New AMD Ryzen 3000 Firmware May Cut Boot Times Considerably

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By Zhiye Liu
last updated

MSI deployed new firmware with the AGESA 1.0.0.4 microcode for its X570 motherboards targeting AMD Ryzen 3000-series CPUs.

AGESA 1.0.0.3 ABBA - 1.0.0.4 Boot Time Comparison

AGESA 1.0.0.3 ABBA - 1.0.0.4 Boot Time Comparison (Image credit: HKEPC)

It appears that AMD's upcoming AGESA 1.0.0.4 micrcode (think of a microcode as being like CPU firmware) not only improves the all-core boost clock speed for AMD Ryzen 3000-series chips, but also delivers shorter boot times. 

MSI has deployed new firmwares with the AGESA 1.0.0.4 Patch B microcode for its X570 motherboards. The company is touting improvement in boot times by up to 20%. MSI's test system used the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU, MSI's MEG X570 Godlike motherboard and a pair of 8GB DDR4 memory modules (brand not specified).

Hong Kong media HKEPC tested MSI's latest firmware on the over-engineered MEG X570 Godlike motherboard, and the reported results were in line with MSI's figures.

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MSI's Results
Header Cell - Column 0 AGESA 1.0.0.4 Patch BAGESA 1.0.0.3 ABBAImprovement
Boot up system after CLEAR CMOS25 seconds33 seconds24.2%
Save and exit (F10)16 seconds (Boot up to BIOS)23 seconds (Boot up to BIOS)30.4%
Normally boot up system16 seconds (Boot up to BIOS)23 seconds (Boot up to BIOS)30.4%

Since the time your PC takes to boot into Windows is dependent on a number of factors, MSI and HKEPC measured the time it takes to get inside the motherboard's BIOS instead.

On the AGESA 1.0.0.3 ABBA microcode, HKEPC registered a boot time of 22 seconds. When HKEPC switched over to the AGESA 1.0.0.4 microcode, the boot time went down to 17 seconds, a 22.7% improvement.

The publication also measured the boot times after clearing the motherboard's CMOS. With the current AGESA 1.0.0.3 ABBA microcode, the MEG X570 Godlike motherboard took 34 seconds to boot up. The boot time decreased to 26 seconds on the AGESA 1.0.0.4 microcode, a 23.5% reduction.

The new firmware is available as of today for MSI X570 motherboards. MSI 400-series Max motherboard owners will get theirs in the middle of November, while MSI 400-and 300-series motherboard users have to wait until the end of November.

Zhiye Liu
Zhiye Liu
RAM Reviewer and News Editor

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.

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27 Comments Comment from the forums
  • hannibal
    Well, well even more improvements... this is worrying ;)
    Reply
  • Walter Smith
    Sooooo.....where exactly were these firmwares deployed to? Cuz I ain't seeing em at the MSI website for the godlike or the ACE.
    Reply
  • hannibal
    They Are still at beta stage. Official release version in few weeks.
    Reply
  • xerces9
    Huh? My old Intel mainboard needs 10 seconds to BIOS setup. (from power on)
    Reply
  • waltc3
    This article is mistaken as the boot-time improvement cited is for MSI boards--certainly not every x570 mboard...;) My x570 Aorus Master boots in 10 seconds right now and has done so since I installed it on July 9th. Why people do not understand that in every bios version released for every motherboard, there is of course the AMD AGESA it's built on, but also the fixes and improvements each motherboard vendor makes to their specific motherboard designs--all of them are different! Which is why you cannot use an Asus bios version for a like-featured Gigabyte or MSI motherboard, and etc. This stuff is basic, Computers 101.
    Reply
  • NightHawkRMX
    Lol can they release a patch for my b350 board. It takes like 15-20 sec to post.

    Oh wait, it has been almost 4 months since ryzens launch and yet msi still hasnt released an alpha bios with ryzen 3000 support.Apparently they literally dont care about people with older boards.

    So i dont expect any more bioses.
    Reply
  • mdd1963
    16 seconds normal just to get into BIOS..after the improvement?

    I'd already be surfing the 2nd website by then...!
    Reply
  • alextheblue
    Hmm it would be interesting to see a shootout article with boot-to-BIOS times for various boards.
    Reply
  • Darkbreeze
    Honestly, I don't get it anyway.

    Seriously, is it REALLY that big of a deal that your system can POST in 16 seconds instead of 20? Four seconds of your life, really? How many hours of human resources went into producing that? Geezis, there's got to be some other performance related aspect of the system that would benefit in a far more frequent and noticeable way that they could put their time into, rather than this.

    People sit and stare at nothing, on random sites, or spend hours searching for something actually interesting in a sea of stupidity, but they lose their marbles if the system takes 20 seconds to boot.

    It's just like when I ask WHY did you buy that NVME drive? So I could shave off two seconds from my boot times. Seriously? You spent 100-140 bucks so you could save TWO SECONDS on the rare occasion you have to restart or shut down? Ridiculous.
    Reply
  • CheckDM
    Long POST times (20+ seconds) appear to be a very consistent complaint about X570 motherboard / 3000 series cpu. The usual explanation is "increased memory training time".

    So this is really good news. A fast boot up time makes all the difference between "just a sec. let me check something on the computer real quick" vs. "ahh forget it, lets go. I don't want to wait for that stupid thing to boot".

    Or the more common scenario: Your game hard crashes, and you need to power cycle and get back into the game immediately. Every second matters.
    Reply