How To Update Your BIOS For Ryzen 5000 Series CPUs

The release of AMD’s new Ryzen 5000 series CPU lineup is just over a week away now, due to hit shelves on the 5th of November and promising what AMD class as “Intel beating” performance. Whilst we’ll be waiting to perform our own benchmarking comparisons between Ryzen and Intel 10th Gen, the early signs are extremely encouraging for AMD fans.

AMD have also kept their word in terms of compatibility and chipsets, making the Zen 3 processor family fully compatible with 400/500 series AM4 motherboards.

That being said, you will need to perform a BIOS update in order for both 400/500 series motherboards to work with the new processor family. Luckily, the process isn’t that difficult.

In the following article, we’ll be walking you through how to update your BIOS for Ryzen 5000 series CPUs. We’ll be looking at the hardware you’ll need, what is and isn’t compatible, and everything else that might be of note for the new Zen 3 Ryzen launch.

So, with lots of to get through, let’s waste no further time and dive straight into it!

The BIOS is your PC’s basic input/output system. It resides in a small chip on your motherboard and deals with managing the most basic instructions that allow your computer to boot into the operating system. It also protects your PC and ensures everything is running in an efficient manner.

During startup, the BIOS also helps initialize the other components in your computer. The CPU, GPU, and motherboard all rely on the BIOS to start properly. Despite motherboard manufacturers actually replacing the BIOS with a more intuitive interface known as a UEFI, most people still refer to it as the BIOS.

One of the big questions we get asked when referencing a motherboard’s BIOS is, why should I keep it updated? Whilst the answer isn’t that technical, below are the main reasons why.

CPU Compatibility

The first, and potentially most common reason to update your BIOS, is to ensure compatibility with newer hardware releases. Like this article, updating your BIOS can make an outdated motherboard become compatible with a newer CPU by simply updating the BIOS. Whilst this won’t work for every CPU/motherboard pairing, it will future proof some motherboards for a few years to come.

Fixes Bugs And Errors

Another common reason why many people update their BIOS is to fix reported bugs. All kinds of bugs can crop up with new hardware, reducing the efficiency in which they run. That said, motherboard manufacturers regularly provide consumers with BIOS updates that will resolve these issues.

Before we get started, it’s probably worth quickly going over some of the fundamental items you’ll need for updating your BIOS.

The following items will be absolutely essential in order to perform a clean, stress-free BIOS update:

• Internet Connection: The first thing you’ll need is an internet connection. Whilst this probably seems obvious, it’s still worth pointing out for some beginners. Before starting the update, you’ll have to physically download the BIOS update from the motherboard manufacturer website.
• USB Flash Drive: Once you have completed downloading the BIOS, you’ll have to save it to a flash drive.
• 400/500 series compatible Motherboard: You’ll need to use a compatible 400/500 series motherboard to get the BIOS updated. If you try slotting a new 5000 series CPU into an old board, the system won’t post.

So, now we’ve got a better understanding of what the BIOS is and how it affects your system, it’s time to go over the method of actually updating the BIOS.

Remember, always have a secondary, fully compatible CPU at hand in case an unexpected problem occurs during the update process.

With that, let’s jump into the process.