It looks like AMD is going to release more AGESA Microcode updates for their Ryzen CPUs. One thing they’re addressing is memory latency and they might be able to reduce it by 6ns. Apart from that AMD is going to fix the FMA3 workload bug and the "overclock sleep bug". The new code should be available very soon in the shape of UEFI/BIOS files for AM4 motherboards.

AMD's Generic Encapsulated Software Architecture (AGESA), is a protocol that is used on AMD64 mainboards to initialise the system. This code is initializing the CPU cores, memory interface and HyperTransport controllers. So far it’s being expected that the updated microcode could help improving memory compatibility, which is still quite weak in the case of the current AMD Ryzen processors. The new AGESA version 1.0.0.4 for Ryzen will be rolled out in combination with an UEFI/BIOS update in mid-April. Therefore the update is going to be downloaded from the vendor’s when you update the BIOS of your motherboard to the latest version.

These newer UEFI versions do not always flash the same way like older BIOS. We suggest flashing your BIOS from a USB flash drive, keeping the flash drive plugged in until everything is done. If you are not sure whether the BIOS update has been completed or not just wait a little longer. The new microcode update will include some major updates, including memory latency improvements, which could have an impact on performance. One of the biggest improvements with this update is the 6ns reduction in memory latency which should impact on latency-sensitive applications.

AMD has also announced that they’re planning to release another AGESA update in May, which will focus on overclocked memory support. According to them, the next AGESA update should enable memory frequencies up to 3600MHz on DDR4 memory. We’re very much looking forward to test these updates and let you know if there really are improvements on the memory controller side.



Source: OC3D