In the last week or so there have been reports in the media that it is possible to give your old RX 480 card a boost in clock speeds by flashing your card’s BIOS with a new one designed to be used with the newly launched RX 580 cards. This is not a new phenomenon of course – overclockers have been unlocking cores and upping clock speeds and more since television was called books. But as outlined by this article from ExtremeTech’s Joel Hruska using a non-verified BIOS can be a source of agony as well as joy, if things go wrong. The good news for anyone considering flashing his RX 4-series card for a new 5-series card is that Buildzoid has plenty of thoughts on the matter, all which he has just shared with on his YouTube channel.

The video kicks off with advice about flashing a RX 470 card with a new RX 570 BIOS. It will not work. However it is possible to flash a RX 480 card with a RX 570 BIOS. The problem is that you will inadvertently have lost some shaders, an outcome that again is most unwelcome. So as a general rule, -70 cards should only ever be flashed with -70 BIOSes. The same goes for -80 cards.

The second question raised is - Which BIOSes work on which cards from which vendor? The answer is very hard to establish. One thing that does make things easier is having a dual BIOS card. Of course this allows you to experiment and and find out which one works without actually bricking your card. The key rule to follow is that you should always flash just one of the two BIOSes – seems pretty self explanatory and obvious, but yes. Point well made.

Needless to say, Buildzoid discusses the ins and outs of BIOS flashing on the AMD Radeon RX 4XXX and 5XXX series, and BIOS flashing in general here on his Actually Hardcore Overclocking YouTube channel.