Do you think a BIOS update is necessary for the upgrade? CPU upgrade Acer Nitro N50-620

Zak0065
Zak0065 Member Posts: 10

Tinkerer

edited February 2023 in Nitro Gaming

I have decided to upgrade to the Intel Core I9 11900F (LGA 1200) 65w. Do you think a BIOS update is necessary for the upgrade? My current BIOS version that I haven't touched since buying the system is R01-A1. There is R01-A4 out there, but I'm not sure if it's worth taking the risk. I would appreciate your advice thank you!

Zak

 [Edited the thread to add issue detail]

Best Answer

  • StevenGen
    StevenGen ACE Posts: 12,064 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓

    Just remember that the N50-620 comes with many cpu's and 8 different Intel B560 chipsets mobos, the Intel Core i9-11900F 2.5G 16M 3200 Octa Core 65W is the flagship Rocket Lake cpu and where Acer lacks is in its ram bios which is limited to DDR4-3200MHz while other B550 mobos can utilize DDR4-4600Mhz with the same i9-11900F cpu.

    So, any Acer N50-620 listed bios update should be appropriate for your mobo and cpu combination. with the I9-11900F also and with this upgrade you will expect a performance increase of about 10% but don't expect a ram performance and/or compatibility with faster ram, which is what has been tested with these two cpu's at DDR4-3200Mhz ram. If anything, I would also increase the ram capacity as that will also assit in the performance and with this I9-11900F cpu. I would also and especially with this upgrade run the latest Acer bios version R01-A4.

Answers

  • Zak0065
    Zak0065 Member Posts: 10

    Tinkerer

    Oh and my firmware version 1.0

  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,868 Trailblazer

    >>>>I have decided to upgrade to the Intel Core I9 11900F (LGA 1200) 65w. Do you think a BIOS update is necessary for the upgrade?>>>

    No.

    Jack E/NJ

  • Joe9844
    Joe9844 Member Posts: 578 Seasoned Specialist WiFi Icon
    edited February 2023

    In Meltdown/Spectre era, BIOS update is ALWAYS about security update.

    Since acer doesn't tell people what "Update Microcode M02A0671_00000050" means, and nobody can understand these highly technical bulletins, people should just update their BIOS.

    Your computer comes with i5-11400F and the R01-A03 BIOS update (Feb 2022) patches a number of security vulnerabilities to give you the new 0x50 microcode.

    Intel February 2022 Microcode Update - Red Hat Customer Portal

    INTEL-SA-00527

    But there is a newer security vulnerability that was patched in Nov 2022 and your CPU ID is A0671 (according to the Acer's cryptic BIOS wording).

    INTEL-SA-00688

    So BIOS R01-A03 is the Intel-SA-00527 patch and BIOS 1.0 or 1.02 is the Intel-SA-00688 patch. We don't know when BIOS 1.0 was released. Maybe BIOS 1.0 patched 00688 in Nov 2022. Or maybe Acer is super slow and there is Christmas holidays so BIOS 1.02 patched 00688 in Jan 2023.

    Since Windows update can send BIOS updates now, we really have no idea what and when it actually happened. But what did happen was that Windows Update sent you a BIOS update --- we just don't know whether BIOS 1.0 or 1.02 patched 00688.

    Verify with Acer support. Escalate to people who know what they are talking about.

  • StevenGen
    StevenGen ACE Posts: 12,064 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓

    Just remember that the N50-620 comes with many cpu's and 8 different Intel B560 chipsets mobos, the Intel Core i9-11900F 2.5G 16M 3200 Octa Core 65W is the flagship Rocket Lake cpu and where Acer lacks is in its ram bios which is limited to DDR4-3200MHz while other B550 mobos can utilize DDR4-4600Mhz with the same i9-11900F cpu.

    So, any Acer N50-620 listed bios update should be appropriate for your mobo and cpu combination. with the I9-11900F also and with this upgrade you will expect a performance increase of about 10% but don't expect a ram performance and/or compatibility with faster ram, which is what has been tested with these two cpu's at DDR4-3200Mhz ram. If anything, I would also increase the ram capacity as that will also assit in the performance and with this I9-11900F cpu. I would also and especially with this upgrade run the latest Acer bios version R01-A4.

  • Zak0065
    Zak0065 Member Posts: 10

    Tinkerer

    I haven't upgraded to the i9 yet and I actually ended up by updating my bios to the latest R0-A4 which I guess has all the latest patches. After the update I benchmarked my cpu (11400F) on "passmark performance test" to check if everything was fine, when I got the results my calculated Turbo boot speed was 4,39 GHz which before the update was 4,19 Ghz. My previous test results (on the older bios) were about 2% higher on average. Also I felt my fan speed was kinda "less aggressive". I don't know if the 2% decrease is due to the bios update but in games I haven't noticed really much. And ALSO I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT MY FIRMWARE VERSION IS 1.01 NOT 1.0 (SORRY..) Recently I also upgraded my ram to 32 GB 2666 mhz ( which have much better scores than the stock sticks). Before the ram upgrade my score on passmark was about in the 16500, but now it's above 17000.


    Thanks for the replies!

  • Zak0065
    Zak0065 Member Posts: 10

    Tinkerer

    Also all about my ram adventure:

    When I first got the idea to upgrade to more ram, I bought 2 Kingston renegade sticks (8×2 8GB) 3600 MT/S (rated speed with XMP). So I installed them with the other sticks and to my surprise the computer started screaming like hell ( like a long beep). After that I did some research and found that, since the stock sticks ran at native 3200 MT/S with Cas latency of 22 whereas the other ones ran their speed at JEDEC 2400 17-17-17 1.2v . So I ended up buying 2×16GB native or "plug n play" ram sticks. They were 2666mhz CL 16 sticks at the default JEDEC 1.2v config. That was the best I could find "basically" for the Acer looser motherboard :)

  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,868 Trailblazer

    "looser"?

    Jack E/NJ

    Jack E/NJ

  • Zak0065
    Zak0065 Member Posts: 10

    Tinkerer

    edited February 2023

    Yes because it lacks a lot of things. It doesn't even have a standard 24 pin mobo connector which makes a psu upgrade impossible . What I'm saying is Acer could have put a better mobo.

  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,868 Trailblazer

    Like most Acer models, your's is primarily meant to be a fully-assembled proprietary factory-built desktop, not a build-your-own desktop made from standard generic components. Accordingly, low cost & ease of manufacture are primary driving forces in a factory pre-build. If you're more interested in customization, then you should consider this in your next desktop purchase. Many popular on-line vendors are set up to do just that like at this link.

    https://www.newegg.com/tools/custom-pc-builder

    Jack E/NJ