Switched from NVIDIA to AMD – RX 9070 XT Steel Legend owners, need some advice!
Hey guys,
I've been an NVIDIA user for years, mostly gaming on laptops, but recently I decided to build myself a proper gaming PC and give AMD a shot.
Here's my setup:
GPU: ASRock RX 9070 XT Steel Legend 16GB
CPU: Ryzen 7 9800X3D
Motherboard: ASUS TUF B850-PLUS Gaming WiFi
RAM: 32GB Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6000MHz CL30 (EXPO enabled)
Cooler: Thermaltake MagCurve 360 Ultra
Storage: 1TB SSD + 2TB Samsung SSD
Monitor: Samsung 4K OLED 360Hz (HDMI 2.1)
OS: Windows 11
Performance-wise, I really can't complain. The card handles 4K gaming pretty well and I'm happy with the FPS I'm getting.
But man, these random crashes and black screens are driving me crazy.
I've had quite a few crashes in GTA V / FiveM, sometimes it seems like the AMD driver just gives up.
And it's not just FiveM. I'm currently playing Watch Dogs 2 at 4K and I keep getting random black screens. The screen goes completely black for a few seconds and then the picture comes back. It happens way too often.
I'm not even sure if it's the AMD driver, HDMI 2.1, FreeSync, HDR, or something else causing it.
Never really had to deal with stuff like this on my previous NVIDIA setups, so I'm still figuring things out on the AMD side.
Anyway, I have a couple of questions.
First, has anyone had similar issues with the RX 9070 XT? Especially the random black screens or driver timeouts? If you managed to fix them, what actually worked for you?
Second, and this is what I'm really interested in, are there any ASRock RX 9070 XT Steel Legend owners here who could share screenshots of their AMD Adrenalin tuning settings?
I'd like to see what you're running for GPU clocks, voltage, VRAM frequency, power limit and fan curve. Also curious about your GPU and hotspot temperatures while gaming.
Preferably from the Steel Legend specifically, not other RX 9070 XT models. I know every GPU is a little different, but I'd like to compare settings with people running the exact same card.
I'm also interested in undervolting and overclocking, but nothing extreme. Just trying to find a good balance between performance, temperatures, noise and stability.
Honestly, I'm not chasing benchmark records or trying to squeeze out every last FPS. I just want to enjoy gaming at 4K without wondering when the next crash or black screen is going to happen lol.
If anyone has some stable settings, Adrenalin screenshots or tips, I'd really appreciate it.
Thanks guys!
UPDATE Quick update on my RX 9070 XT crashes and black screen issues:
First of all, thanks to everyone who replied and tried to help!
A few people mentioned that my RAM might be causing the driver crashes, especially since I was running DDR5 at 6000MHz with EXPO enabled.
So I decided to do some testing.
I changed my RAM from 6000MHz CL30 (1.35V) to 5600MHz CL36 (1.25V) using the second EXPO profile, with EXPO I still enabled.
After that, I downloaded OCCT and ran a 60-minute Memory stress test with 80% memory allocation using the Heat preset.
The test completed successfully with 0 errors, no crashes, no freezes, and everything seemed stable.
I also checked my motherboard's BIOS version and realized I was still running BIOS 1087 from September 2025. I built this PC recently and hadn't updated the BIOS since.
So I'm currently updating my ASUS TUF B850-PLUS WIFI to BIOS 1681.
Once that's done, I'll keep the RAM at 5600MHz with EXPO I, run some more tests, and try the games where I was getting crashes and random black screens.
I'm still not sure whether the issue was RAM instability, the old BIOS, AMD drivers, or something else.
Hopefully this helps narrow things down.
I'll post another update once I've had some time to test everything properly.
Thanks again for all the suggestions! Really appreciate it.