Though the 13th generation of Intel processors won’t likely be available for several months, vendors are already preparing older motherboard models with BIOS updates. After Asrock’s BIOS rollout last month, Asus is the most recent, even though the former initially only disclosed updates for flagship boards.
In order to get its Z690 motherboards ready for the launch of Intel’s Raptor Lake CPUs later this year, Asus released BIOS updates on Friday. Since a BIOS patch is all that’s needed to make the new processors compatible with Raptor Lake, 600 series owners won’t need to upgrade to the upcoming 700 series boards.
Similar updates were released by Asrock in late June, but only for its Z690, H670, B660, and H610 motherboards. Asus has only released downloads for the premium Z690 chipset thus far. The availability of DDR4 RAM with Raptor Lake processors is confirmed by these patches and other announcements.
New BIOS have been released by Asus for its ROG, ROG Strix, ProArt, Prime, and TUF Gaming product lines. The majority of Prime boards use version 1601, but all of them, with the exception of the Prime Z690-A, require version 1603. Users can search for their specific model at the Asus download center to find the updates.
The release of Raptor Lake is expected to occur in Q3 or Q4 of 2022, so Asus has plenty of time to update its other 600 series boards. Later this year, the rival Zen 4 processors will also be available, but they’ll need new motherboards with the upcoming AM5 socket platform, which calls for DDR5 RAM.
