Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

AMD motherboards start getting updates to support Ryzen 5000 processors

By
 

With AMD’s new Ryzen 5000 processors snatching away Intel’s gaming performance crown, it’s a great time for gamers looking to get a new rig or upgrade any existing PC setups. If you happen to fall into the latter camp, there is even better news. Rather than having to upgrade your motherboard too, you could save some cash this holiday season by waiting for your board-maker to add support for your new CPU.

Recommended Videos

AMD had previously stated that beta firmware will be available by soon as early 2021 for 400-series boards, and it appears that some of its partners are able to deliver on that promise ahead of schedule.

Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming
Check your inbox!
Privacy Policy

One of those board manufacturers is ASRock, as reported by PC Gamer, which has pushed out a firmware update to 15 of its existing B450 series motherboards to support AMD’s latest silicon. According to the manufacturer, the B450 boards include its Steel Legend, Gaming, Pro, and HDV lines.

In addition to ASRock, Asus also confirmed on Twitter that new updates are forthcoming to support the Ryzen 5000 processors on its board.

“Asus 400-series motherboard BIOSes updates (AGESA 1.1.8.0) for AMD Ryzen 5000-series CPUs will drop in a couple of weeks,” the company stated in a tweet.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

If you happen to own an AMD motherboard from another manufacturer, you may have to wait a little longer. There is no news of an update from other manufacturers yet, including big names like MSI, Gigabyte, or Biostar.

The reason this is all possible is because once again, AMD leveraged its AM4 socket for its Ryzen 5000 processors. Built on the same 7nm node found on the prior generation family of CPUs, its new Zen 3 design still manages a major uplift in performance. Early reviews confirmed AMD’s promise that upgraders to Ryzen 5000 will see about a 20% IPC increase, approximately a 25% improvement in power efficiency, and improved single-core performance when compared to Zen 2-based processors.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Though the Ryzen 5000 represents a huge generational improvement for AMD, it also allows AMD to more effectively compete — and beat — rival Intel’s Core i9 processors as the company makes inroads with enthusiasts and high-end gamers. Additionally, if you do decide to pick up an AMD processor, choosing an AMD graphics card, particularly the new Radeon RX 6000 series, over the competing Nvidia GPU solutions, you may be able to squeeze even more gaming performance by staying within the company’s ecosystem thanks to AMD’s Smart Access Memory. It’s a technology that allows system resources to be shared between the CPU and GPU, and early reviews suggested you can see a performance boost between 8% and 16%, depending on the game, by choosing AMD silicon.

It’s an exciting time to be a Team Red gamer, and it will be interesting to see how AMD will continue to drive even more performance to steal market share away from Intel and Nvidia in the future.

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Chuong Nguyen
Chuong Nguyen
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Silicon Valley-based technology reporter and Giants baseball fan who splits his time between Northern California and Southern…
4 CPUs you should buy instead of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D
The Ryzen 7 9800X3D held between fingertips.

I'm not going to even pretend the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is a bad CPU. It's one of the best processors you can buy, and undoubtedly the best processor you can buy for gaming. There are just a couple of problems. It's pretty expensive at nearly $500 for an eight-core CPU. Also, at the time of writing, it's sold out everywhere -- and signs don't point to it being back in stock any time soon.

You don't need to wait. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D, for as impressive as it is, isn't the right processor for everyone. In fact, I'm using an entirely different processor in my personal high-end gaming PC, and for a lot of gamers, the extra price you pay for the AMD's 3D V-Cache could go to waste. Here are four CPUs that you can not only pick up now, but they also provide solid competition for the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, be it on price, performance, or both.
Ryzen 7 7800X3D

Read more
Everyone hates this AMD CPU, but I still use it in my PC
A small form factor build inside the Fractal Terra.

Gamers Nexus called it a "wasted opportunity." Hardware Unboxed declared it a "flop." Even in our own Ryzen 7 9700X review, I said the CPU doesn't have "enough meat on the bone to justify an upgrade." So, why does the Ryzen 7 9700X top the list of the best processors? And more importantly, why am I using one in my personal PC?

I'll do my best to answer these forced questions. The disappointment in the Ryzen 7 9700X isn't truly universal -- no opinions about PC hardware are -- but there's no doubt that it's the outcast in AMD's lineup of Ryzen 9000 CPUs. It's not great for gaming in the face of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, and you can save $50 to $70 with the Ryzen 7 7700X while getting largely similar productivity performance. But AMD's trusty little Zen 5 octa-core is still at the heart of my high-end gaming PC, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
A flexible little devil

Read more
AMD Ryzen AI claimed to offer ‘up to 75% faster gaming’ than Intel
A render of the new Ryzen AI 300 chip on a gradient background.

AMD has just unveiled some internal benchmarks of its Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor. Although it's been a few months since the release of the Ryzen AI 300 series, AMD now compares its CPU to Intel's Lunar Lake, and the benchmarks are highly favorable for AMD's best processor for thin-and-light laptops. Let's check them out.

For starters, AMD compared the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 to the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V. The AMD CPU comes with 12 cores (four Zen 5 and eight Zen 5c cores) and 24 threads, as well as 36MB of combined cache. The maximum clock speed tops out at 5.1GHz, and the CPU offers a configurable thermal design power (TDP) ranging from 15 watts to 54W. Meanwhile, the Intel chip sports eight cores (four performance cores and four efficiency cores), eight threads, a max frequency of 4.8GHz, 12MB of cache, and a TDP ranging from 17W to 37W. Both come with a neural processing unit (NPU), and AMD scores a win here too, as its NPU provides 50 trillion operations per second (TOPS), while Intel's sits at 47 TOPS. It's a small difference, though.

Read more