Random Hardware topics

[Colif]

Most of the new motherboards have BIOS Flashback abilities now. So if a BIOS flash does go bad, just try again. Most boards can be re flashed with just power attached to them. Last few Aorus X series boards had a specific USB slot on back for flashing, and the latest also has a button to start process.

Doesn't help to do them during thunderstorms either.

 

[neogunhero]

You should notice a difference I expect.

Just played some Teardown to test it, it’s a very CPU heavy game with lots of voxel destruction, and maybe it felt a bit smoother as I blew up houses, I’m not sure. Will need to do actual tests.

It happens! This is the reason I like to run 3D mark to check how my rig stacks up against others with the same hardware. Theres usually something you need to tweak

I really should do that, I wonder if there is something I can still do or tweak to make my PC perform better.

Once I cleared CMOS and reset everything in BIOS as needed it boosted normally and scored much better.

I've never done this and have had my mobo for many years, would you recommend I look into doing this? Maybe if the 3DMark tests come back as not boosting properly like you found out.

You could argue that if I didnt notice then why would it matter, but I think its nice to have everything working properly to get the performance you paid for. Also gets you ahead of any potential problems that might happen down the line sometimes.

That's kind of what I was thinking too. I never noticed anything bad with my PC, maybe some slight stuttering rarely and sometimes at launch/loading into a game, but after that things were smooth enough for me to not notice. I'm just happy my stupidity basically gave me a free performance boost

I don't have newest now as randomly updating the BIOS just because a new one exists is a great way to get problems you didn't before. Also can be risky. Don't mess with the board the entire PC relies on to work.

I update to latest BIOS every once in a while, probably a full year between updates. I understand the risks, so that's why I don't update as soon as a new one is out, but of course it can have different effects on your specific system compared to someone else's. Security updates are a must of course. Luckily I've never ran into any BIOS related issues.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I really should do that, I wonder if there is something I can still do or tweak to make my PC perform better.

Might be, just look up some guides or lists online and see if theres anything you missed.

I've never done this and have had my mobo for many years, would you recommend I look into doing this? Maybe if the 3DMark tests come back as not boosting properly like you found out.

It should do it automatically when you update the BIOS I think, its really something I only do when theres a problem. Was having GPU issues a couple years ago, though my card was bricked because it was getting stuck at boot on the GPU light, CLR CMOS and then there was no issue, who knows what it was.

If you have any BIOS settings you tweaked then obviously you'll need to reset them afterwards from the stock ones, can be annoying if youve had to fiddle with stuff to get it working.

That's kind of what I was thinking too. I never noticed anything bad with my PC, maybe some slight stuttering rarely and sometimes at launch/loading into a game, but after that things were smooth enough for me to not notice. I'm just happy my stupidity basically gave me a free performance boost

For stuttering theres a program to check drivers called LatencyMon, Ive reinstalled some network drivers and stuff on occasion and it helped to find what was causing the problem. Guess sometimes they get outdated or corrupted and its the kind of thing taht you wouldnt expect to cause those kinds of issues. I think it works with Windows 11, Im pretty sure I used it on Windows 10.

 

[Colif]

note: motherboard needs to work in quad channel. Most don't, AFAIK 2 lots of dual channel don't equal Quad channel. Sure, some motherboards have 8 slots but we not talking Threadripper here.
Also, on AM5 you don't want 4 sticks of ram as they run slower than if you have two. Main reason there aren't many 4 stick sets of ram for EXPO. refer below for what my next motherboard says

red text... click on picture to expand it.

2 sticks - 6000
3 sticks - 5600
4 sticks - 3600

I know its for convenience but there is no reason MB couldn't just have 2 slots on AM5 as using more slows it down. Convenience is for those who don't care about speed and want space.

BIOS updates by their very nature reset the BIOS. They overwrite what was there.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Quad channel for Intel used to be High End Desk Top (HEDT) stuff, the X series when they seperated them from the mainline Z series. Not sure on Threadripper but I assume it would be quad for AMD commercial stuff too.

I think all Ryzen and Intel consumer stuff now is dual channel, the memory controller is on the CPU and has to be designed to handle it.

 

[Colif]

Video shows its Xeon, Threadripper and EPYC that have quad channel now.

DDR5 changed how memory is handled, so I don't know about intel but AMD use a 128bit bus for talking to memory and the DDR5 sticks have 2 x 32bit per stick. So two sticks maxes out the 128bit and adding more just leads to shuffling.
Intel can run ram faster than AMD so clearly they do something differently.

My BIOS will be 3 years old in May. Guess I could grab latest one. Guess the latest on Gigabyte site is dated 11 March 2025 so I probably don't have that one... grabs file... will think about it. reminds me that my current BIOS doesn't exist on MB website anymore, it was clearly a beta. I didn't notice.

Not sure I feel like messing with TPM stuff so not in a rush to do BIOS.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Havent looked into the latest Ryzens but up to 5000 series at least AMD worked best when the RAM speed matched the Bus speed of the CPU 1:1, so stability of RAM at faster EXPO settings was dependent on how good of a FSB/memory controller you got in the lottery. I think Intel only relied on the memory controller so there was only one point of failure.

Of course thats just whatever I gleaned from reading articles over time, so theres probably a lot more to it

 

[neogunhero]

What I'm taking from this video is that I may get a very tiny FPS boost in certain games and I'm happy about that. What's even more surprising is that 4x8gb dual channel can sometimes be very slightly faster than 2x16gb dual. I have always heard was 2x16gb was better than 4x8gb as the CPU can process it faster or something. In real world test the performance increase is extremely negligible, but still interesting to see it could technically be considered better than 2x16gb.

 

[Colif]

What I'm taking from this video is that I may get a very tiny FPS boost in certain games and I'm happy about that. What's even more surprising is that 4x8gb dual channel can sometimes be very slightly faster than 2x16gb dual. I have always heard was 2x16gb was better than 4x8gb as the CPU can process it faster or something. In real world test the performance increase is extremely negligible, but still interesting to see it could technically be considered better than 2x16gb.

might come down to it being between single and dual rank memory. Single rank is faster but smaller capacity. 4 single rank sticks probably is faster than 2 dual rank sticks.

Single Rank Memory vs. Dual Rank Memory (vs Quad Rank Memory) - OEMPCWorld

Single Rank Memory can be memory with chips on only one side of the memory module (stick of memory) or chips on both sides of the module as long as the chips are in one rank that is accessed while writing to or reading from the memory. Dual Rank Memory is basically like having two ... Single...

www.oempcworld.com

 

[Colif]

Havent looked into the latest Ryzens but up to 5000 series at least AMD worked best when the RAM speed matched the Bus speed of the CPU 1:1, so stability of RAM at faster EXPO settings was dependent on how good of a FSB/memory controller you got in the lottery. I think Intel only relied on the memory controller so there was only one point of failure.

Of course thats just whatever I gleaned from reading articles over time, so theres probably a lot more to it

I don't know how it works on AM5 but what you said is right for everything up to 5000. I know 6000 is the ideal speed for AM5. Probably find answer on here - according to that I could run 6400 but I feel 6000 is fast enough.