New AMD Ryzen Microcode Demoed: Reported 1.9 Percent Gain in Boost Clock

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AMD Ryzen 3000

AMD Ryzen 3000 (Image credit: AMD)

As reported by ComputerBase (opens in new tab) today, beta BIOSes carrying AMD's AGESA 1.0.0.4 microcode have started to emerge for a few select AsRock and Asus motherboards. As revealed by MSI earlier this month, the new microcode is supposed to bring over 100 improvements (opens in new tab) for Ryzen CPU owners. 

The new BIOSes are designed for Ryzen 3000-series (opens in new tab) processors only, so you shouldn't upgrade your motherboard's firmware unless you own one of these chips. Furthermore, the BIOSes are currently in the beta phase, so there's no guarantee that they will play nicely with your motherboard (opens in new tab). They also still employ the SMU firmware 46.53.00, which isn't surprising as beta BIOSes don't typically use the correct SMU. The final BIOSes will likely use a new SMU firmware.

ModelBIOS RevisionDownload Link
ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming X2.30https://shop.jzelectronic.de/news.php?sw=AM4&kat=Bios
ASRock X570 Taichi2.30https://shop.jzelectronic.de/news.php?sw=AM4&kat=Bios
ASRock X470 Taichi3.71https://shop.jzelectronic.de/news.php?sw=AM4&kat=Bios
ASRock X370 Taichi 5.91https://shop.jzelectronic.de/news.php?sw=AM4&kat=Bios
ASRock Fatal1ty X470 Gaming K43.61https://shop.jzelectronic.de/news.php?sw=AM4&kat=Bios
ASRock Fatal1ty B450 Gaming K43.81https://shop.jzelectronic.de/news.php?sw=AM4&kat=Bios
ASRock B450 Pro43.81https://shop.jzelectronic.de/news.php?sw=AM4&kat=Bios
Asus ROG Strix X570-E Gaming1305https://cloud.asustreiber.de/s/xZMY2ZG5pTiECa7
Asus ROG Strix X570-F Gaming1305https://cloud.asustreiber.de/s/ci3yrcA8gM5cQss
Asus ROG Strix X570-I Gaming1305https://cloud.asustreiber.de/s/XTR6H3bxreWYQe3
Asus ROG Crosshair Impact0050https://www.dropbox.com/s/uq3l4dsy5xqfljd/ROG-CROSSHAIR-VIII-IMPACT-ASUS-0050.CAP?dl=0

The firmware for ASRock's motherboards is hosted at German retailer JZ Electronic's website. It's surprising to see that some X470, B450 and even X370 motherboards also got in on the early action. In Asus' case, only its X570 motherboards made the cut. 

ComputerBase briefly evaluated the AGESA 1.0.0.4 microcode with a Ryzen 7 3800X (opens in new tab) processor, ASRock Fatal1ty X470 Gaming K4 mother and 32GB of DDR4-3200 memory with CAS timings (opens in new tab) of CL14-14-14-34. For its tests, the German publication disabled Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) and enabled the memory's XMP profile. The new microcode seemingly helped improve the processor's all-core boost clock (opens in new tab) a bit. Under the AGESA 1.0.0.3ABBA microcode, ComputerBase's Ryzen 7 3800X ran at 4,245 MHz across all cores (opens in new tab). With the AGESA 1.0.0.4 microcode, the octa-core part was able to hit 4,325 MHz, a 1.9% improvement. ComputerBase noted that the single-core boost for the Ryzen 7 3800X remained at 4,550 MHz.

ComputerBase said that it couldn't find the dedicated overclocking menu or 100-plus improvements in the BIOS. Perhaps the new features will only be available for X570 motherboards.

Zhiye Liu
Zhiye Liu

Zhiye Liu is a Freelance News Writer at Tom’s Hardware US. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.
7 Comments Comment from the forums
  • hannibal
    Interesting... New improvements all the time... I really thinks that 1.0.0.4 is what should have been the release bios.
    Reply
  • kinggremlin
    AMD desperately trying to avoid that class action lawsuit..
    Reply
  • alextheblue
    kinggremlin said:
    AMD desperately trying to avoid that class action lawsuit..
    That would be one sorry loss in court for whatever lawyers are stupid enough to try. The turbo frequency isn't guaranteed for Intel or AMD chips. That's why there's a base frequency, and even then there are caveats (such as thermals). Read the fine print.
    Reply
  • alextheblue
    hannibal said:
    Interesting... New improvements all the time... I really thinks that 1.0.0.4 is what should have been the release bios.
    Nothing would ever get launched if you waited until things were perfect. The fact is that the launch BIOS was good enough, performance was (and still is) solid. If you benchmark the new BIOS vs the previous, you'll likely find performance is within the margin of error.

    Most of the improvements are going to be behind-the-scenes tweaks and bugfixes that nobody will notice. You'll flash it and everything will be the same. That doesn't mean it isn't worth them tweaking their algorithms, but this is a much smaller deal than the peak turbo numbers make it out to be. The AGESA improvements back with Ryzen 1000 were actually more substantial - in many cases it let people hit significantly better memory speeds (with a wider range of memory), which boosted fabric speeds and overall performance by a decent amount on the older design.
    Reply
  • kinggremlin
    alextheblue said:
    That would be one sorry loss in court for whatever lawyers are stupid enough to try. The turbo frequency isn't guaranteed for Intel or AMD chips. That's why there's a base frequency, and even then there are caveats (such as thermals). Read the fine print.

    No more sorry than the 8 core lawsuit again AMD and the 970 lawsuit against Nvidia. And just like those 2 cases, AMD would settle before it ever went to trial, because it isn't worth their time or money to try and win it, along with the likely scenario they would lose resulting in a significantly worse financial outcome for them. If you think no lawyer would take this easily winnable case, then you are living in an alternative universe than the rest of us. If a lawyer will take up a case over $2.12, then a lawyer will take the unatainable boost clock case.

    Taco Bell ad said the Chalupa Cravings Box would be $5. N.J. couple sued them when it wasn’t.
    Reply
  • wexir
    Ah so this new microcode is only for newest zens, quietly hoped it would also improve things on ryzen 1xxx series but that was just my wishful thinking, oh well. My 1600 sits at 4.0 on all cores anyway so im happy as it is :) good on amd being open about it and releasing such improvements, while intel on another hand nerfs the performance and straight out tells us to turn off hyperthreading in order to be secure enough :rolleyes:
    Reply
  • alextheblue
    kinggremlin said:
    If you think no lawyer would take this easily winnable case, then you are living in an alternative universe than the rest of us.
    Uh, no. They wouldn't have a leg to stand on - read the fine print. Or at least skim a good article on the matter, AnandTech had one not so long ago.

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/14873/reaching-for-turbo-aligning-perception-with-amds-frequency-metrics-/5
    Reply