Z390M bios upgrade influences CPU performance?

[chnapo]

Hello, so I heard many times that intel made some measures to patch their security vulnerabilities. So now, I don't care about security. I only use my PC for gaming and I play free games, nothing to be stolen here. So now I am looking at bios versions and some contain updated CPU microcode to fix vulnerabilities. My question is - will there be a difference in performance (overall, not just gaming) between bios versions? Which should bring the best performance, regardless of meltdown vulnerability? 

 

My mobo: https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/Z390-M-rev-10/support#support-dl

My CPU: i5 9600K

[SEAL62]

Usually those newer versions don't really target better performance in general but rather security upgrades (as you already stated) but also bug fixes and fixes for stability issues which on the other hand therefore can improve your overall performance. So hard to say but I'd go for the update.

[SkyeAwoo]

They where known to cause performance issues but on processors that are older than yours.

[chnapo]

Just now, SEAL62 said:

Usually those newer versions don't really target better performance in general but rather security upgrades (as you already stated) but also bug fixes and fixes for stability issues which on the other hand therefore can improve your overall performance. So hard to say but I'd go for the update.

But there were all the videos saying that Intel CPUs will (due to the meltdown and other security threats) loose some 5-20% performance. So if that is what the update contains, I don´t want it.

[SEAL62]

I used an i5-9600K before I got my i9-9900K and also have a Gigabyte board (specs in my signature). I always update my chipset, BIOS and so on whenever there is something new available and I have NEVER experienced any hits on performance whatsoever. So yeah there might be videos out there but so are videos about birds being government drones and the earth being flat.

[SkyeAwoo]

Like I said in my first response and also in correlation to what seal is writing your processor is not old enough to have this impact on performance. It has all the up to date instructions and is still fairly new, this performance hit will not happen to your processor.

[chnapo]

Just now, SEAL62 said:

I used an i5-9600K before I got my i9-9900K and also have a Gigabyte board (specs in my signature). I always update my chipset, BIOS and so on whenever there is something new available and I have NEVER experienced any hits on performance whatsoever. So yeah there might be videos out there but so are videos about birds being government drones and the earth being flat.

But have you tested it? Because you are not going to notice a 5% performance drop, yet it can be there.

[SkyeAwoo]

I didn't suffer a performance impact on my 3770k when I updated due to this issue as well and i can't imagine such a new processor would either. 

[DoctorNick]

Same no performance hit. Just make sure you ME firmware is up to date. You can check with this tool: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/28632/Intel-Converged-Security-and-Management-Engine-Version-Detection-Tool-Intel-CSMEVDT-