The recent escalating AMD Ryzen 7000X3D Series CPU issue has come to our attention, ASRock treats this type of incident seriously and would like to offer the most updated BIOS across our entire range of AM5 motherboards. ASRock has released new BIOS as well as A-Tuning utility for following AM5 chipset motherboards which limit CPU voltage on certain power rails. We encourage users to update to the new BIOS with the appropriate voltage settings urgently to ensure system stability and durability.

Apart from bringing rock-solid hardware products to PC users, ASRock is also keen on working with AMD and integrating the most up to date technologies into its products. If you're unsure about the risk of using old BIOS version, please seek professional support from ASRock customer service.

AMD late Tuesday released its first media statement on the controversy surrounding Ryzen 7000X3D series processors burning-out as a result of voltage-assisted overclocking. We've covered this in detail, in our older article. The AMD statement reads that the company is aware of the issue, is investigating it, and in the meantime, is getting motherboard- and ODM vendors to ensure that their device firmware/BIOS operate Ryzen 7000X3D processors within the correct voltage tolerances. The statement also called for affected users to reach out to AMD Support.

AMD Statement"We are aware of a limited number of reports online claiming that excess voltage while overclocking may have damaged the motherboard socket and pin pads. We are actively investigating the situation and are working with our ODM partners to ensure voltages applied to Ryzen 7000X3D CPUs via motherboard BIOS settings are within product specifications. Anyone whose CPU may have been impacted by this issue should contact AMD customer support."

Intel is planning to update its desktop processor product-stack in the second half of 2023 with the Core "Raptor Lake Refresh" series. A VideoCardz report suggests that these chips could remain a part of the 13th Gen Core series, and Intel will not carve the 14th Gen Core out of them. This would be similar to how Intel dealt with delays in the commissioning of its 14 nm node by releasing the "Haswell Refresh" and "Devil's Canyon" processors within the 4th Gen Core family. Intel tried something different with "Coffee Lake Refresh," by branding it inside the 9th Gen Core series, instead of keeping it within the 8th Gen Core. This was done because Intel updated the CPU core-counts of its Core i7 SKUs, and introduced the new Core i9 brand extension for the mainstream-desktop segment.

If 4th Gen Core "Haswell Refresh" is anything to go by, Intel could use updated xx50 processor model numbers for "Raptor Lake Refresh" processors. An example of such a naming scheme would be the Core i9-13950K, which succeeds the i9-13900K (the i9-13900KS is a limited edition / limited-release SKU). At this point we don't know what exactly constitutes this Refresh, other than the high likelihood of clock-speed increases across the board. It's possible that Intel may innovate in the areas of die-thinning, die-binning, and process-level power improvements that open up room for these higher clock-speeds (which is what Intel did with 10th Gen "Comet Lake"). These processors could be built in the existing Socket LGA1700 package, and be compatible with existing Intel 600-series and 700-series chipset motherboards, requiring a UEFI firmware update.

The 12-core/24-thread AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX "Dragon Range" mobile processors for enthusiast-segment notebooks, are capable of performance that matches the desktop Ryzen 9 7900X, with an easy 130 W power limit enabled along with Precision Boost Overdrive 2 (PBO2), with the "Enhanced" performance mode set on certain ASUS ROG laptops. The 7845HX is capable of drawing up to 110 W of power in its stock settings, which sees it offer a single-threaded boost frequency of 5.25 GHz, and 4.70 GHz all-core, and around 25000 points in Cinebench R23 multi-threaded. The Enhanced mode, which can be set via software on ASUS ROG laptops, raises the power limits, which makes the 7845HX draw up to 130 W of power, hitting temperatures of up to 93 °C, vastly improving boost frequency residency.

The 7845HX is "unlocked," and the UEFI setup program of ASUS ROG laptops offer several manual overclocking controls on par with the desktop platform. Manual overclocking along with PBO2, Curve Optimizer, and Maximum Boost Technology, yields up to 5.45 GHz single-threaded boost, and 5.10 GHz multi-threaded boost, yielding a 14 percent improvement over the stock frequency Cinebench R23 score, hitting 28542 points, which is on-par with that of a desktop Ryzen 9 7900X—a processor with 170 W TDP and 230 W PPT.

Over the past month, memory manufacturers started releasing DDR5 memory modules of 24 GB and 48 GB densities, which make up 48 GB (2x 24 GB), 96 GB (2x 48 GB or 4x 24 GB) and even 192 GB (4x 48 GB) capacities. There's only one catch—these modules only work with 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" and 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" processors, as their memory controllers support a maximum of 192 GB of memory, and 24/48/96 GB DIMM densities. MEGAsizeGPU decided to find out what happens when one of these kits is installed on an AMD Ryzen 7000 "Zen 4" platform.

A Corsair Vengeance DDR5-5600 48 GB (2x 24 GB) memory kit was installed on a machine consisting of an AMD Ryzen 5 7600X processor, and an ASUS ROG Strix B650E-E Gaming motherboard (BIOS version 1222). It turns out that the machine POSTs, and is able to start the UEFI setup program. Here, the program is able to display the correct 48 GB memory amount, and the memory density of each of the two modules. The trouble is, Windows would not boot, and does not go past the Boot Manager. It halts with an error message that indicates a hardware problem.

Phoenix Technologies, a leading independent firmware supplier for PCs and computing devices, has launched FirmGuard, a cyber security product to address firmware vulnerability. Firmware is the software that connects a device's microchips to the operating system.

Phoenix Technologies is the first UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) vendor to offer an enterprise cyber security product. FirmGuard is a cloud-based service, which has been initially targeted at managed service providers (MSPs). It will also be offered to large enterprise and government organizations.

ASUS today announced availability of a BIOS update for its X670 and X670E motherboards that enables full compatibility with the latest AMD Ryzen 7000 Series X3D CPUs featuring AMD 3D V-Cache technology.

The proven gaming performance of the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU made it a long-standing favorite for PC builders. ASUS motherboards gave those builders high-performance, feature-rich options for assembling a potent gaming machine built around one of these chips. Now, AMD is upping its game with two new Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs with AMD 3D V-Cache technology: the Ryzen 9 7950X3D and the Ryzen 9 7900X3D. Combining a 3D vertical cache and all the advantages of the cutting-edge X670 platform, these chips are poised to seize the gaming performance crown.

ASUS began rolling out Beta UEFI firmware updates for its Socket AM5 motherboards encapsulating AGESA 1.0.0.5 patch-C microcode. This exposes several new options to end-users through the UEFI Setup Program, which gives them greater control over the way the processor prioritizes workload among the two CCDs (CPU complex dies) on 12-core and 16-core Ryzen 7000 series processors, including the upcoming 7000X3D processors.

While AMD is working to release Chipset Software updates that include "3D V-cache Optimization driver" components that introduce OS-level awareness of the asymmetric implementation of 3D V-cache on the 7900X3D and 7950X3D where only one of the two CCDs has the additional cache; these firmware-level options give users control on prioritizing one CCD over the other for workload. The firmware-level optimization is OS-agnostic, so pretty much any OS should benefit from 3D V-cache the way it was intended (where less parallelized workloads such as games are prioritized on the CCD with the 3D V-cache.

The UEFI Secure Boot feature is designed to prevent malicious code from executing during the system boot process, and has been a cybersecurity staple since the late-2000s, when software support was introduced with Windows 8. Dawid Potocki, a New Zealand-based IT student and cybersecurity researcher, discovered that as many as 300 motherboard models by MSI have a faulty Secure Boot implementation with certain versions of their UEFI firmware, which allows just about any boot image to load. This is, however, localized to only certain UEFI firmware versions, that are released as beta versions.

Potocki stumbled upon this when he found that his PRO Z790-A WiFi motherboard failed to verify the cryptographic signature boot-time binaries at the time of system boot. "I have found that my firmware was… accepting every OS image I gave it, no matter if it was trusted or not." He then began examining other motherboard models, and discovered close to 300 MSI motherboard models with a broken Secure Boot implementation. He clarified that MSI laptops aren't affected, and only their desktop motherboards are. Potocki says that affected MSI motherboards have an "always execute" policy set for Secure Boot, which makes the mechanism worthless, and theorized a possible reason. "I suspect this is because they probably knew that Microsoft wouldn't approve of it and/or that they get less tickets about Secure Boot causing issues for their users."

The Fractal Design Ridge SFF tower-type case won critical praise including from us, for its unique design, well-planned interiors, and room for even triple-slot graphics cards with a little adjustments. The case relies on a PCIe riser cable to maintain its SFF form, since the graphics card has to be oriented vertically. The riser included with the case meets PCI-Express 4.0 standards, but end-users started experiencing problems running their latest-generation PCIe Gen 4 graphics cards with this case, with the problem being localized to the riser cable. Fractal investigated this issue, and confirmed the issue.

Apparently, the PCIe riser included with the Fractal Ridge, while rated for PCIe Gen 4, has a design flaw that affects signal integrity. The riser is found to be only stable with PCIe Gen 3 or lower. The company is recommending a workaround for end-users while it works on a solution: to confine PCIe to Gen 3 mode using the motherboard's UEFI setup program (BIOS setup program), in which you can restrict the x16 PEG slot to Gen 3 mode. "We are developing a solution to enable full PCIe 4.0 compatibility, but until that is ready, we will update our listings to reflect that only PCIe 3.0 compatibility is guaranteed," the company said in a statement.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions today revealed the new PerfDrive technology on the Intel 700 series platform, which Integrates multiple GIGABYTE exclusive BIOS settings to allow users easily balance between different levels of performance, power consumption, and temperature according to their needs when using 13th gen Intel Core processors including i9-13900K CPU. In addition to the former released Instant 6 GHz, GIGABYTE PerfDrive technology also integrates newly developed BIOS settings of Optimization and Spec Enhance. Collaborating with the existing GCC software platform and GIGABYTE Ultra Durable design, GIGABYTE brings the most powerful 700 series platform with perfectly tuned motherboards in hardware, software, and firmware.

Enhanced by the supreme hardware design of power management, thermal, and stability, GIGABYTE Z790 motherboards not only smash the all-core overclocking world record on Cinebench R23 but also creates remarkable DDR overclocking performance of DDR5 9300. Now GIGABYTE PerfDrive technology makes it easy and attainable for users to enjoy the optimal performance of the Z790 platform, and benefit from the easy-tuning for 13th gen K-SKU Core CPUs on the B760 platform. Based on optimized HW design with multiple GIGABYTE unique BIOS setting, PerfDrive technology satisfy various users' needs with its intuitive graphical interface in the GIGABYTE UEFI BIOS.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions, today announced the Instant 6 GHz technology which is exclusively designed for performance enhancement of Intel Core i9-13900K processor. By simply updating the latest BIOS on GIGABYTE's Z790 motherboards and activating related settings, users can boost the performance of Intel Core i9-13900K to 6 GHz in a snap. Other than the Turbo Boost mode, GIGABYTE Instant 6 GHz technology can unleash the potential power of the processor to boost the single-core performance up to 3% higher, which leading up to experiencing the unparalleled performance of future processors.

The lately launched Intel Core i9-13900K processor enables users to enjoy O.C. performance in an easier way. Using GIGABYTE's latest Instant 6 GHz technology, the system can automatically tweak CPU voltage and Vcore Load Line Calibration to detect the most two optimized cores running at 6 GHz frequency. Instead of suffering from complex O.C settings, users can enjoy effortless Overclocking by simply updating the latest BIOS on GIGABYTE's Z790 motherboards and activating the Instant 6 GHz option in the BIOS. This further delivers a 3% performance boost on one single core, and provides an O.C. edition-like experience on i9-13900K processor. The latest GIGABYTE Z790 motherboards ascend to a new level with their exclusive VRM design, thermal design, and convenience. The BIOS support Instant 6 GHz technology of Z790 motherboards has been updated on the GIGABYTE official website, users can upgrade BIOS with Q-Flash or Q-Flash Plus.

ASUS today announced the new Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) enhancement, an exclusive temperature control feature for its range of X670 and B650 motherboards designed for AMD Ryzen 7000 series processors.

These latest CPUs push the limits of performance farther than ever before. They dynamically take advantage of available thermal headroom to give users higher clock speeds. This means that users might see higher CPU temperatures than they are used to in a new AMD Ryzen-powered machine. To put users in control, ASUS is rolling out a BIOS update for its X670 and B650 motherboards with new options for its PBO enhancement feature that makes it easy to balance thermals and performance. With just a few clicks, users will be able to dramatically reduce CPU temperatures—and maybe even increase performance and reduce fan noise in the process.

Intel Alder Lake source code for BIOS/UEFI building and optimization has been leaked in a massive 6 GB leak that appeared on 4chan and GitHub. While this number may seem small, it is a colossal codebase, given that the regular code files take up small space. We assume that the documentation is bundled there as well, however, we can not check ourselves as the repository has been taken down. Tom's Hardware has contacted an Intel representative to talk about the code leak and the rep issued a statement for the website.

Intel SpokespersonOur proprietary UEFI code appears to have been leaked by a third party. We do not believe this exposes any new security vulnerabilities as we do not rely on obfuscation of information as a security measure. This code is covered under our bug bounty program within the Project Circuit Breaker campaign, and we encourage any researchers who may identify potential vulnerabilities to bring them our attention through this program. We are reaching out to both customers and the security research community to keep them informed of this situation.

The UEFI Forum today announced the release of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) 2.10 specification and Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) 6.5 specification. The new specification versions expand support for new processor types, memory interfaces and platform types, while allowing for crypto agility in post-quantum system security.

"We are excited to share the new Conformance Profiles feature, responsive to community pull for a way to make the UEFI Forum's work useful," said Mark Doran, UEFI Forum President. "The Conformance Profiles feature will expand the platform types UEFI can support to an ever wider range of platform types like IoT, embedded and automotive spaces - beyond general purpose computers."

AMD has reportedly pushed market-availability date of its next-generation Ryzen 7000 series "Zen 4" desktop processors from September 15 to September 27, 2022. This would clash with the rumored product-announcement date of the Intel 13th Generation Core "Raptor Lake" processor series. If true, this is possibly a move designed to prevent Intel from sharing performance numbers of Ryzen 7000-series processors in the product-announcement presentation of "Raptor Lake," as Intel can only compare the chips it is announcing with competing AMD products that are available in the market at the time.

A September 27 market availability could still mean a late-August product announcement along the sidelines of Gamescom, with product reviews in the following weeks. It's just that the market availability date is now pushed to late-September. Intel's launch cycle for "Raptor Lake" could see a late-September announcement, but it remains to be seen if product availability is immediate, or timed weeks later. The 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" processor is built on the same LGA1700 package as current "Alder Lake," and compatible with existing Intel 600-series motherboards with a UEFI firmware update; although will be launched alongside new Intel 700-series chipset motherboards. AMD's Ryzen 7000-series product launch will be timed with those of compatible Socket AM5 motherboards based on the AMD 600-series chipset, and a new line of DDR5 memory modules featuring the AMD EXPO technology.

G.Skill is readying variants of its DDR5 memory series that feature the AMD EXPO technology. A rival to Intel XMP 3.0, EXPO makes it easy to use overclocked memory modules with AMD Ryzen 7000 series platforms, by applying the advertised settings of the memory with one click in the motherboard's UEFI setup program, or Ryzen Master. What sets EXPO apart from XMP 3.0 is that it includes not just the memory frequency and main timings, but also fine-grained settings that are unique to the AMD platform. It's also different from DOCP, which was essentially a motherboard UEFI setup program-based feature that translates XMP settings to AMD-compatible settings on a "nearest neighbor" principle.

We've learned from earlier reports that DDR5-6000 will be the "sweetspot" memory frequency for the Ryzen 7000 "Raphael" processor, much in the same way DDR4-3600 is for the Ryzen 5000 "Vermeer," as this is when you'll be able to run the FClk at its highest possible frequency—3000 MHz in case of Raphael and 1800 MHz in case of Vermeer—without engaging a 1:2 divider between FClk and memory clock. At least one G.Skill SKU featuring EXPO has been confirmed, the Trident Z5 "F5-6000J3038F16G." G.Skill already sells Trident Z5 DDR5-6000 kits in the market, but those only feature XMP 3.0, and run the memory at CL30-40-40-96 instead of CL30-38-38-96 that the EXPO-equipped kit will. This is because the EXPO profile includes all the various AMD-specific sub-timings needed to tighten the tRCD, tRP, and tRAS. Various memory manufacturers are expected to announce AMD EXPO memory kits late-August, alongside Socket AM5 motherboards, and the Ryzen 7000 processors themselves; with market availability expected in mid-September.

At the end of last month, ASRock revealed its UEFI/BIOS updates for its 600-series motherboards for the next generation of CPUs from Intel and now ASUS has announced that it will offer updates for its Z690 motherboards. We're not sure why ASUS has limited itself to only Z690, but we'd expect updates for all of its 600-series chipset motherboards to arrive in due time. ASUS has been just as short on details as ASRock, although in the case of ASUS, all the Z690 boards will start on the same UEFI version—160x—when it comes to Raptor Lake support.

ASUS will offer updates for its ROG, ROG Strix, ProArt, Prime and TUF Gaming boards at this first stage. ASUS recommends using the BIOS Flashback functionality on the motherboards, or its EZ Flash 3 program in Windows. To get the latest UEFI update for your motherboard, you need to head over to ASUS' support site and download it manually according to the press release.

ASRock has released UEFI/BIOS updates for at least 47 of its 600-series chipset based motherboards, which will add support for the next generation of CPUs from Intel. The new CPUs are of course Intel's 13th gen Core CPU's, codenamed Raptor Lake, even though ASRock doesn't specifically mention this anywhere in the text on its portal site. We're expecting to see similar announcements from the other motherboard makers in due time. ASRock doesn't go into any kind of details as to which CPUs are supported and the company doesn't appear to have updated its CPU support lists yet, which is a shame, but not entirely unexpected, since the Raptor Lake CPUs aren't expected to launch until later this year.

However, ASRock has implemented what the company calls Auto Driver Installer or ADI in this UEFI/BIOS update for the boards and this is likely to be an unpopular addition, as it means drivers will be automatically be downloaded and installed if the system is connected to the internet. Presumably there will be an option to disable this feature, but it appears to be enabled by default, which has proven to be an unpopular option when other companies have done it. Admittedly it could be a handy feature during a new build or OS reinstall, but it's also a potential attack vector for malware.

AMD's upcoming Socket AM5 Ryzen 7000-series "Raphael" desktop processors will ship with native support for DDR5-5200 memory speed, according to a marketing slide by memory maker Apacer (which also owns the overclocking memory brand ZADAK). The "Zen 4" based desktop processors will feature a dual-channel DDR5 (4 sub-channel) interface, just like the 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake," but with no backwards compatibility with DDR4.

AMD already stated that Ryzen 7000 processors have a design focus on memory overclocking capabilities, including AMD EXPO, a custom memory module SPD extension standard rivaling Intel XMP 3.0, which will come with fine-grained settings specific to the AMD memory controller architecture. Until now, AMD relied on A-XMP, a motherboard vendor-enabled feature based in the UEFI firmware setup program, which translates Intel XMP SPD profiles of memory modules into AMD-approximate settings.

Memtest86+, the spiritual successor of MemTest86, has been somewhat stuck in development hell, but now the developer behind the memory testing software has promised to deliver version 6.00 sometime this summer. Version 5.31b was released in April 2020, some six years after the previous release and still not released as a final build, largely due to the pandemic. Version 6.00 promises a host of new features and the developers are already now asking for people that want to pitch in and help out with the project, since it's an open-source project.

The goal of version 6.00 is to deliver 64-bit support, UEFI and DDR5 with XMP support, as well as support for up to 256 CPU cores. Other features that are said to come include PXE and native USB boot. The goal is to provide a beta build sometime in April, but for those that don't mind compiling their own version of the code, can give it a try now, although the developers are warning that the code is going to be buggy at this point. The base code is said to have been re-written from scratch compared to prior versions and a lot of features are still missing and some features from the older versions are said to have been dropped, at least for the time being.

AMD announced that it is bringing official Ryzen 5000 "Zen 3" desktop processor support to the oldest of Socket AM4 motherboards out there, which are based on AMD 300-series chipset models—the X370, B350, and A320. The company is working with motherboard and pre-built gaming desktop OEMs to push UEFI firmware updates with support. In addition to Ryzen 5000, this would also add Ryzen 3000 and Ryzen 4000 "Zen 2" support across the board. Motherboard firmware updates that add Ryzen 5000 support will encapsulate AGESA V2 PI 1.2.0.7 microcode, so look for this AGESA version in the change-log of the firmware update. AMD expects that motherboard and pre-built vendors will start pushing these updates from May 2022.

Does it take ages for the taskbar calendar and notification center to load on your Windows 11 PC powered by an AMD Ryzen processor? Notice random stutters in performance? Chances are, the lag is caused not due to user-interface bugs by Microsoft, but hardware. AMD discovered that certain Ryzen-powered Windows 11 and Windows 10 PCs experience intermittent performance stutters when running with fTPM (firmware TPM) enabled.

The performance stutter is caused due to background memory transactions between Windows and the fTPM, to authenticate an action, as the fTPM serves the function of a hardware root of trust. Since the fTPM is part of the UEFI firmware that resides on the SPI flash EEPROM chip, the performance stutter is caused due to fTPM-related memory transactions with this chip.

Although Intel's upcoming 13th generation of desktop CPUs that goes under the code name of Raptor Lake, are expected to retain support for DDR4 memory, it has come to our attention that Intel will make a big push towards DDR5 when the platform launches later this year. Intel is apparently already asking motherboard makers to avoid using DDR4 in combination with the upcoming 700-series chipsets and the only reason for this would be to speed up the transition to DDR5. According to various leaks and rumors we should expect to see support for DDR5 at 5600 MHz for Raptor Lake, which is at least a step in the right direction.

What this doesn't mean, is that Intel has removed support for DDR4 in the CPUs, as it's still very much present and is expected to work fine in 600-series chipset motherboards. As such, there shouldn't be any issues upgrading to a new CPU, at least not after a quick UEFI update. From our understanding, it's partially related to the fact that DDR4 and DDR5 motherboards have quite different UEFI code when it comes to the memory support and in turn it means that the board makers are going to end up spending a lot more time getting their boards working, as is already the case with the 600-series chipsets. We can sort of understand Intel's sentiment here, but we're also expecting to see some motherboards based on the 700-series chipsets with DDR4 support, least not from the likes of ASRock that has always liked to create non-conforming motherboards. However, this also looks like it's the end for DDR4 support from Intel, which wasn't entirely unexpected.

While NVMe storage devices offer significant performance and reliability advantages over their platter-based counterparts, many Linux and VMware based applications continue to rely on older SAS & SATA solutions due to the ready availability of firmware level RAID storage and native driver support. This combination greatly simplifies the kernel update process while minimizing downtime. RAID solutions with native driver support will be treated as embedded devices, and do not need to be updated separately to comply with the kernel change.

The SSD6200 product family was designed to address these concerns. The NVMe RAID capability is integrated at the firmware level, and functions independent of the host. In addition, SSD6200 series controllers are natively supported by all major Virtualization platforms, such as VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V and Proxmox, and all current versions and distributions of Windows, Linux and FreeBSD operating systems. This native, In-Box driver support ensures administrators are free to update the Kernel, apply patches, or download and install scheduled updates whenever the need arises, using standard operating procedures. No work-arounds, no hassles, no surprises.