Tuesday, December 12th 2023
ASUS Rolls Out AGESA 1.1.0.1 Firmware Updates for Socket AM5 Motherboards that Support Upcoming Phoenix APUs
ASUS began rolling out beta UEFI firmware updates for its Socket AM5 motherboards that contain the latest AMD AGESA 1.1.0.1 microcode. If you recall, ASRock had recently released its own firmware updates last month that feature AGESA 1.1.0.0. This would be the first widely released firmware from ASUS to support the upcoming Ryzen 8000G "Phoenix" and "Phoenix 2" desktop APUs; and the 4th AGESA release to do so. Version ComboAM5PI 1.1.0.1 contains a newer version of the system management unit (SMU) for "Phoenix" and "Phoenix 2," with SMU version 76.75.0, compared to version 76.72.0 with the older ComboAM5PI 1.1.0.0 that ASRock released in November.
The UEFI firmware updates by ASUS containing AGESA ComboAM5PI 1.1.0.1 are only being released for AMD B650/E and X670/E chipset motherboards, and only spanning the company's ROG, ROG Strix, TUF Gaming, and ProArt product lines, we haven't come across one for the Prime series, yet. It's important to reiterate here, that these are beta updates, and those with Ryzen 7000 "Raphael" processors don't stand to benefit from them, as the SMU for "Raphael" hasn't changed since ComboAM5PI 1.0.8.0. Check for the firmware updates in the Support section of the product pages of your motherboard on the ASUS website.
Sources:
Wccftech, AMD AGESA SMU Tracker by Reous Innox
The UEFI firmware updates by ASUS containing AGESA ComboAM5PI 1.1.0.1 are only being released for AMD B650/E and X670/E chipset motherboards, and only spanning the company's ROG, ROG Strix, TUF Gaming, and ProArt product lines, we haven't come across one for the Prime series, yet. It's important to reiterate here, that these are beta updates, and those with Ryzen 7000 "Raphael" processors don't stand to benefit from them, as the SMU for "Raphael" hasn't changed since ComboAM5PI 1.0.8.0. Check for the firmware updates in the Support section of the product pages of your motherboard on the ASUS website.
6 Comments on ASUS Rolls Out AGESA 1.1.0.1 Firmware Updates for Socket AM5 Motherboards that Support Upcoming Phoenix APUs
Yeah beta is the keyword for no thanks lol
Time will tell
The night before (Christmas Eve) I was going to upgrade my PC, I went to the support page and downloaded the latest BIOS, and drivers. The latest BIOS on the page at that time was not labeled as Beta. However I came to find out that MSI pulled it the next day. Because they were getting so many reports of so many dif bugs on Reddit, their forums etc. But MSI doesn't see any benefit to have put a little banner or something saying "BIOS version x was pulled due to...". If they had I would never have flashed that BIOS (I checked the page one last time the next day).
So I ended up with EXPO not working (turning it on would just give a black screen (no signal) and a yellow light for the RAM debug LED. Also the menu to setup a RAID array was broken in that BIOS, the part where you pick what RAID type you want simply did nothing so you couldn't progress.
And the POST times good lord. ~44 seconds according to task manager!
Thankfully I quickly found out about MSI pulling the BIOS I flashed, and how many people were having issues with it. So I downgraded to 7E12v152(Beta version) which is AGESA ComboPI 1.0.8.0 (the pulled BIOS was version 7E12V17 using AGESA ComboPI 1.1.0.1).
So I downgraded the BIOS, changed some minor settings back to how I like (disable full screen logo, disable integrated GPU etc). Saved changes rebooted. Then rebooted again into BIOS, turned on EXPO, and rebooted. This time the screen went black but after a few seconds I got a signal with just a white - in the top left and the RAM debug LED was yellow. But it only took ~10 seconds and the debug led went off and it continued to boot. Got into Windows to see my memory running at the EXPO speed (DDR5 6000).
Then following advice I got over on the MSI subreddit I turned on two options. "Memory Context Restore" and "Power Down Enable" (set that to enabled). My POST time went from ~44 seconds to 21.8 seconds according to task manager.
Set ddr5 in the bios so it doesn't go through the training cycle every boot (memory context restore) and it will knock you boot times down by 50-70%