Question X299 BIOS Update to Support I9 9940x + CPUs

[blade8079]

Hi,

I currently have I9-7920x on x299 (Gigabyte Gaming Ultra). If I upgrade to I9-9940 on the same motherboard will I have to flash to the latest BIOS which will automatically install Spectre fix which will slow down my system?

I know in Windows you can turn it off, but if I update to the latest BIOS on motherboard I don't think there will be a way to disable it anymore since it will be hardware-based.

Any ideas?

Thank you.

 

[UsandThem]

It depends if the BIOS version you are installing to support the new CPU is older than the one with the security fixes. If it the BIOS uptdate that supports newer CPUs came after the security update, there's nothing you can do.

Looking at the available BIOS for your specific board, if you want to install the new CPU, you will have the security fixes in it. There's no way to disable the CPU micro-code fixes.

https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Motherboard/X299-AORUS-Ultra-Gaming-rev-10#support-dl-bios

 

[blade8079]

Thank you.

Yeah that's what I was afraid of... Why get a more powerful CPU only to cripple it with Spectre microcode and effectively give me a 5% speed increase from non-spectre enabled i9-7920... It will also adversely affect my SSDs....

 

[DrMrLordX]

It's more the Meltdown microcode that's gonna kill you. But yeah I see your point. Sorry man, things have been hard for some Intel users as of late. The worst part is that Cascade Lake-X was supposed to fix a lot of this stuff in hardware with fewer performance problems, and it looks like that may never come to Intel HEDT. Or if it does, it'll be awhile yet.

 

[LTC8K6]

I doubt you notice the fixes without looking at benchmarks, and the 9940 should be faster than the 7920 in any case. It has more threads, a much higher base frequency, and a lot more cache.

Having said all that, even if the spectre question was removed, I wouldn't upgrade from a 7920 to a 9940. It's not enough of a bump.

 

[blade8079]

All good points here. Thank you.
The only reason I might've considered this upgrade and even going to i9-9980xe in the future is to avoid hardware-updating the motherboard for a newer CPU generation and maximize the value of current build for a few more years, but given the Spectre issue I will probably simply wait it out and get a new build only when it's fully hardware patched in 3-4 years. We do a lot of video /rendering/exporting so speed is very important.

Even the i9-9900k is not fully hardware patched although intel wants you to believe it is...

 

[DrMrLordX]

Even the i9-9900k is not fully hardware patched although intel wants you to believe it is...

Correct. I think the product they have that is closest to being fully patched "in hardware" is Cascade Lake.