ASRock started to provide AMD X370 motherboards with Ryzen 5000 support - only the firmware for X370 Pro4 is supported so far

ASRock has released BIOS update for X370 Pro4 motherboard on AMD X370 chipset, which adds support for Ryzen 4000 (Renoir) and Ryzen 5000 (Vermeer) processors. It looks like AMD is really working on making motherboards with AMD 300-series chipsets compatible with current generation CPUs.

AMD keeps reiterating that adding support for new CPUs to old motherboards & ; is not an easy task. In no small part, the problem is related to the limitations of the BIOS memory where data about support for certain processors is entered. Some issues are also related to the design specifics of older motherboards & ; not all of them have effective enough power supply subsystems (VRM) to provide the declared performance level of all Ryzen 5000 processor models. In addition, older boards do not have support for some technologies, such as PCIe 4.0, which is supported by the newer CPUs. Nevertheless, some unofficial modified BIOS versions for AMD 300-series boards with partial Ryzen 5000 support have appeared earlier on the web. Some manufacturers even claimed to release official BIOS versions for these boards, but then quickly removed their announcements and updates. ASRock has released two versions of BIOS for the X370 Pro4 board, installation of which allows you to eventually use the new AMD processors on it. However, the installation process will require patience. First of all, you need to install BIOS version 7.00. It is a transitional BIOS. The company warns that before installing it on the X370 Pro4 motherboard, make sure that no Bristol Ridge series processor (AMD A-series and Athlon X4 models) is used in the system, as the new firmware has removed support for these chips.

After that, you need to install BIOS version 7.10, which adds support for Renoir and Vermeer processors. The company does not recommend installing this version of BIOS if the PC owner uses Pinnacle Ridge (Ryzen 2000 and Ryzen 2000 Pro models), Raven Ridge (Ryzen 2000G, Athlon 200 and Athlon 200 Pro) and Summit Ridge (Ryzen 1000, Ryzen 1000 Pro) processors with the X370 Pro4 board and does not plan to switch to Ryzen 4000 and Ryzen 5000 processors. New BIOS versions for X370 Pro4 board with support for AMD Renoir and Vermeer processors can be found on the official ASRock website. There you can also check the list of supported CPUs;

Intel has named the Tiger Lake-H35 as the fastest single-stream mobile processors. But also compared them to older AMD chips

Intel has claimed that its fresh 10nm processor-based Tiger Lake-H35 chips, designed for use in compact gaming notebooks, offer the highest level of single-threaded performance. To make it convincing, the company cites several charts showing the results in synthetic and gaming tests, as well as a comparison with competitor processor models.

Image source: Intel

To recap, the new Tiger Lake-H35 models differ from the Tiger Lake-U models with wider heat pack at 35W, as well as higher clock speed, which can reach up to 5.0GHz in Turbo mode. According to the manufacturer, extending the boundaries of the heat pack has helped boost performance compared to the conventional 15W Tiger Lake-U by 9% at single threads and more than 40% & ; at multi-threaded loads. To demonstrate the capabilities of the Tiger Lake-H35 processors, Intel uses the 35-watt Core i7-11375H Special Edition processor as an example. It features four cores, eight threads and runs at up to 5.0GHz thanks to Turbo Boost Max 3.0 technology. The chip in the unnamed reference system was tested in the SPECrate2017_int_base test, which evaluates single-threaded performance under high-intensity workloads. The company claims that only the 10th generation Intel Core i9-10980HK (8 cores, 16 threads, 5.3GHz max) with a TDP of 45W can match the Core i7-11375H Special Edition. This graph also shows the single-threaded performance results of the two AMD processor models. For some reason, though, Intel is comparing its latest Tiger Lake-H35 series representative to the previous generation Ryzen 4000 models based on the Zen 2 architecture, rather than the fresh Ryzen 5000 series chips based on the Zen 3 architecture, which were also recently introduced. According to the chart, the Core i7-11375H Special Edition's single-threaded performance turns out to be up to 25 percent better than the 45W AMD Ryzen 9 4900H. A mobile reference system based on the Core i7-11375H Special Edition was also tested in 16 popular games. The company has given a graph with the results in six of them. However, it chose not to specify the gaming performance results of the same competitor models shown in the graph above. The more recent AMD Ryzen 5000 processors Intel also decided not to mention in this comparison. Meanwhile, AMD promises up to a 19% increase in IPC compared to Zen 2 cores for its new Zen 3-based processor series. Many manufacturers have already unveiled their laptops equipped with the latest Intel and AMD processors. The new products will start shipping in the first half of 2021.