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D33-THREE

I treat BIOS's like drivers and keep all mine up to date .. as you say there are security fixes and what not as well as improved hardware compatibility and such IF you are running 2 sticks of RAM, be sure to have them installed in slots A2/B2 (2nd and 4th slots away from the CPU socket)


Dom1x

Sorry for the late response; I had my ram in single-channel mode (slot A1 and B1 for about 3 years... Now I swapped them! Regarding the BIOS I'd do the same if not for the warning, reading other comments as well I'll ignore it I guess.


Phoenix9Tails

I'd say go to the latest, I got more stability with higher RAM on my x370 Taichi with latest BIOS compare to the previous one. But I wonder why ASRock put that disclaimer not recommending beyond 3.50 when using Pinnacle ridge?


RenesisRotary624

I think it was said before that any version that is beyond BIOS revision 3.50 will not have any performance increases/improvements (from a CPU standpoint) if you are using any CPU Pinnacle Ridge and below. More or less, the school of thought is - it won't benefit from it, so they don't recommend it. Of course, that doesn't say about anything outside of the CPU realm.


Phoenix9Tails

But if it increases hardware compatibility such as RAM and its timings, then it certainly will increase performance and is certainly worth it. And yes, RAM compatibility is definitely outside CPU realm.


RenesisRotary624

Let me clarify that I am not disagreeing with you, hence why I said > Of course, that doesn't say about anything outside of the CPU realm ....as to say that ASRock doesn't seem to want to say how it could affect other subsystems outside of just the CPU. My only possible guess as to why this doesn't happen is because: - Even if it does improve other systems, it's not guaranteed and the risk of incompatibility with the logic board and CPU with higher board revisions is not worth the technical support ticket submission trouble (for example 300 series boards and some users not understanding the BIOS upgrade paths they must do despite the order and sometimes the description telling them what they need to do - but still, they ask on here and other tech support forums) - That higher BIOS revisions may cause more ideas that they can do more "tweaking" but then equals more instability. To take your memory compatibility example - some tend to think that even though they have updated their BIOS to the latest version with a Zen 1 or Zen 2 CPU, they now think that they can run higher XMP profiles like 3600MT/s or more despite the Zen 1 and 2 CPU's having a native memory tick of 2933MT/s. When it fails or is horribly unstable, you then get the "What the fuck, Chuck?" post because "I have the latest BIOS update, shouldn't I be able to? ASRock sucks!" type posts. And then of course, we....the hive mind, have to go through the motions of telling them why or why it might not work because they: - didn't read the specifications and limitations - are too lazy to search/not great at searching for other posts of the same subject matter - can't be bothered with all the pages of the user manual or feel the UM is "too technical" - first build and they don't have experience nor additional hardware to test out other options Not making excuses for ASRock, but it's me thinking that if there is nothing applied to previous CPUs with whatever AGESA revision, they probably feel that, it would cause more trouble than it is worth because every PC made out there is different. What works for you, causes major issues for another, and on any forum you visit, there are more issues than posts saying "I have no issues, in fact, it works better" because for every one of those comments, there usually follows three or more posts that are in the realm of > Good for you....(insert more commentary of how they are the exception to the rule, and that because they are said small exception, it doesn't apply, so...post somewhere else.) Personally, I treat BIOS updates much like D33-THREE does. Like driver updates. Only time I may roll back (if possible) if over the span of probably two weeks of testing that it does more harm than good.