In a weekly podcast called MSI Insider, the manufacturer’s employees try to explain the situation with 14 Gbps memory on Radeon RX 5600 XT graphics card.

Not all memory is certified for 14 Gbps

As we reported earlier, MSI will have a third RX 5600 XT GAMING variant called GAMING Z carrying 14 Gbps memory out of the box. This model will feature the exact same clocks as GAMING X, except for the memory speed.

ASUS made a similar decision today, by releasing ROG STRIX TOP, the only model to feature 14 Gbps in ASUS’ 5600XT lineup. Other board partners had no problem releasing 14 Gbps BIOSes for pretty much all their cards, but why can’t MSI and ASUS do the same thing? The problem is that both MSI and ASUS do not buy the memory themselves, the chips are supplied by AMD, as MSI employees explain in the video below.

This supplied memory was specified to work at 12 Gbps, not 14 Gbps. While it might (and in most occasions will) support 14 Gbps speed, MSI and ASUS cannot guarantee such speed. This would basically cause RMA issues for both manufacturers, who did not validate their cards to work at such frequency.

Interestingly, MSI had no problem sending 14 Gbps BIOSes to reviewers who already received GAMING X models. They were told to flash GAMING Z bios onto their X’s and rename their products in reviews. So yes, from the reviewers’ perspective, the explanation in the video is a bit embarrassing to listen to. After all, MSI did not validate their review samples to run at 14 Gbps either.

MSI promised that most cards that will be on sale mid-February should feature updated vBIOS from AMD (that applies to GAMING X and MECH OC). Other models are not affected (GAMING non-X and MECH non-OC). The GAMING Z is the new addition that will already have the latest BIOS.

Source: MSI Insider