ASUS Rolls Out UEFI Firmware Update for Intel Z890 Motherboards

Motherboard vendor ASUS has started releasing UEFI firmware (BIOS) updates for its Intel Z890 motherboards that include Intel's 0x114 Microcode update for Core Ultra "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processors. This new microcode is said to improve gaming performance by 3-8% depending on the configuration.

While Intel had initially stated that motherboard vendors would begin releasing BIOS updates with the 0x114 microcode in January 2025, ASUS has already made stable updates available on their website. We tested the version 1203 BIOS on our ROG Maximus Z890 Hero motherboard, which also updates the Intel ME to v19.0.0.1827.

Our performance testing, conducted on December 19, 2024, with the Core Ultra 9 285K processor and the latest Windows 11 24H2 patches, did not show significant performance gains with the 0x114 microcode update. Intel had claimed that these gains would be noticeable once OS and BIOS configuration issues were resolved.

Intel's pre-brief highlighted that the 0x114 microcode update unlocks additional performance potential that was discovered during the process of addressing performance discrepancies identified in launch reviews from October.

We encourage you to revisit our performance testing article from yesterday, where we have updated the graphs with the 0x114 microcode numbers. Stay tuned for more insights in the full article!