Make sure you update your AM5 motherboard for the Ryzen 9 9950X3D

AMD’s biggest and baddest gaming CPU, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, is on its way along with the only-slightly-less-big, less-bad 9900X3D. They don’t have an official release date yet, but it must be pretty darn close. You can tell because MSI has officially announced motherboard BIOS updates to make sure your upgrade goes smoothly.

This sort-of-update is pretty regular for any new processor, but given that this one is aimed squarely at gamers, it’s not that surprising that MSI feels the need to highlight it with a press release. The text exclusively mentions the MEG X870E GODLIKE (ALL CAPS) flagship ATX motherboard, even though any motherboard with an AM5 socket should technically be compatible with the new processors without any updates at all.

That said, there’s a reason this news snippet caught my eye. I recently assembled a new gaming PC for my brother-in-law over the holiday break, and despite using an Asus motherboard model that I had put in my own PC almost a year earlier, and despite the Ryzen 9 7950X3D processor being an AM5 model that should have been good to go, the dang thing wouldn’t boot without a BIOS update. That’s a headache and a half if you don’t already have Windows installed and also don’t have your usual office full of PCs to fall back on because you flew halfway across the country for Christmas.

So, yeah, this article goes out to every PC gamer who’s eagerly awaiting those new CPUs with their fancy performance-boosting V-cache. Update your UEFI/BIOS before you upgrade, even if everything should already be compatible on paper. I’ll also point out that the Ryzen 9800X3D processor released last year has consistently been in short supply, so the upgraded 16-core and 12-core variants will probably sell out quickly, too. But what else is new?