Monday, June 19th 2023
ASUS & AsRock Motherboards Updated with BIOS Support for Intel 14th Gen Core
Momomo_us posted on Twitter about their finding of a BIOS firmware update for an Intel chipset motherboard from AsRock, others soon pointed out that ASUS had quietly revised a higher-end model as well. Both boards share the same socket platform - LGA 1700 - and currently support Team Blue's 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPU series, but new details presented on pages for the ROG Maximus Z790 APEX and B760M PG Sonic WiFi suggests that these models are pre-prepared for the (still heavily rumored) launch of Raptor Lake Refresh. The changelogs for their respective BIOS updates mention "compatibility for the next-gen" and "support for next-generation" processors. TPU community member, Nater, has pointed out that his ASUS ProArt Z790-CREATOR WIFI board is also eligible for 14th gen support.
Leaks suggest that the Intel 14th Gen Core lineup is expected to launch around October time this year. Raptor Lake Refresh is likely going to serve as a sort of interim release, since insiders think that desktop Meteor Lake-S SKUs are no longer on the menu, and a full-fledged next-gen upgrade - Arrow Lake-S - is not due until Q4 2024 or Q1 2025. Not much is known about how much more performant the RPL refresh will be when compared to the existing range, but more leaks are expected in the coming months. Mobile Meteor Lake examples have been spotted in the wild recently, in official and less official capacities, so keep your eyes peeled.
Sources:
Tom's Hardware, Wccftech, momomo_us, HXL
Leaks suggest that the Intel 14th Gen Core lineup is expected to launch around October time this year. Raptor Lake Refresh is likely going to serve as a sort of interim release, since insiders think that desktop Meteor Lake-S SKUs are no longer on the menu, and a full-fledged next-gen upgrade - Arrow Lake-S - is not due until Q4 2024 or Q1 2025. Not much is known about how much more performant the RPL refresh will be when compared to the existing range, but more leaks are expected in the coming months. Mobile Meteor Lake examples have been spotted in the wild recently, in official and less official capacities, so keep your eyes peeled.
21 Comments on ASUS & AsRock Motherboards Updated with BIOS Support for Intel 14th Gen Core
I would say that the changes were significant enough to not warrant being called a refresh. Generally, it's a refresh when you basically re-release the same die as a different product, with maybe some things enabled that weren't before and small clock bump, like what AMD did to Renoir and Lucienne(or Cezanne and Barcelo).
Though, part of the 13th gen lineup is basically a refresh of Alder Lake, e.g. 13400 which is just Alder Lake dies being reused.
From the looks of it, it sounds like they are going to reuse Raptor Lake for 14th gen though.
When I think refresh I think like Ryzen 1600 vs 2600 and Intel 8600k vs 9600k (basically the same exact chip)
1. Does this mean there's little change between the CPUs?
2. Does this cut back the CPU's, and how? (PCI-E lanes, PCI-E gen, etc)
That sorta info lets us know how 12/13 will run on 14th gen boards - nothing more fun than getting complaints from a client who slapped an older CPU into a newer board, and half the PCI-E lanes dont workTPU's 13700k review shows it to be about 5% faster than the 12900k while using about 5 watts less power, but also somehow being less power efficient in every single task
Kinda feels like they altered PL1/PL2 values and shuffled the product numbers around (so the old 129 is the new 137)
It even has the same power efficiency as the 12900K, so it genuinely does seem like the exact same CPU relabelled - to me that's a refresh, if the only new thing is renaming parts and shuffling power limits
(Every other board with 10Gbe and PD USB-C cost $100's more when I got it, the extra cores on the other CPU's are useless to me)
I spent $300 Au on my B550 ITX board, because it had features cheaper boards with the same gaming performance did not (more 10Gb USB ports, 2.5Gbe, wifi 6E) - not for any planned CPU upgrades in the future (of which there are like... two choices. 5950x or 5800x3D)