Sapphire vs PowerColor RX5000 series cards

[atanvarno]

I want to hear from people that use PowerColor cards for multiple years - how they do? Any issues in general or specifically with Hackintosh-ing?
Do you have issues with coil whine or incessant buzzing sound that I can hear with Sapphire Nitro+ 5500XT every time I move the mouse around?

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Some context for this question...

I used to always go with Sapphire cards. I assume they are preferred AMD AIB partner and thus their stuff would always work great and as close to reference. Less possibility for BIOS issues when Hackintoshing. I had nothing but good experience with second-hand Nitro+ RX 570 for over a year. But it seems that GPU is starting to fall apart; the guess/explanation I got from some people on Reddit seems reasonable:

seems like a classic symptom of dead gpu/not stable clocks, as before you install drivers the card will stay at its lowest state clock wise, but after installing the drivers on boot up, there is a small period of time where full 3d clocks are called for, if the card is not stable then it crashes, check to see i that gpu has a second bios, it it does then try the other one (should be a switch on top of the card).

so its either dead or for some reason can't sustain the highest clock state, because its a 570 you always can change the cards bios if you find that it can be stable at slightly lower clocks, if not - RIP

Funny enough — that same card works super stable in macOS, which would indicate macOS drivers do not power-surge the card as Windows 10/Adrenaline does. So it's not a write-off yet. Also I thought - OK, this is second-hand card, who knows what the previous owner used it for, it might be at end of its lifecycle.

For my second Hackintosh, I bought brand new Nitro+ RX 5500XT and while this card works great in general, it has a very annoying buzzing sound heard coming from the card when I move the mouse. This happens in both Windows 10 and macOS so it's not driver related. Sapphire support told me that this is "normal sound heard when choke on the card is working" and if I don't like it I could return it to my retailer. Yuck.

I plan on returning it, which is an adventure in itself from where I live, especially in corona age. But before ordering anything new, I am weighing my options what else to get and PowerColor seems like the best bet so far. Hence my question at the start.

 

[Aluveitie]

Weird, I had a Sapphire RX 5500XT Pulse and never heard a thing other than the fans under full load.

 

[atanvarno]

Yeah, it's really crazy. I first thought it's PSU but this is SF600 Platinum (as first) and computer is absolutely not under any stress (as second). I'll switch this card to another comp when I get time to do it, just to check would this annoyance appear there.

 

[Aluveitie]

Just for reference, I have the same PSU.

And btw, did you switch your X570 for a B450?

 

[atanvarno]

And btw, did you switch your X570 for a B450?

Yes. I'm planning a monster build with 5950X where X570 will truly shine. Got a chance to snag B450 real cheap thus decided to do this instead of getting another X570 board. It was a fairly easy switch.

 

[thepensivemonk]

Super strange.. I have only encountered coil whine once, and it was a combo of an old Asus motherboard and a modestly recent used standard power supply. Turned out the power supply was kinda baked (working but previously overheated). Swapped a different brand and the whine went away. I have never heard of whine from a GPU.

pm

 

[Aluveitie]

Btw, a german retailer published some interesting data regarding GPU RMA rates earlier this year: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...sAk2kwKie-DaKplFyco7vwlw3ansFpjNstrpG/pubhtml

For AMD, Sapphire ranks rather good while PowerColor came in last with the highest RMA rate