PowerColor Outs "Unlocked BIOS" for RX 480 RED Devil

btarunr · Aug 22, 2016

PowerColor today released an optional "Unlocked BIOS" for its Radeon RX 480 RED Devil graphics card. Available through PowerColor DevilClub (and TechPowerUp), the BIOS is optional because it is intended only for power-users. The BIOS increases power-limits on the card, facilitating higher overclocking headroom and clock speed sustainability.

The obvious trade-offs here are higher power-consumption, temperatures, and noise. In fact, PowerColor strongly recommends against using the modded card with FurMark as the company found that it will damage even non-overclocked cards with the new BIOS. PowerColor, however, stated that flashing your card with the optional BIOS will not void your warranty.

DOWNLOAD: PowerColor RX 480 Unlocked BIOS

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

dj-electric · Aug 22, 2016

i really question how much this will improve on the extremely-poor OC capabilities of the RX 480...

ZoneDymo · Aug 22, 2016

Cool stuff!

lanlagger · Aug 22, 2016

ZoneDymo said:
Cool stuff!

it is actually the opposite - "hot stuff", and not like sexy "hot", but phisically hot (think of - mantel and vulkan hot

)

F-Zero · Aug 22, 2016

Good guy PowerColor

Caring1 · Aug 22, 2016

Red Devil, sounds perfect to me

Sempron Guy · Aug 22, 2016

PowerColor, however, stated that flashing your card with the optional BIOS will not void your warranty.

silentbogo · Aug 22, 2016

Dj-ElectriC said:
i really question how much this will improve on the extremely-poor OC capabilities of the RX 480...

I was recently reading a review of this card on a russian website (HardwareLuxx), and there are few things that make it even worse:
- There are 6 GPU phases and quote: "According to the information from PowerColor, each phase can deliver 25W, and not 22.5W." (giving a total of 150W just for GPU)
- With all the other stuff on the board it has a max power draw of 175W, which is exactly where the initial limit is set (hence that crappy/unstable 6.7% overclock)
- Temperatures under load are 76°C and 80°C in Silent-BIOS and OC-BIOS accordingly (which is kinda crazy, considering the size of the triple-fan cooling solution)

So, if there is an "Unlocked" BIOS with raised TDP, then PowerColor deliberately violates its own architectural limit for this card. I couldn't see the model# of mosfets used on this particular card, so I cannot confirm or deny for sure, as to whether these are capable of handling a bit higher than loads. It might be OK just for benching (ONLY with additional cooling), but I'd probably wait for an 8+ phase variant of RX480, if I wanted to overclock the sh#t out of it... :banghead:

CAPSLOCKSTUCK · Aug 22, 2016

btarunr said:
the optional BIOS will not void your warranty.

btarunr said:
strongly recommends against using the modded card with FurMark

hows that supposed to work then?.....

hojnikb · Aug 22, 2016

silentbogo said:
I was recently reading a review of this card on a russian website (HardwareLuxx), and there are few things that make it even worse:
- There are 6 GPU phases and quote: "According to the information from PowerColor, each phase can deliver 25W, and not 22.5W." (giving a total of 150W just for GPU)
- With all the other stuff on the board it has a max power draw of 175W, which is exactly where the initial limit is set (hence that crappy/unstable 6.7% overclock)
- Temperatures under load are 76°C and 80°C in Silent-BIOS and OC-BIOS accordingly (which is kinda crazy, considering the size of the triple-fan cooling solution)

So, if there is an "Unlocked" BIOS with raised TDP, then PowerColor deliberately violates its own architectural limit for this card. I couldn't see the model# of mosfets used on this particular card, so I cannot confirm or deny for sure, as to whether these are capable of handling a bit higher than loads. It might be OK just for benching (ONLY with additional cooling), but I'd probably wait for an 8+ phase variant of RX480, if I wanted to overclock the sh#t out of it...

VRMs are capable of much more than that,

$ReaPeR$ · Aug 22, 2016

this will work only with water cooling imo. its cool that they keep the warranty though!!

Shou Miko · Aug 22, 2016

$ReaPeR$ said:
this will work only with water cooling imo. its cool that they keep the warranty though!!

U don't need wc to flash this bios the devil air cooler should be able to handle this bios too

qubit · Aug 22, 2016

btarunr said:
PowerColor strongly recommends against using the modded card with FurMark as the company found that it will damage even non-overclocked cards with the new BIOS

That's ridiculous. It shouldn't be possible to damage a card regardless of what software is running on it. Next thing you know, there's gonna be some really demanding new game that pushes it similarly hard to Furmark and the thing dies on you. I wouldn't buy a card like this.

If I run Furmark on my 780 Ti, it simply throttles down significantly and stays well below its max temperature. Animation was smooth, too.

Ruru · Aug 22, 2016

I'd not recommend Furmark for any GPU, since it's just so useless. Just tests the maximum heat output/power consumption, who needs that? IMO the best way to test the stability of an overclocked GPU is simply playing GPU intensive games.

silentbogo · Aug 22, 2016

hojnikb said:
VRMs are capable of much more than that,

I was quoting the website, that was quoting PowerColor, so it is not something I simply made up.

Orivaa · Aug 22, 2016

Dj-ElectriC said:
i really question how much this will improve on the extremely-poor OC capabilities of the RX 480...

Excuse you?

dj-electric · Aug 22, 2016

Orivaa said:
Some guy proved that overclocking your golden sample with water cooling makes it not so horrible. still pretty bad, but not horrible

FTFY.

Tatty_Two · Aug 22, 2016

I welcome anyone willing to go the extra to give us a little more performance out of our investment but looking in the UK these cards cost £266 ($348 US) as the 3 retailers I have just looked at have 8GB versions only, I therefore would suggest that unless retailers are taking a huge margin Powercolor may have needed something like this to push sales of the card .... I dunno, I still like the idea of getting something for nothing and it's nice to see as it's becoming rarer but in context this card is way more than what I paid for my 290X.

dorsetknob · Aug 22, 2016

btarunr said:
PowerColor, however, stated that flashing your card with the optional BIOS will not void your warranty.

Soon to be added to TPU Data base By someone
and ................>>>>>> all those i Flashed my Bios and now card DON'T WORK threads

Bruno Vieira · Aug 22, 2016

Dj-ElectriC said:
FTFY.

He doesn't have a golden sample at all... All the RX 480 reach 1450 with 1.25v without any problem. Just look around the RX 480's Owners Club. And yes, you NEED water to live with 1.25v

Orivaa · Aug 22, 2016

Dj-ElectriC said:
FTFY.

Watch the video. That's not a golden sample.

btarunr · Aug 22, 2016

dorsetknob said:
Soon to be added to TPU Data base By someone
and ................>>>>>> all those i Flashed my Bios and now card DON'T WORK threads

It's already on our DB, a human reviews every BIOS user-submission and GPU-Z keeps away identical submissions. Also, TPU doesn't offer any warranty for its downloads.

dorsetknob · Aug 22, 2016

btarunr said:
Also, TPU doesn't offer any warranty for its downloads.

That's right
and as Powercolor are Saying

btarunr said:
PowerColor, however, stated that flashing your card with the optional BIOS will not void your warranty.

I Still stand by what i said

dorsetknob said:
>>> all those i Flashed my Bios and now card DON'T WORK threads

Trust me They will come

rtwjunkie · Aug 22, 2016

qubit said:
That's ridiculous. It shouldn't be possible to damage a card regardless of what software is running on it. Next thing you know, there's gonna be some really demanding new game that pushes it similarly hard to Furmark and the thing dies on you. I wouldn't buy a card like this.

If I run Furmark on my 780 Ti, it simply throttles down significantly and stays well below its max temperature. Animation was smooth, too.

What it's doing is intentional, just like all cards since the 2nd gen of Fermi, because Nvidia also feels Furmark will damage their cards. The difference is they do it for you instead of just warning you like Powercolor and AMD are doing. Furmark is bad...bad, bad, bad.

Don't be concerned about a game putting that much stress on a card.....games won't get there for at least 10 years. By then no one will be using any current cards.

_Flare · Aug 22, 2016

+33 Ampere
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the Warning is serious

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PowerColor Outs "Unlocked BIOS" for RX 480 RED Devil

btarunr

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