Effect of BIOS on PC performance

[sad_guy]

Hi,
I've never updated my mobo's BIOS since i bought this motherboard, since i've always considered firmware update a pretty risky maneuver that could brick stuff. D:

I wanna know, will i get any benefit from updating my motherboard's BIOS, any performance benefit..?

 

[dagamer34]

Nope.

 

[A5]

Nope. It's usually just bug fixes or new CPU ID codes. Sometimes it makes OCing better, but usually worse.

In the case of my current system, the last BIOS update made the board essentially non-OCable (x58 board, so BCLK still mattered).

 

[sad_guy]

are you sure? coz i remember reading somewhere that since its the BIOS that controls low level stuff like moving data within the RAM, newer versions COULD have a slight performance increase.

 

[R0H1T]

are you sure? coz i remember reading somewhere that since its the BIOS that controls low level stuff like moving data within the RAM, newer versions COULD have a slight performance increase.

That depends on what the mobo maker has done with the BIOS, like the poster above you said, but generally they improve stability &/or add features however in rare cases they may disable a setting or two again depending on the issue of stability. So mostly its adding compatibility for future/current gen CPU's & increasing stability with the latter always being a priority !

 

[sad_guy]

okay rohit 🙂

 

[pcunite]

I used to always update the Bios ... now I'm very careful about it and never do it unless absolutely required. We've lost a generation of low level programmers and generally things just get worse with the updates.

 

[Ketchup]

I have had boards that have had increased performance with a BIOS update (a couple Epox boards come to mind), and some that made no difference. So they answer is, it depends on the board. A majority of the time, the answer is no.

If you have a board with a Windows application to update the BIOS, the risk factor is negligible.