I tried a couple of the Astral OC BIOSes and they didn't work, they just gave a black screen. The Prime OC BIOS works, but it doesn't raise the voltage limit beyond what the non-OC Prime BIOS already does. I probably need a hack of the Prime BIOS. Anyone able to do that?

 

GitHub - notfromstatefarm/nvflashk: Flash (almost) any vBIOS to (almost) any nVIDIA GPU

Flash (almost) any vBIOS to (almost) any nVIDIA GPU - notfromstatefarm/nvflashk

github.com

 

I just used regular NVFlash before. I'm going to give this a try. Thanks!

 

The March 2025 Astral OC 5080 BIOS did work and unlocked the power limit slider, and let me set it up to 125% default. But it didn't extend the voltage limit any, and I was still limited to 1.040v (it occasionally flickers up to 1.045v). And being able to increase the power limit more is pretty meaningless without being able to increase the voltage. That voltage cap seems to be what's holding the card back. As I mentioned in the OP, the Windforce OC 5080 that I returned ran stock at 1.050v, and with the voltage slider maxed ran at 1.065v.

I tried some other BIOSes, including those for the Gigabyte Windforce OC, Gigabyte Gaming OC, and the MSI Vanguard 5080. All those displayed output only until I installed the Nvidia display driver. After installing the Nvidia display driver, each of those BIOSes gave no display output. I wonder why that is.

I also tried the Zotac Amp Extreme Infinity 5080's BIOS. That one displays output both before and after installing the Nvidia driver. But it also limits the voltage to 1.040v, and so doesn't improve my overclock.


I wonder if the voltage limit is set in the BIOS or in some other firmware. And I wonder if it can be hacked. I really want to be able increase the voltage to 1.055 - 1.065.

 

Did you reboot the PC after updating the vbios/drivers? When I flash my 5070TI, only 1 display port works until do a full reboot. As far as core voltage, that wont change with a bios change, core voltage is based on the quality of the GPU, ideally you want the lowest core voltage with the highest clock speeds, but from the factory it will run with the lowest core voltage that meets the stock boost clocks. If you have two GPUs, one that does 3.2ghz@1.05mv and one that does that 3.2ghz@1.04mv, the 1.04mv gpu is the better quality GPU. So dont focus so much on core voltage, focus on max mhz and gaming performance.

The only way to increase core voltage on a GPU beyond setting +100 in Afterburner which adds a very tiny amount, is to lower the GPU temperature. The cooler the GPU, the higher the core voltage will automatically boost to. Chances are the card that was boosting to 1.055+ had a better cooler mount/cooling setup. The cooler a GPU runs, the more voltage it uses and the higher it boosts.

 

Did you reboot the PC after updating the vbios/drivers? When I flash my 5070TI, only 1 display port works until do a full reboot. As far as core voltage, that wont change with a bios change, core voltage is based on the quality of the GPU, ideally you want the lowest core voltage with the highest clock speeds, but from the factory it will run with the lowest core voltage that meets the stock boost clocks. If you have two GPUs, one that does 3.2ghz@1.05mv and one that does that 3.2ghz@1.04mv, the 1.04mv gpu is the better quality GPU. So dont focus so much on core voltage, focus on max mhz and gaming performance.

Yes, my process when testing another BIOS was to flash, then reboot into safe mode, uninstall the installed Nvidia driver with DDU, then reboot into normal Windows and reinstall the driver. With the MSI and two Gigabyte BIOSes, everything would work until I'd installed the Nvidia display driver after booting into Windows following uninstalling the previous Nvidia driver. Then the screen would just go and stay black.

The only way to increase core voltage on a GPU beyond setting +100 in Afterburner which adds a very tiny amount, is to lower the GPU temperature. The cooler the GPU, the higher the core voltage will automatically boost to. Chances are the card that was boosting to 1.055+ had a better cooler mount/cooling setup. The cooler a GPU runs, the more voltage it uses and the higher it boosts.

Interesting. Thanks for that info. And I think the Gigabyte Windforce OC does have a thicker cooler.

With the Astral OC BIOS in the Asus Prime, and its power limit set to 125%, the Prime's core voltage now often sits at 1.045v instead of 1.040, despite demanding-game power consumption typically sitting in the low-mid 200 watts.

A downside to using the Astral OC BIOS is that with it the GPU fans won't completely stop when the GPU temp is under 50C. Even with a manual fan profile, the minimum speed they'll run at is 30%. I'm not sure they're making any audible noise at that speed, but I still wish I could make them stop completely when the thermals are low enough.



Interestingly, to me, with this Prime 5080 and the Astral BIOS, I'm getting a higher benchmark score in Cyberpunk 2077 than I did with the Gigabyte Windforce OC, which ran stable at a higher Mhz. The Windforce OC with my manual overclock would sit between 3202 - 3221 Mhz under full load, while the Prime mostly rides between 3157 - 3187 Mhz, but can occasionally go up to just over 3200.

This was my highest CP77 benchmark score with the Windforce OC, out of over 20 runs:

And this is the highest score of just two runs with the Prime w/ Astral OC BIOS (the other scored 80.19 FPS):

The Prime with Astral BIOS run was also done with a newer Nvidia driver.

The Prime score features an additional 1.7% performance over my custom overclock on the Windforce OC, despite the Prime running at a lower core frequency. And it's an additional 12.57% performance over the Windforce OC's factory-settings result - while my custom overclock on the Windforce OC got 10.28% additional performance over its factory setting.

The Prime with the Astral OC BIOS also gets a higher 4-pass average factory-settings score of 72.6 FPS, versus the Windforce OC's 71.28 FPS. The Astral OC's factory overclock is 2760 Mhz, and the Windforce OC's is 2670. And the Prime /w Astral OC BIOS' custom overlcock score is 10.52% higher than its base score (with Astral BIOS).

The Prime w/ Astral OC BIOS' power consumption ranges from 328 - 350 watts under full load in Unigine Heaven. In modern games, it is typically significantly lower:

Doom Dark Ages: 195 - 220 watts
Oblivion Remastered: 220 - 240 watts
Last of Us: 270 - 310 watts
Hogwarts Legacy: 230 - 330 watts

 

I’ve updated my 5080 astral graphics card, and I’m getting an additional 12 degrees Celsius of temperature. Have you noticed this issue in gaming with less 300W?

 

I’ve updated my 5080 astral graphics card, and I’m getting an additional 12 degrees Celsius of temperature. Have you noticed this issue in gaming with less 300W?

Not with the current BIOS I'm using, which is the performance version of the newer Astral 5080 BIOS. Before this one, I tried a lot of different BIOSes, and I think there was one that caused the temperature to run a lot higher. It was likely one from that Asus BIOS archive, which contains performance and silent versions for older and newer Astral BIOSes.

The newer performance one that I'm currently using, which unlocks the 450 watt power limit, doesn't cause an increase in the temperature, and my GPU runs at good temps under load.

You can right-click on the BIOS files and choose Properties, and check the Modified date to see which ones are the newer BIOSes. There are two that are Modified March 9, and they are the performance and silent profiles of the newer BIOS that unlocks the 450 watt power limit.

The March 9 BIOSes are:

98.03.3B.C0.AS36.rom
98.03.3B.C0.AS37.rom

There are multiple 450w BIOS in that updater package, many of which have never been uploaded to TPU as well. AS25/AS26 (February) seem to be 450w upgrade versions from the Astral 5080 various 400w P/Q bios versions, AS36 (March) is the upgrade from the v1 quiet bios, but what are all the remaining about?

The archive contains multiple sets of performance and silent BIOSes. The newer one can be identified by going right-click -> Properties, and checking the Modified date. The ones that were modified on March 9 are the newer BIOSes that unlock the 450 watt power limit. One is the Performance profile, and the other is the Silent profile.

I'm using the Performance version of the newer BIOS, and am running it with the power limit set to 450 watts. I think I just tried both of them to figure-out which is the Performance BIOS and which is the Silent one.

 

I rollback bios and didnt change my temps, im running with 77°C. Ive also updated my Motherboad bios Aorus Pro X870E. Might be this?

 

It could be. Maybe try some of the other BIOSes in that Asus package and see if it's the same with them. As I said, one of the BIOSes in there made my GPU run a lot hotter. It wasn't one of the March 9 ones.

 

how can i get the bios?

 

By downloading the ROG Astral BIOS updater from Asus, and extracting the BIOSes and the unlocked NVFlash from it using Winrar or a similar program.

The March 9 Performance and Silent BIOSes, which increase the power limit to 450 watts, are:

98.03.3B.C0.AS36.rom
98.03.3B.C0.AS37.rom

I don't recall which is which, but I'm using the Performance BIOS.

 

I tried both of the above BIOS. The one ending in 36 worked but saw my temps skyrocket so I tried the other one which would not hold a stable overclock at all and had the high temp issues