We’re moving on to EFI updates now, which are cumulative with our Windows platform update. This will be a quick section, as the results were largely uninteresting. We’re moving from 5704 to 1002 on the ASUS Crosshair VI Hero motherboard, with the EFI provided directly by ASUS. After this, we’ll start the memory overclocking section.
With the R7 1700, Metro: Last Light shows no benefit from strictly performing an EFI update on the Crosshair VI. We’d need to actually use updated features, as AGESA updates were not enough to impact performance here.
In GTA V, we’re seeing zero noteworthy change from b970 with 5704 to b970 with 1002.
Moving on swiftly to Watch Dogs 2, we’re seeing no significant change from b970 with 5704 to b970 with 1002. We are within variance, at this point.
Battlefield 1, same story. The improvement is clear from Windows Update, but there’s no clear improvement from throwing an EFI update on there. Using the new features, sure – but not standalone.
This story continues for all of the other games and synthetic tests as well, and isn’t particularly interesting. So far, we’re seeing a potential improvement from either the Windows update or from the forced updates to the games, which are most important in Battlefield 1 and Total War: Warhammer. It appears that those games are around where performance was when SMT was disabled in our first round of tests, though the ceiling itself is not significantly higher.
Let’s move on to memory overclocking to see if there are some real gains.
