ASRock BIOS update for 600/700 motherboards brings up to 10% more performance for Intel 14th Gen CPUs

Intel’s 14th generation of non-K CPUs were released earlier this year and are aimed at both more frugal high-end and budget consumers. These chips have a TDP of 65W at their base power limit and therefore offer lower performance compared to the fully unlocked “K” chips, which operate at higher TDPs in an unrestricted CPU.

ASRock has announced that it will release a new BIOS update for its 700 and 600 series motherboards that provides a performance boost for the 14th generation Intel CPUs. The update includes the latest microcodes and a special feature to further improve chip performance.

We’ll get into the feature and performance benefits, but before that, here are all the Z790 motherboards that are now available with the latest BIOS, while additional 700 and 600 series motherboards will be updated soon.

So, to come back to the performance increases: The Intel microcode update enables a performance increase of up to 10% for 14th generation processors. There is also the option of deactivating CEP (Current Excursion Power). This new option provides the additional performance boost and is activated in the latest microcode. The CEP function can be disabled on motherboards with both Intel Z790/Z690 and B760/B660. The results are extremely promising, as shown in the table below:

Intel 14th Gen CPU performance boost with new microcode:

Without CEP enabled, the 14th generation Intel CPUs can benefit from higher performance as they are no longer limited by their current limits. Thus, it is possible that certain chips such as the Core i7-14700 offer a 10% performance boost. This is particularly beneficial for budget users looking for better tuning and performance options on mainstream B760/B660 motherboards, as these are some of the more popular board options on the market.

Source: ASRock