AMD’s latest updates address 9000X desktop CPU performance issues

After arriving two weeks late, AMD’s Ryzen 9000-series desktop processors disappointed some buyers and reviewers due to lackluster performance. Now, the company has addressed those issues with several new updates.

The biggest speed brake for Ryzen 9000 desktop CPUs was the lack of Windows 11 branch prediction optimizations. For relief, you needed to either wait for Windows 11 24H2 (currently in the release preview channel), or add the optional KB5041587 update. However, AMD announced that the fix is now included by default in both Windows 11 version 23H2 build 22631.44112 or the latest 24H2 builds. That should boost performance by 3-13 percent across various games, with the biggest gains in Ryzen 9000 and Zen 5 processors.

On top of that, AMD released the AGESA PI 1.2.0.2 BIOS update for Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 9700X processors. That extends the warranty on those processors to allow for a TDP (max power) level of 105W, way up from the 65W launch TDP. That alone will boost speeds up to 10 percent on AM5 and X870 series motherboards, AMD said.

It also introduced core-to-core latency optimization for Ryzen 9000 series multi-CCD (chiplet) models. Testers noticed that it sometimes took two transactions to both read and write when information was shared across cores on different CCDs. Though AMD called this a “corner case,” the latest BIOS update cuts the number of transactions in half, helping latency in that scenario. “Our lab tests suggest Metro, Starfield and Borderlands 3 can show some uplift, as well as synthetic tests like 3DMark Time Spy,” AMD wrote.

Still on the speed theme, AMD noted that X870 and X870E motherboards are now available with support for PCIe Gen 5 graphics (i.e., the upcoming NVIDIA RTX 5000 GPUs), NVMe storage and USB4 as standard. AMD also introduced support for “enthusiast-class” DDR5-8000 EXPO memory support, with 1- to 2-nanoseconds of latency improvement. While not for everyone, “it’s a great option for enthusiasts who want to push their systems to the limit,” AMD said.