Asus X99 Bios update 3301 updated HW-E microcode, memory bandwidth increases

Hail The Brain Slug

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 2005
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I spent a lot of time tweaking my CPU and memory overclocks and dialed them in "just right". I was pretty satisfied with the memory bandwidth I got, which is here:

prebiosupdate.png


And I just updated to the latest bios from ASUS for my motherboard. After doing some stress testing to make sure it was stable (I tweaked my overclock a little) I am getting this:

datmembw.png


The CPU and cache overclock is slightly higher (The reporting isn't quite correct).
Pre update: 4.4 GHz core, 4.275 GHz cache, 1508 MHz ram
Post update: 4.5 GHz core, 4.375 GHz cache, 1500 MHz ram

The memory speed is slightly different due to a difference in bclk, but every timing setting is identical between the two. I'm at a bit of a loss for an explanation, so I'm wondering if anyone has any idea how a bios update did this? I'm certain it isn't my overclock tweak as I've tried to stabilize this specific overclock before and it had a negligible effect on memory speeds.