ASUS New Micro Update for Z890 Motherboards Offers Up to 27% Performance Improvement in Gaming

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Intel's Fix for Core Ultra Series Disaster!

Story Highlight
  • The 0x114 microcode specifically addresses performance issues previously identified in Intel’s Core Ultra 200 series CPUs, particularly during gaming.
  • ASUS’s own testing indicates performance gains of up to 27% in overall gaming performance.
  • The update also yields a 40% improvement in the 1% lows metric.

ASUS has rolled out BIOS updates for its Intel Z890 motherboards, featuring Intel’s 0x114 microcode to improve gaming performance.

These updates include two new optimized profiles: 1203 XMP I and 1203 XMP Tweaked. The XMP Tweaked profile aims to lower latency, providing smoother frames and better efficiency, while the XMP I profile prioritizes system stability.

Why it matters: The 0x114 microcode update was released to fix performance issues in Intel’s Core Ultra 200 series processors, especially in gaming.

ASUS 0x114 Microupdate Improvement in Gaming
1203 XMP Tweaked profile provides up to 27% performance gain while gaming. | Credit: ROG Forum

ASUS conducted internal tests using the ROG Maximus Z890 Hero motherboard, an ROG STRIX RTX 4090 GPU, and an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K processor.

The results showed that the 1203 XMP Tweaked profile provided up to 27% performance gains in gaming and yielded up to 40% improvement in the 1% lows performance metric.

To take advantage of these improvements, ASUS suggests updating your motherboard BIOS to the latest version that supports the 0x114 microcode.

You should also choose the right XMP profile in the UEFI BIOS and install the Intel Dynamic Tuning driver and Intel Application Optimization (APO) from the Microsoft Store.

ASUS’s internal tests show performance improvements, but independent reviews have shown mixed results. For example, some tests didn’t see much of a performance boost with the 0x114 microcode update.

ASUS 0x114 Microupdate Improvement in Gaming
1% lows saw an improvement of up to 40% across various games. | Credit: ROG forum.

Intel had previously mentioned that the 0x114 microcode update could boost performance by 3% to 8%, depending on the hardware and system settings.

Have you noticed any improvement with this new micro code update? Let us know in the comments, or join the conversation on the Tech4Gamers forum.

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