XFX Radeon RX 5700 XT THICC II Ultra Power
Unique to the “Ultra” version is enhanced power delivery and tuning to allow higher consistent boost clock speeds. XFX has actually increased the TDP (Power Target) to 210W TDP on the Ultra versus 190W on the non-Ultra. How is this achieved?
Simple, the XFX Radeon RX 5700 XT THICC II Ultra has a dual-BIOS. There is a switch on the video card, there is the Performance Mode (which is the default setting) that sets the card to a 210W TDP profile with a different fan profile as well. Then there is a Quiet Mode which switches the video card back to 190W TDP and a different fan profile. The default shipping mode is Performance Mode.
This video card is THICC at 11.54 inches long, 5.12 inches in width and 2.17 inches in height or thickness. XFX calls this a “2.7 slot” thermal type video card. It requires 1×8 pin and 1×6 pin power connectors with a recommended PSU of 750W. There are three Display Ports and one HDMI.
XFX Radeon RX 5700 XT THICC II Ultra BIOS
As we mentioned at the top of the introduction page when this video card was shipped there was an issue with the vBIOS. Simply, the fan profile and power tuning weren’t working quite correctly. The fan would not spin up for a while, then would be loud, the thermals were off the charts. Thankfully this was just a BIOS bug. Unfortunately, some reviewers may have published their reviews based on this broken BIOS thus the video card would get a negative review.
We are testing our video card today fully on the new fixed vBIOS sent to us directly from XFX. The Performance BIOS we are using is labeled:”57XT821R.W8V1.” XFX also sent us a new Quiet BIOS: “57XT8195L.W8T2.” So, we tested with the Performance BIOS throughout this review. This is the 210W default BIOS with fixed profiles. The fans worked as intended.
XFX has also put up the newest latest fixed vBIOS’s on their website under Downloads and Support. If you buy a card, it can’t hurt to go ahead and flash the BIOS to the new updated BIOS. For reference, when the switch is “toward the right” that’s the Performance position (which is the default position), and when the switch is “toward the left” that’s the Quiet Mode position.