MSI has just released its latest AM5 BIOS, promising up to 10% additional performance in gaming with AMD’s new Zen 5-based Ryzen 9000 series CPUs. The new AGESA 1.2.0.0a BIOS, available for MSI’s AM5 motherboard fleet, introduces a suite of exclusive features designed to boost performance and provide more tuning options.
The new BIOS incorporates features like “Memory Try It!” and “High-Efficiency” mode, alongside existing features like EXPO OPP and Curve Shaper, which are standard on all AM5 motherboards running the latest AGESA BIOS and Ryzen 9000 series “Granite Ridge” processors. MSI has published a blog post detailing the improvements, including benchmark results demonstrating the performance gains achieved by the new BIOS on AMD’s latest CPUs.
Benchmarks showcase the impact of AMD OPP (Optimized Performance Profile) mode, which yields up to 17% higher gaming performance and reduces latency by up to 19% compared to default configurations. When compared to the regular EXPO profile, OPP mode emerges as the ideal option for memory modules using Hynix chips, achieving a 5% reduction in latency and up to a 2% performance boost. OPP mode optimizes memory timings to CL30-38-38-96 (OPP) versus CL36-38-38-80 (EXPO).
MSI’s new High-Efficiency mode amplifies performance further, building upon the gains provided by OPP. MSI validates timings and clocks for a wide range of memory modules to optimize performance. The new HPM feature offers five options for selection: Auto, Tightest, Tighter, Balance, and Relax. With High-Efficiency mode enabled, latency is reduced by an additional 8% while gaming performance increases by up to 8% compared to using only OPP.
The final new feature introduced by MSI’s updated BIOS for its AM5 motherboards is Memory Try It! This feature, when paired with High-Efficiency Mode (Tighter profile), delivers a performance boost of 3-10% in 1080p across a diverse range of games. This mode sets timings to CL28-35-35-60, providing greater performance in games that favor tighter timings compared to relaxed timings (which offer more bandwidth).
