Question I plan to upgrade my GPU, but I'm not sure if my Legacy BIOS supports it ?

[Gion1]

I own a Foxconn 2ABF motherboard with legacy type bios. I want to upgrade the GPU from my current
RX 550 to an RX 480, but I found a few people who had problems with legacy bios and this kind of GPU and from what I've read it's because it was made for UEFI type bios. Now since my motherboard seemingly doesn't support the graphics card I'm wondering on what I should do about it.

I don't really want to upgrade my motherboard or change the type of GPU I want to upgrade to.

Is there anything I can do besides changing my motherboard ?

PC specs
Motherboard: Foxconn 2ABF
CPU: I5-3330
GPU: RX 550
RAM: 16GB [2 x 8GB] 1600 MHz DDR3
OS: Windows 10

 

[Imperat0r]

Hello.
Both cards are too old.
The one you own right now has 2GB as i presume.
The question is : what producer, model and memory (4 or 8) you want to buy ?

 

[--SID--]

If the RX 550 works, a 480 should work too!

What's the brand and model of your PSU?

 

[Gion1]

Hello.
Both cards are too old.
The one you own right now has 2GB as i presume.
The question is : what producer, model and memory (4 or 8) you want to buy ?

The one I own right now has 4 GB of vRAM, It's a
PowerColor AMD Radeon RX 550 Red Dragon 4GB GDDR5

The one I want to buy is a
Ref AMD Sapphire Radeon RX480 NITRO+ OC 8GB GDDR5

 

[Gion1]

If the RX 550 works, a 480 should work too!

What's the brand and model of your PSU?

My PCU is a Floston FL550-12, 550W

 

[bignastyid]

My PCU is a Floston FL550-12, 550W

Yeah, that garbage tier 336w PSU should not be used. Even with the current setup it's a bad day waiting to happen.

 

[js2]

To be fair. Your best upgrade will be going to an i7 CPU instead of upgrading your GPU. Your board is a bit dated for newer cards and you will not see much performance.

You can OC your current card though. But your hardware is nearing its limit.

 

[Imperat0r]

We have a problem here:
- That was highlighted already by @bignastyid - and that would be your PSU.

On the other hand you said:

"Ref AMD Sapphire Radeon RX480 NITRO+ OC 8GB vram Gddr5"

If you intend to buy Polaris cards, you need to focus ONLY on known producers like :
Sapphire, XFX, ASrock, MSI or ASUS.
The order i put above was a result of 7 years of using those cards from those producers, that leads to that hierarchy.
So if you be so kind put as link to your card or some pictures here

 

[Gion1]

We have a problem here:
- That was highlighted already by @bignastyid - and that would be your PSU.

On the other hand you said:



If you intend to buy Polaris cards, you need to focus ONLY on known producers like :
Sapphire, XFX, ASrock, MSI or ASUS.
The order i put above was a result of 7 years of using those cards from those producers, that leads to that hierarchy.
So if you be so kind put as link to your card or some pictures here

I see, so the PSU is not good, correct me if I'm wrong and you meant something else.

Also the Vram was actually 4GB, sorry for the missinformation if it caused any confusion.

Here is the link from where I plan to buy the GPU: https://www.emag.ro/placa-video-sap...-4gb-gddr5-256-bit-11260-02-20g/pd/DC5KV2BBM/

But from what I've heard right now I think right now a PSU upgrade would be better..Also if you can give me some recomandations for which producers I should go when buying a PSU that would be helpful.

 

[Imperat0r]

Well, first of all i see that you are from Romania, like me.
I noticed that you put a link from Emag.
Second - i can recommend you only what i tested.
Since you buy this PSU now, i suggest to buy a good one, cause it will be used for any upgrades later.
So, investing your money in a good PSU is the best bet right now.
In my case i use Seasonic as the producer.
I have many models from them but i can confirm the quality of them.
If you can , buy a PSU at least with 750W - a gold one.
You will thank me later.

As for Sapphire, 4GB will be enough for 1080p games.

Of course, when you load newer games you will encounter 2 bottlenecks :
1 - CPU
2nd - GPU

So your computer will be ok as long as you want to stay at that resolution.

PS : may i ask what is the price of that Sapphire RX 470 4GB ?
And what is your budget for the videocard ?

 

[Gion1]

Well, first of all i see that you are from Romania, like me.
I noticed that you put a link from Emag.
Second - i can recommend you only what i tested.
Since you buy this PSU now, i suggest to buy a good one, cause it will be used for any upgrades later.
So, investing your money in a good PSU is the best bet right now.
In my case i use Seasonic as the producer.
I have many models from them but i can confirm the quality of them.
If you can , buy a PSU at least with 750W - a gold one.
You will thank me later.

As for Sapphire, 4GB will be enough for 1080p games.

Of course, when you load newer games you will encounter 2 bottlenecks :
1 - CPU
2nd - GPU

So your computer will be ok as long as you want to stay at that resolution.

PS : may i ask what is the price of that Sapphire RX 470 4GB ?
And what is your budget for the videocard ?

It's a rx 480 4GB, at first I tried looking for a 470, but couldn't find any in stock so I had to resort to a 480.

When it was still in stock, it was around 550 romanian lei, as for my budget I have around 600 right now, and I don't plan buying anything above 750-800 lei for now at least.

Overall, you'd say the best upgrade now would be a change to the PSU, and later change the GPU ?

Also I'd appreciate if you could give me any websites I could check out if I'm looking to buy components. Right now I know about 3 that I trust, emag, pc garage and forit. And would you say it's worth buying second hand for components like the GPU ?

 

[Avro Arrow]

I own a Foxconn 2ABF motherboard with legacy type bios. I want to upgrade the GPU from my current
RX 550 to an RX 480, but I found a few people who had problems with legacy bios and this kind of GPU and from what I've read it's because it was made for UEFI type bios. Now since my motherboard seemingly doesn't support the graphics card I'm wondering on what I should do about it.

I don't really want to upgrade my motherboard or change the type of GPU I want to upgrade to.

Is there anything I can do besides changing my motherboard ?

PC specs
Motherboard: Foxconn 2ABF
CPU: I5-3330
GPU: RX 550
RAM: 16GB [2 x 8GB] 1600 MHz DDR3
OS: Windows 10

I can't think of anything. I had that same problem with a JXZ Jisoonzer RX 580 2048SP (One of those weird AliExpress jobs) with my mother's 990FX motherboard. The card wouldn't display anything with that motherboard but on a modern UEFI motherboard, it worked without a hitch. I ended up finding a PowerColor RX 6500 XT ITX on clearance and got her that instead. It's just an HTPC so I just needed a card that could do 4K video and the RX 580 2048SP would've done the job just fine.... Except that it refused to work with a legacy BIOS.

I used an R9 Fury to test and make sure that the problem wasn't the motherboard. I actually got a full refund from AliExpress because I could not get that card to work. Later, I decided to tinker with the card (because I thought it was dead) and, to my shock and amazement, it worked perfectly on the Biostar A320MH motherboard that I used in my test rig (It was on clearance at Canada Computers for $40CAD and I couldn't say no to that). I then tried it on my main PC's motherboard (ASRock X570 Pro4) and, again, it just worked, over and over and over again.

I found out later that Polaris cards could be tempermental with non-UEFI motherboards from a friend over on TPU named eidairaman1. He's a real authority on Polaris cards and told me what the problem was. I felt pretty bad that I got a full refund from AliExpress after that because it wasn't their fault at all but there wasn't anything I could do about it at that point.

If you have a legacy BIOS, I would recommend something more like the RX 5500 XT because it has about the same performance as the RX 580 and you can usually get one for about ~$100 on eBay. It's more expensive than an RX 580 but not by a huge amount and you get to keep your CPU and motherboard.

In all honesty though, I would want to upgrade that platform before upgrading the video card, Especially since AM4 parts that blow the i5-3330 out of the water are dirt-cheap these days (so is DDR4).

 

[Imperat0r]

I found out later that Polaris cards could be tempermental with non-UEFI motherboards from a friend over on TPU named @eidairaman1.

Yes i know him.
I work along him on TPU to help fellow members to solve their problems regarding Polaris cards which are my favourite also.
Cheers

 

[Avro Arrow]

Yes i know him.
I work along him on TPU to help fellow members to solve their problems regarding Polaris cards which are my favourite also.
Cheers

You guys provide a great service. Cheers to you as well! 😊