Gigabyte Aorus Elite AX V2 rev 1.1 BIOS update "AMD AGESA V2 1.2.0.B"

[Marcus L]

Anyone know this agesa version and relevance? should I update? I am currently on bios revision F17h according to CPU-Z with a date of 12/25/23 though the closest match on the GB support page for my board is F17c with release date of 03/23/23 ( https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B550-AORUS-ELITE-AX-V2-rev-11/support#support-dl-bios ) maybe I installed a beta BIOS that has since been pulled? anyway, I see that F18 was released 03/27/24 and was going to update before realising I would need to dial in my 5700x/RAM settings and fan curves etc so I stopped short.. Under the notes for this newest BIOS are:

1. Checksum : 7666
2. Update AMD AGESA V2 1.2.0.B
3. Fix AMD processor vulnerabilities security
4. Addresses potential UEFI vulnerabilities. (LogoFAIL)

Concerned I may lose some performance for No:3 as well, wish they would just bloody put some more details into BIOS updates, I have no issues to speak of so will likely leave as is but any light shed on the matter would be helpful.

 

[tabascosauz]

Anyone know this agesa version and relevance? should I update? I am currently on bios revision F17h according to CPU-Z with a date of 12/25/23 though the closest match on the GB support page for my board is F17c with release date of 03/23/23 ( https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B550-AORUS-ELITE-AX-V2-rev-11/support#support-dl-bios ) maybe I installed a beta BIOS that has since been pulled? anyway, I see that F18 was released 03/27/24 and was going to update before realising I would need to dial in my 5700x/RAM settings and fan curves etc so I stopped short.. Under the notes for this newest BIOS are:

1. Checksum : 7666
2. Update AMD AGESA V2 1.2.0.B
3. Fix AMD processor vulnerabilities security
4. Addresses potential UEFI vulnerabilities. (LogoFAIL)

Concerned I may lose some performance for No:3 as well, wish they would just bloody put some more details into BIOS updates, I have no issues to speak of so will likely leave as is but any light shed on the matter would be helpful.

If you wanted maximum performance, then you shouldn't have updated past 1.2.0.3C or 1.2.0.6 max. Anything past that has already lost some performance from AGESA. But being on such old BIOS also prevents you from using fTPM for example, so it's always a tradeoff.

1.2.0.B is supposed to address the Inception vulnerability. The impact was supposed to be relatively niche but significant.

AMD's Inception Fix Causes Up to 54% Performance Drop

Tests on wide variety of workloads completed on an Epyc / Linux system show up to 54% drop in performance.

www.tomshardware.com

 

[Marcus L]

If you wanted maximum performance, then you shouldn't have updated past 1.2.0.3C or 1.2.0.6 max. Anything past that has already lost some performance from AGESA. But being on such old BIOS also prevents you from using fTPM for example, so it's always a tradeoff.

1.2.0.B is supposed to address the Inception vulnerability. The impact was supposed to be relatively niche but significant.

AMD's Inception Fix Causes Up to 54% Performance Drop

Tests on wide variety of workloads completed on an Epyc / Linux system show up to 54% drop in performance.

www.tomshardware.com

I can go back to f14/1.2.0.4 that's as far back as the revisions go for my board on GB, would it be worth it, would anything be gained/lost?

 

[tabascosauz]

I can go back to f14/1.2.0.4 that's as far back as the revisions go for my board on GB, would it be worth it, would anything be gained/lost?

I think 1204 was a minor release? Nothing worth noting between 1203 and 1206.

If you don't care about fTPM and leave it off, 1206 AGESA performance should still be solid (barring unforeseeable individual board/BIOS quirks). If you need fTPM however, it has to be 1207 or later.

 

[Marcus L]

I can go back to f14/1.2.0.4 that's as far back as the revisions go for my board on GB

I think 1204 was a minor release? Nothing worth noting between 1203 and 1206.

If you don't care about fTPM and leave it off, 1206 AGESA performance should still be solid (barring unforeseeable individual board/BIOS quirks). If you need fTPM however, it has to be 1207 or later.

isn't ftpm the main thing that W11 requires for install, something to do with secure install or am I thinking of something else?

 

[tabascosauz]

isn't ftpm the main thing that W11 requires for install, something to do with secure install or am I thinking of something else?

Might be? I've never used fTPM or Secure Boot for W11 but that's probably part of the requirements for full security (including HVCI/VBS, which further saps performance).

You can still use it, but anything pre-1207 will suffer the periodic fTPM lag issue.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Something to note that the recent performance regression regarding Zenbleed patch only affects Zen 2 processors (Ryzen 3000 and 4000G series). However, I think this fix is only included in AGESA v2 1.2.0.C A and later.

Advice to stay on 1.2.0.3 C is solid if you want to dodge the EDC bug, not sure that's been fixed but it was one of the driving factors behind my decision to abandon socket AM4 and upgrade to a DDR5 Raptor Lake platform despite having a pretty awesome 5950X CPU.

 

[VuurVOS]

Advice to stay on 1.2.0.3 C is solid if you want to dodge the EDC bug, not sure that's been fixed but it was one of the driving factors behind my decision to abandon socket AM4 and upgrade to a DDR5 Raptor Lake platform despite having a pretty awesome 5950X CPU.

EDC bug is fixed in Agesa 1.2.0.A