AMD Radeon RX 480 Can Reportedly Gain RX 580 Performance Status With BIOS Flash

Who doesn't love getting a little bit more than what they paid for? If you're a Radeon RX 480 owner, you might just be able to experience such a gift, as it's been discovered that a simple BIOS flash is all it takes to turn that card into a brand-new RX 580. 

A user over at techPowerUp tried his hand at flashing a BIOS pulled from a Sapphire RX 580 Limited Edition and applying it to his own card. Lo and behold, it worked without a hassle. Now this user gets to enjoy a performance boost of about ~5%.

As with all things of this nature, your mileage is going to vary. If you don't mind trying your hand at a BIOS flash, and already own an RX 480, it won't be hard to find out if your card is going to be able to handle the extra stress. If for some reason your card becomes really unstable (which is unlikely given the relatively modest boost), you could simply restore your card's BIOS from a backup you would have created in advance

Normally, tweaks like this could be ignored because if people really want that free boost, they could simply load up an overclocking tool and make some simple changes. However, this BIOS flash goes a bit beyond that, as it appears to change non-user adjustable settings that can help improve the "overclock" further. That includes increased voltages, which means increased heat, so you'll want to monitor temperatures very closely after flashing if going this route.

Upgrading to an RX 580 using this method might rub AMD the wrong way, but it's certainly not an unexpected development. Fortunately, those in the market for an RX 580 are not going to already own an RX 480, so AMD ultimately stands to lose nothing through this one little trick. After all, most people are eagerly awaiting the company's Vega series, which should far exceed the performance of the RX 500 series.