ASRock Announces New AM5 BIOS Design, Promises Faster Booting Times
by Gavin Bonshor on September 9, 2022 4:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- AMD
- Firmware
- ASRock
- BIOS
- Zen 4
- AM5
- Ryzen 7000
In preparation for AMD's Ryzen 7000 series processors, which will launch on September 27th, ASRock has announced that it has developed a new BIOS for its AM5 motherboards. ASRock states that its new firmware has been built to decrease booting times on its motherboards.
With every new platform, chipset, and processor launch, firmware is one of the focal points surrounding motherboards. Over the last couple of years, leading vendors such as ASUS, GIGABYTE, and MSI have kept their firmware consistent, regardless of whether the board is designed for AMD or Intel. ASRock has announced that it has developed a new BIOS specifically for its AM5 motherboards, which are designed to support the upcoming AMD Ryzen 7000 series Zen 4 processors based on TSMC's 5 nm process node.
ASRock X570S PG Riptide motherboard firmware
ASRock claims that their new BIOS for AM5 will provide better compatibility, although it doesn't expressly state what, as well as quicker booting or POST times into Windows. As it stands, ASRock has announced five X670E models currently, including the X670E Taichi and Taichi Carrara models, the X670E Steel Legend, the X670E Pro RS, and the X670E PG Lightning. ASRock also hasn't stated whether or not the layout or core GUI has changed compared with previous generations such as X570 or B550.
Another thing ASRock has announced is that all of its X670E and X670 models will support BIOS Flashback, with users able to update their motherboard to the latest firmware with just a USB flash drive and 24-pin power connected to the power supply.
ASRock's new firmware for its X670E and X670 motherboards will be available to download from the appropriate product pages on the ASRock website after September 27th. At the time of writing, it hasn't confirmed any information regarding the pricing of its new AM5 motherboards.
Source: ASRock
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Khanan - Thursday, September 15, 2022 - link
It does. And the direct answer is no. Ofc there is nothing disabled, just optimizations for stuff to initialize faster.Devo2007 - Saturday, September 10, 2022 - link
The key thing missing from this article is what the issue actually was. It was leaked last weekend that the ASRock AM5 boards could require up to 4 minutes for first boot or after a Clear CMOS to initialize RAM. (that was if all 4 slots were occupied). Apparently there was a sticker on the RAM slots on the leaked images that indicated this. Even 2 sticks of RAM would still take 90 seconds-2 minutes I believe.That is what seems to be the issue ASRock is fixing with the new firmware.
Hul8 - Saturday, September 10, 2022 - link
I doubt this article is about DDR5 training times.ASRock is stating "faster POST" which implies on every boot - not just when you've cleared the CMOS or installed a new CPU.
ET - Sunday, September 11, 2022 - link
Thankfully at least one site (Hot Hardware) cared to provide a link to the ASRock press release (https://www.asrock.com/news/index.us.asp?iD=4966).That's pretty short, and my guess is that the interpretation that it refers to RAM training speed is correct. What ASRock is saying is: we have a new BIOS and you can flash it before assembling the system by using flashback.
Dolda2000 - Sunday, September 11, 2022 - link
I really wish they'd just publish specifications to allow the open-source community, such as Coreboot, to develop firmware for these boards. I really miss the days of being able to use Coreboot, and I frankly don't understand why this even needs to be controversial.ballsystemlord - Monday, September 12, 2022 - link
I second the motion.Khanan - Thursday, September 15, 2022 - link
I disagree, it is not open source because of safety concerns and TPM as far as I know.ballsystemlord - Friday, September 16, 2022 - link
So telling someone about how secure your product is makes it insecure?Even if that were true, than that would mean that we should all be designing our own TPMs because MS knowing makes it insecure.
Also, the OP, Dolda2000, advocated for open specs, not opensourcing the whole thing.
Dolda2000 - Saturday, September 17, 2022 - link
To begin with, I didn't call for them making the current BIOSes open source. I realize there may be a ton of reasons why that can be hard, including using code licensed from third parties that they can't easily free up. What I called for was specifications / interface documentation.That being said, if open-sourcing your crypto implementation makes it insecure, that's a good sign that you're way overdue to throw it away and start over. And if even releasing the specifications of your hardware ruins that security, I wouldn't even let it touch anything actually sensitive.
BioHazardous - Sunday, September 11, 2022 - link
I'd love to care about something ASRock is doing with motherboards, but I switched to them after using exclusively ASUS boards since around 1999, and everything seemed great until every single one of them died within 3 years of building a PC. I now dread doing favors for people with building PCs after every person I helped with a PC while using an ASRock board has had their motherboard go bad. I loathe those calls from people asking why they're computer isn't working, then trying to eliminate everything relatively easy to replace to find out the MB is the culprit. Endless RAM tests, swapping out PSUs, CPUs, etc. Just want them to create a motherboard that doesn't fail after a few years. Will switch to MSI or go back to ASUS.