-XT SKU, according to the article. The 3DMark Steel Nomad benchmark has increased significantly as a result, rising from 5,821 points at stock, non-flashed GPU to 6,461 points, or almost 11% more. The user reached a score of up to 7,277 points in the same benchmark using other adjustments and settings, such as changing RAM configurations and raising the power limit with the XT BIOS. With a few adjustments, the non-XT card was able to achieve roughly a fourth of the performance improvement, which is a phenomenal 25% boost over the base result.
The card only achieved an 8–12% uplift above the base SKU in real-world gaming, demonstrating the decoupling from the simulated tests. In contrast to the relatively short-term strain from synthetic benchmarks, it is quite probable that the longer-term thermal stress from the extended gaming sessions is the reason for this lesser performance increase, maintaining lower clocks. The enhanced power limit, which raises the non-XT 220 W board power to as much as 300 W—a power boost of almost 36% on its own—is the sole driver of this FPS increase. Flashing the XT BIOS does not unlock any more cores, ROPs, or TMUs. When comparing the power and performance of the stock non-XT SKU, the entire process is actually quite wasteful. But if you want to get the most out of your GPU, this might be a good choice—as long as you weigh all the hazards involved in using your GPU under non-default settings. Over time, persistently high power settings may cause GPU deterioration, and BIOS flashing is always a dangerous process.
