Reverting BIOS Questions

[MewMew]

Are there any benefits to reverting BIOS back to a former release?

Would or could older hardware work better on a latter BIOS version?

For instance, if a BIOS version update for a chipset, (something like support for a new release [cpu of the same chipset]) comes out could it mess up the former chip support? Not completely but in a glitchy way?

Does anyone have any instances of this happening?

[RONOTHAN##]

26 minutes ago, MewMew said:

Are there any benefits to reverting BIOS back to a former release?

Would or could older hardware work better on a latter BIOS version?

Depends on the specific hardware configuration and how each BIOS file was written. Newest is usually the best, but there are many instances of the newest not being the best. 

 

26 minutes ago, MewMew said:

For instance, if a BIOS version update for a chipset, (something like support for a new release [cpu of the same chipset]) comes out could it mess up the former chip support? Not completely but in a glitchy way?

I know there were some B350/B450 boards with BETA BIOS revisions where if you had a Ryzen 1000/2000 series chip and updated to it, you would end up getting some weird glitchy behavior. These were eventually fixed, but at least at one point you did not want to be using the latest BIOS revision with those chips. 

 

26 minutes ago, MewMew said:

Does anyone have any instances of this happening?

Most of the areas I'm aware of this occuring are with memory or other features in the BIOS. The Z690 Unify-X is the board I've probably had the most experience with for different BIOS revisions, and there were quite a few times where a newer BIOS revision would come out and give an advantage in one regard but a disadvantage in another. BIOS revision A9 (maybe AA), for instance, massively improved the memory overclocking performance, going from not booting above 7600 consistently to DDR5 8000 booting consistently and somewhat stable, but at the same time breaking cache overclocking (this was eventually fixed). If you use Hynix M die based memory, you want to be running BIOS A8 or earlier as the later BIOSes don't have as good timing support, and if you have Samsung B die, only something like BIOS A5 was mildly competent at that, both newer and earlier BIOSes are pretty bad at it. 

[MewMew]

Opinions on Beta Bios versions?

[RONOTHAN##]

9 minutes ago, MewMew said:

Opinions on Beta Bios versions?

Meh. For my main system, I don't run them, nor would recommend using them. For a secondary system that I don't fully need, I'll occasionally use it if it promises an extra feature I want to try out. Most of the beta BIOS revisons I've seen have actually been rebranded for the full release with no changes, but I know of enough beta BIOSes that have bugs that kill your CPU to not trust them without at least seeing someone else on a motherboard owners thread try it first.