AMD Ryzen CPUs Getting New Microcode With Over 100 Improvements Next Month

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German publication Planet 3DNow! caught an interesting bit of information during a transmission of the "MSI Insider Show" on YouTube. Eric van Beurden, one of the show's moderators and Marketing Director at MSI, revealed that a new AMD microcode should arrive next month. It will reportedly bring over 100 different improvements for owners of AMD Ryzen CPUs, the site reported today. 

(Image credit: AMD)

A microcode is the lowest level of CPU and machine instruction sets. You can think of it as firmware for your CPU, and it typically loads from the motherboard's BIOS.

Van Beurden stated that AMD will start rolling out the new BIOS next week. The MSI exec didn't specifically mention the version, but we suspect it's the BIOS with the fresh AGESA 1.0.0.4 microcode. Van Beurden explained that the BIOS will first pass through the BIOS vendor, which is responsible for updating the BIOS code. Motherboard manufacturers will receive it afterwards and will probably spend a couple of weeks to finetuning the BIOS and adapting it for each model.

(Image credit: MSI/YouTube)

Van Beurden noted that the 100-plus improvements aren't all about fixing issues; they include new features and other improvements. Unfortunately, he didn't get more specific.

The ETA for the new motherboard firmware is November. However, we will likely start to see beta firmwares pop up before then.

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Zhiye Liu
Zhiye Liu
News Editor and Memory Reviewer

Zhiye Liu is a news editor and memory reviewer at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • wexir
    Wonder if they will be for ryzen 1xxx series too, if yes then great, free performance is always neat.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    So... Ryzen 3k launched about three months before it was actually ready assuming 1004 will be the update that finally works for everyone rather than fix stuff for some and break stuff for others as previous updates have.
    Reply
  • artk2219
    InvalidError said:
    So... Ryzen 3k launched about three months before it was actually ready assuming 1004 will be the update that finally works for everyone rather than fix stuff for some and break stuff for others as previous updates have.

    Pretty much, but it fits in with how just about everything has been released recently (unfortunately), launch early, patch often.
    Reply
  • nitrium
    InvalidError said:
    So... Ryzen 3k launched about three months before it was actually ready assuming 1004 will be the update that finally works for everyone rather than fix stuff for some and break stuff for others as previous updates have.
    Well the silicon was clearly ready, but the microcode was not. I guess the thinking was that the microcode is something they can fix post-launch (which is true, but not exactly ideal).
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    nitrium said:
    Well the silicon was clearly ready, but the microcode was not.
    I wouldn't be ready to say that, you need to remember why microcode exists in the first place. There are two parts to microcode: breaking down complex instructions into simpler steps for the RISC-like execution back-end and providing opportunities to correct or work around hardware flaws.

    If the microcode isn't ready at launch, it could be taken as an indication that there were more hardware flaws, more severe flaw, other complications and unexpected misunderstandings of how the architecture worked than expected. The hardware may not have been quite ready but there wasn't time for a re-spin to address it at the source, so they take a gamble on field-fixing flaws with micro-code updates later if they are sufficiently confident about it and cross their fingers that they really do have access to all of the bits they need in micro-code to work around any known and additional issues they find.

    Intel promised micro-code fixes for its Puma-6 modem chipset and several months of research later, it was forced to admit that the architecture simply did not have micro-code access to the bits it needed to change to actually fix it. With no software-based work-around forthcoming (at least not until 18 months later), it scored itself a class-action.

    With hardware that requires day-0 micro-code updates for normal operation, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
    Reply
  • iam2thecrowe
    Wonder if it will fix my "IRQ not less or equal to" BSODS? and kill my PCIE-4 back to version 3 on my B450 Tomahawk Max?
    Reply
  • Olle P
    AGESA isn't microcode.
    AGESA is code for the chipset, microcode is hard set inside the CPU.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    Olle P said:
    AGESA isn't microcode.
    AGESA is code for the chipset, microcode is hard set inside the CPU.
    Intel has had at least partially programmable micro-code in its CPUs since the Pentium. That's why some CPU bugs can be fixed or at least partially mitigated (Spectre, Meltdown and friends) by installing BIOS updates containing those micro-code patches.
    Reply