Today, we’ll be taking a quick look at the performance analysis of the new AGESA BIOS from AMD. We will be using the latest version (AMD AGESA Combo-AM4 v2 1.0.0.2 + SMU 46.61) which is designed for the ASRock B550 Taichi motherboard, and can be downloaded from their website.
With the new firmware, AMD has added virtualization-related features, as well as new memory-related parameters. The latter, allows for more memory speed options (including higher XMP profiles), better memory compatibility, and improved memory overclocking capabilities. It’s also improved on the power saving functionality, as well as fixing some vulnerabilities too.
What is AMD AGESA?
AMD Generic Encapsulated Software Architecture (AGESA), is a procedure library developed by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), used to perform the Platform Initialization (PI) on mainboards using their AMD64 architecture. As part of the BIOS of such mainboards, AGESA is responsible for the initialization of the processor cores, memory, and the HyperTransport controller.
Source: Wikipedia
It will be interesting to see how the new BIOS will perform against the original default first release. I’m expecting better compatibility in terms of XMP profiles, as well as an improvement in the overall performance of the motherboard.
Test Setup
For our tests, we used a test rig which includes the ASRock B550 Taichi Motherboard, along with an AMD Ryzen 7 – 3700X at default clock speed of 3.6GHz (turbo boost 4.4GHz), as well as 16GB of XPG Spectrix D60G (DDR4-3600) ram in dual channel mode.
All tests were conducted at turbo clock speeds at a resolution of 1920×1080. High or Ultra settings enabled.
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 7 – 3700X (Matisse) @ 3.6GHz / Boost @ 4.4GHz |
| Cooling | Cooler Master MasterLiquid 240 AIO |
| Motherboard | ASRock B550 Taichi |
| Ram | 16GB of XPG Spectrix D60G (DDR4-3600) |
| XMP profiles | Yes |
| SSD/HDD | Adata XPG Gammix S50 – 1TB SSD (PCIE Gen4x4) |
| PSU | Thermaltake ToughPower 750W |
| VGA card | Zotac GeForce RTX 2080 AMP Extreme Core 8GB GDDR6 |
| Nvidia Drivers | Latest GeForce Drivers – WHQL |
| OS | Windows 10 |
| BIOS | AMD AGESA Combo-AM4 v2 1.0.0.2 + SMU 46.61 |
BIOS: AMD AGESA Combo-AM4 v2 1.0.0.2 + SMU 46.61
We tested the motherboard with two BIOSes … the first release default BIOS (AMD AGESA Combo-AM4 v2 1.0.0.1) and the latest Beta BIOS (AMD AGESA Combo-AM4 v2 1.0.0.2 + SMU 46.61). You can download the latest BIOS here.
ASRock Beta version BIOS are designed for the users who are seeking to achieve the best performance out of their PCs such as gamers, overclocking lovers and PC enthusiasts. However, we don’t recommend users to update BIOS while the system is running well. For any damages caused by improper operation of downloading or updating BIOS, ASRock assumes no responsibility.
Visit ASRock’s website for more information.
There will be two columns shown in our benchmarks. The first column will show the scores using the original first release default BIOS (AMD AGESA Combo-AM4 v2 1.0.0.1) and the second column will show the results using the latest Beta BIOS (AMD AGESA Combo-AM4 v2 1.0.0.2 + SMU 46.61).
You’ll notice that the new BIOS offers a slightly better overall performance. More importantly ASRock claims that the new BIOS offer better support and compatibility with a wider range of DDR4 memory, as well as higher XMP profiles. We recommend you update the motherboard with the latest BIOS. I’ll let the numbers do all the talking …
The BIOS allows us to select the highest XMP profile available. In our tests, we used a pair of XPG Spectrix D60G (DDR4-3600) 8GB memory modules, give us a total of 16GB.
Benchmarks (Part 1)
PCMark 10
PCMark 10 is the latest in our series of industry standard PC benchmarks. Updated for Windows 10 with new and improved workloads, PCMark 10 is also faster and easier to use. PCMark 10 features a comprehensive set of tests that cover the wide variety of tasks performed in the modern workplace. With express, extended, and custom run options to suit your needs, PCMark 10 is the complete PC benchmark for the modern office and an ideal choice for organizations that buy PCs in high volumes.
PassMark 9
Fast, easy to use, PC speed testing and benchmarking. PassMark PerformanceTest allows you to objectively benchmark a PC using a variety of different speed tests and compare the results to other computers.
3DMark v2 – Port Royal (DXR – Ray Tracing)
Port Royal is a graphics card benchmark for testing real-time ray tracing performance. To run this test, you must have a graphics card and drivers that support Microsoft DirectX Raytracing..
3DMark – Nvidia DLSS Test
Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) is an NVIDIA RTX technology that uses the power of deep learning and AI to improve game performance while maintaining visual quality.
DLSS is a post-processing technique that uses a pre-trained deep neural network to extract features of the rendered scene and intelligently construct a high-quality final image.
This feature test helps you compare performance and image quality with and without DLSS.
Time Spy
3DMark Time Spy is a new DirectX 12 benchmark test for Windows 10 gaming PCs. Time Spy is one of the first DirectX 12 apps to be built “the right way” from the ground up to fully realize the performance gains that the new API offers. With its pure DirectX 12 engine, which supports new API features like asynchronous compute, explicit multi-adapter, and multi-threading, Time Spy is the ideal test for benchmarking the latest graphics cards.
Firestrike
Fire Strike is a showcase DirectX 11 benchmark designed for today’s high-performance gaming PCs. It is our most ambitious and technical benchmark ever, featuring real-time graphics rendered with detail and complexity far beyond what is found in other benchmarks and games today.
