ASRock Releases Raptor Lake BIOS Updates For Its 600 Series Motherboards

While Intel hasn’t officially announced its next (13th) generation Core processors yet, that doesn’t stop motherboard manufacturers from releasing products for them. Mobo makers are always eager to get ahead of the competition and encourage new sales towards the second half of a platform’s lifecycle. Mobo makers are already releasing BIOSes that support Intel’s future chips – parts that officially don’t even exist (yet).

At the head of this attack is ASRock, which today released a wave of new BIOSes for its 600 series motherboards designed to support Intel’s next-generation processors. Looking to the future, the wave of BIOS updates is the vast majority of first-generation LGA1700 motherboards, including their Z690, H670, B660, and H610 models.

At this point, Intel has not yet officially announced its Raptor Lake processors, which will be Intel’s next-generation processors for desktops. This is an interesting move by ASRock meaning that users who currently have an ASRock 600 series motherboard can update the firmware now and not worry about installing the ‘next-gen’ later.

ASRock’s EZ Update utility, in addition to its models with BIOS Flashback, can install the update using a USB stick with the core file on it. However, it remains to be seen whether pre-existing 600-series boards will be updated at the retail/distribution level before the Raptor Lake launch.

The current features and specifications of the Intel Z690 chipset

However, the biggest question is why now? Intel hasn’t gone as far as announcing its 13th-generation Core series, though it’s expected to be sometime towards the end of this year. Officially, Intel has kept things secret about its upcoming Raptor Lake processors, and there’s still very little to do beyond unconfirmed sources and “leaks.”

It’s also worth noting that Intel is likely to announce a new motherboard chipset for its 13th-generation Core-series processors, likely dubbed Z790 after previous launches, which will also be on the LGA 1700 socket. This is very similar to the release of the Z590 chipset, which also provided support for 11th and 10th generation Core series processors.

Outside of ASRock’s announcement, other motherboard vendors have been silent on the upcoming 13th-generation Core-series processors and Intel. It remains to be seen whether other vendors now choose to follow ASRock in releasing firmware for unannounced processors, especially given that there are usually teething problems with the launch firmware, let alone the firmware being released months in advance. .

Source: ASRock