Thursday, January 23rd 2020
MSI Says not all Radeon RX 5600 XT GPUs Can Hit 14 Gbps Memory Speed
Just before the launch of AMD's latest Radeon RX 5600 XT graphics cards, AMD released a vBIOS update that boosts the GPU clock speed by a few percent margins and increases the GDDR6 memory speed from 12 Gbps to 14 Gbps, which is almost a 17% performance increase in memory bandwidth. However, despite the release of these new firmware updates, AMD's add-in-board partners like ASUS and MSI have been cautious about applying the new vBIOS to the existing cards. A YouTube show called the MSI Insider, which is hosted by MSI employees, explains the situation. Due to the GDDR6 memory, which was originally meant as a 12 Gbps chip, when applying the new firmware update to the card can lead to RMA issues with customers.
While some cards are capable of hitting 14 Gbps speeds with the GDDR6 chips, others are not as they were not certified to work at that frequency. Silicon lottery (not the company) of the memory chips plays a big role as the quality of the onboard DRAM will have a large impact on the ability to overclock to new frequencies. That's why MSI released an RX 5600 XT GAMING Z variant with 14 Gbps vBIOS already applied out of the box. ASUS also joined the party and launched the ASUS ROG STRIX TOP graphics card, which is the only 14 Gbps enabled cards in ASUS'es whole lineup. By launching GPU SKUs with 14 Gbps speeds out of the box, manufacturers can guarantee these speeds and not depend on silicon lottery which may cause them a few RMA troubles down the road.
Source:
VideoCards
While some cards are capable of hitting 14 Gbps speeds with the GDDR6 chips, others are not as they were not certified to work at that frequency. Silicon lottery (not the company) of the memory chips plays a big role as the quality of the onboard DRAM will have a large impact on the ability to overclock to new frequencies. That's why MSI released an RX 5600 XT GAMING Z variant with 14 Gbps vBIOS already applied out of the box. ASUS also joined the party and launched the ASUS ROG STRIX TOP graphics card, which is the only 14 Gbps enabled cards in ASUS'es whole lineup. By launching GPU SKUs with 14 Gbps speeds out of the box, manufacturers can guarantee these speeds and not depend on silicon lottery which may cause them a few RMA troubles down the road.
86 Comments on MSI Says not all Radeon RX 5600 XT GPUs Can Hit 14 Gbps Memory Speed
flash bios to get out of the box review performance
which is not guaranteed
jebaited.
can you imagine if 2080 super had the same 14gbps but with a bios flash for 16gbps with no guarantee to work.
god damn,the outrage........
If it was reasonable to see what was happening then I don't have a problem. If it was a true bait and switch then it is Shady as pho.
EDIT: I know the 5600 XT is supposed to use 12 Gbps chips and more blame should be put on AMD for the last minute BIOS change.
If MSI and ASUS can't drive their old specs RX 5600XT cards at 14Gbps memory, that are based on the very same PCB as their RX 5700 models use... well it really means one thing in the end: They put 12Gbps chips on those cards and thats that.Riddle me this then: How come the review model of the Gaming X has 14Gbps modules? Did they deliberatly send a review card with better components so it gets better OC reviews? If they knew they would need to have the 14Gbps modules then why silicon lottery comment?
I get your question though. The RX 5600 XT was initially supposed to do 12 Gbps GDDR6.
But if you were planing on selling 12Gbps chips on these cards till the last moment BIOS changes, how come there are 14Gbps chips on your review sample that had been sent out 5-7 days before the BIOS change? Preaching water and drinking wine.
Also - People are easy to blame MSI.
Guys - how about putting the blame on the sudden decision that a card that was designed to work a certain way now has to be forced to work in other ways?
Engineers programmed this thing to have certain clocks, certain power envelop.
MSI is right - not all 12Gbps memory chips can work fine under 14Gbps clocks, that's just reality. Guess what - you are going to hear about Sapphire cards having memory artifacts too, don't worry. Come back later and quote me on this one
MSi is the real shit here /s