We’ll look at how the performance-tuning profiles in AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition affect the behavior of Gigabyte’s Radeon RX 9070 XT Gaming OC. We’ll show a simple way to overclock the GPU both manually and automatically using the basic presets, how to undervolt it, and how to adjust the power limits for overclocking. We’ll also measure how performance changes when we reduce the card’s power draw by 100 W, and we’ll try VRAM tuning.
Last week we compared the Radeon RX 9070 XT Gaming OC from Gigabyte with Samsung and Hynix memory in the default configuration. Today, on the card with Samsung chips, I’ll also test how its behavior changes when using the individual profiles found in the AMD Software control panel.
First, let’s recall the basic specifications of the Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT:
Gigabyte AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Gaming OC 16G: Affordable choice
For testing and comparison, we’re using the Radeon RX 9070 XT Gaming OC 16G from Gigabyte, which I reviewed on HWCooling after launch.
To remind you of the key specifications of the card:
- GPU: Radeon RX 9070 XT (RDNA 4), 4096 stream processors
- Clock speeds: Boost Clock up to 3060 MHz, Game Clock up to 2520 MHz (ref. 3060 / 2400 MHz)
- VRAM: 16 GB GDDR6, 256-bit bus, memory speed 20 Gb/s
- Connectors: PCIe 5.0 ×16, power via 3× 8-pin
- Outputs: 2× DisplayPort 2.1a, 2× HDMI 2.1b, max resolution 7680 × 4320 (8K)
- Card dimensions: 288 × 132 × 56 mm
- ARGB lighting with 16.7 million colors, customizable via Gigabyte Control Center
- WINDFORCE cooling system featuring vapor chamber and Screen Cooling (heatsink with open fin layout), three counter-rotating Hawk fans, composite heatpipes, thermal gel component cooling, and a metal backplate
You can find a more detailed description of the card in the review and on the Gigabyte product page.
The card has a dual BIOS. You can switch between Performance and Silent modes, which differ only in the fan control curve. We already looked at the differences between Silent and Performance BIOS last week. In AMD Software, you’ll find virtually all the settings you need: GPU and memory overclocking, undervolting, power-limit controls, and automatic fan control. It also lets you save custom settings and use them as performance profiles.
The Radeon RX 9070 XT Gaming OC has a boost clock raised from the reference 2970 MHz to 3060 MHz. The rated game clock has also gone up from 2400 to 2520 MHz. In practice, actual clock speeds are again higher. Along with these clock increases, the power limit (TBP) has also been raised from the reference 304 W to 330 W.
HWiNFO provides information from the following sensors.
In the next chapter you’ll find a detailed description of the test setup, on which we’ll examine how the different settings affect the card’s behavior.
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