• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

5700 dilemma – are the drivers as bad as they say?

RandomMonkeH

RandomMonkeH

RandomMonkeH

Associate
Joined
18 Oct 2019
Posts
341
Location
U.K.
I’ve just purchased (but not opened) a Red Devil 5700xt, but I’ve read a lot of horror stories regarding stability and driver issues with Navi, especially in older dx9 titles and unreal engine based games. I would normally take things with a pinch of salt, but there does seem to be more than a few isolated reports.

I have quite a few older games I would like to play, and many based on UE3 and UE4.

Would I be better off returning the card for something like a 2070 Super (assuming these are not still self destructing).

Has anybody had success with their 5700 on older dx9 games specfically?
 
I've already bought the card, I just haven't unboxed it as I don't have the rest of my system and I'm still within the "cooling off period" - hence the dilemma.

I would normally write off a small number of complaints as the usual noise you get with any product - but there does seem to be a theme of reoccurring issues, even highlighted on here https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/posts/33077909
 
For me I have had a few problems, but driver updates will fix it and performance across the board should improve after a few updates with Navi. Not so much with the 2070s.
 
RandomMonkeH said:
I’ve just purchased (but not opened) a Red Devil 5700xt, but I’ve read a lot of horror stories regarding stability and driver issues with Navi, especially in older dx9 titles and unreal engine based games. I would normally take things with a pinch of salt, but there does seem to be more than a few isolated reports.

I have quite a few older games I would like to play, and many based on UE3 and UE4.

Would I be better off returning the card for something like a 2070 Super (assuming these are not still self destructing).

Has anybody had success with their 5700 on older dx9 games specfically?
Click to expand...

I play heavily modified Oblivion without issue that that matters to you.
And had no issues with the 5700XT AE the last 3 months using it.
 
I bought a 5700XT to replace my 1070 however I have now sold the 5700XT as it had too many issues:

1) Fan noise - mine was a blower card but the fan noise was unacceptable. This leads me on to....
2) Have to tweak the fan curve and voltage to get a card that runs cool and quiet. Even then it was a mixed bag with this being almost impossible to get right.
3) Worse performance in PUBG - lower FPS and more stutters
4) Just general stuttering in games. Far Cry 5 for example runs smooth with the 1070 (albeit not at a huge FPS) but with the 5700XT it had constant hitches, plus frames dropping to single digits for a second.

All in all for me a poor experience. I bought it for cheap (under £300) brand new unopened and sold it for a decent profit so I'm happy. Don't believe the people that say it's just Nvidia users spreading fake news, they aren't. I use to have loads of ATI/AMD cards, plus I'm currently running a Ryzen 2700x which is fantastic (if again it did need me to tweak the fan curve to stop constant fan ramp ups!).
I'd get a 2070 Super personally.
 
There are some issues no doubt. However there are a few things you need to know before buying one.

The 5700 needs a psu that is 750W ('80 plus Gold' or '80plus Platinum') or higher (as you have other components that need power like the cpu, fans, hard drives, ram, etc). And, the PSU must have 2 separate pcie cables (not 2 pcie connectors on 1 pcie cable) in order to get the best experience. A low rate 650W '80plus' simply won't cut it and I've read a lot of reddit posts where people had to upgrade from 500w-650w in order to resolve:
-Stuttering/hitching (not all of it is related to psu though)
-Blackscreens/BSOD (most if not all appear to be related to psu)

If you absolutely can only afford a cheaper PSU get a 650W (which is recommended by most AIBs) but get a 80plus Platinum (not 80 plus).

If you are going from nvida to amd I would suggest a fresh win10 1903 install. As the drivers are based of off 1902 (which is WDDM 2.6 compatible). If you already have win10 1903 then use DDU in safe mode and remove all nvidia drivers 1st.

I would also suggest not trying to overclock Navi "yourself" right now. Just adjust the fan curve so that it doesn't throttle and set it to Auto Overclock. Let wattman boost it for you. I've found greater success letting wattman boost it then me trying to do it myself. Although Auto undervolting may yield better results for you.

Do these simply adjustments for your PC and you should have a pretty decent experience.
----------------------------

Having said that I too had problems when I 1st had the card. I was using 19.9.3 and it was a complete stutter with low clocks/low gpu usage and just a horrible experience. I went to win10 1903, used Intelligent Standby List Cleaner and let Wattman's Auto Overclock do it's "thing" and I've been sailing along every since. I'm seeing well over 130+ FPS in most games I play at 1440p (although I don't crank IQ all the ultra...I found that 1440p alone makes a drastic improvement over 1080p that the IQ settings do very little to change).

I still haven't used sapphire trixx 7.01 (they updated it and provided no release notes from 7.00) to lower IQ and use RIS yet.

Also, you should be able to get the gaming bundle with your purchase. Well worth it IMO.

As long as you have a PSU that is 750W or higher and is rated Gold or better (Platinum/Titaninum) you should be good to go.

Having figured out my issue (as I was about to return the card) I can safely and confidently recommend it to you. Having said that there are a few 5700 I would suggest:
-Nitro+ (3 fans)
-Pulse (dual fan)
-Gigabyte (3 fans)
-RD (3 fans)
 
Last edited:
Mine runs Arma 3 perfectly and can game for hours. However more modern titles I get a weird bug as if my monitor cable has been unplugged when it hasn't. Or the most annoying is where the whole system will reboot itself starting up CoD WW2 or halfway through playing Rage 2. Older games seem to do fine on it. I even reinstalled AvP 2 and hit up a few hours of multiplayer with no issues. Infinity Battlescape is another one that crashes my entire system on clicking play.

I have an 850 Watt PSU. It was a budget one from ********. Had good reviews and was perfect for my old RX 570. I'm wondering if I should splash out on a new PSU or send the card back and use the money to make up the odds and swap it for the 2070 Super.
 
arc@css said:
^^ What PSU is it?
Click to expand...
It's an 850WATT BLACK EDITION V2 MODULAR. It has been great and I used it with an AMD 7970 and then the RX 570, with no issues. That was with an overclocked i5 2500K @ 4.5 Ghz. I just recently upgraded to the 3600 and with the RX 570 it was perfect, even with dodgy BIOS updates.

I buy the Red Devil variant 5700 XT and OMG I have it basically stable right now due to older drivers. 19.8.2. If I go newer the whole system just reboots itself, it is so frustrating. Would you recommend an upgrade to the PSU?

When I say basically stable there is the odd system reboot or monitor telling me there is no signal, with the game still running. You can hear it through the speakers. It's not fixed but the issues are minimised.
 
Oh, I see. I can't comment on it anyway as I don't know if it's any good or not.

Personally, I regard the PSU as the most important purchase you will make where a computer is concerned, so I would be inclined to pick up a good quality unit.

Something like a 750w gold-rated unit should be fine.
 
It's bronze rated. Ok, mate thanks for the info. I'll fork out on something. Could you tell me please what brand has a reputation for build quality? This is something I have overlooked and have gotten away with budget PSU's until now, it seems.
 
I would imagine that should be fine.

I'd check with customer services as well (they'll know a lot more about this sort of thing).

Ultimately, as long as it's a high-quality bronze unit (or above), you'll be in good shape. I believe Coolermaster is a decent name where PSUs are concerned (Seasonic, Superflower, Corsair, be quiet!, and EVGA are good, too).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom