TUF GAMING Z690-PLUS WIFI DDR5 with Intel i7 13700K bios update and bootup

[BJBBJB]

I cannot believe what I am reading on reddit so I thought I would post here to confirm.

I have this unopened Asus board and just purchased the CPU for it and plan to build this weekend.

I was prepping and downloading the current bios files when I ran across threads stating that since this board does not support bios flashback (which works without booting like it does in my old Hero board) and only ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3 (which only works if your CPU boots to bios from what I understand) the only way to upgrade the bios such that it will work with my 13th gen CPU is to buy an old 12th gen celeron? 2103 provided 13th gen support. For some reason Asus no longer has the release dates on their bios but from what I read elsewhere it sounds like this was released in early October. Although my board shipped late November I have no idea how long it was in inventory or if it has a newer bios.

I can only hope what I am reading is not accurate.....

I really do not want to put the whole build together, have the CPU and AIO/paste all mounted, everything wired up, and find out it has an old bios and won't work with my fancy new CPU and there is no way to update the bios without buying another CPU?

Are there any other options here?

Can I tell from looking at the box or motherboard what the manufacture date is? Or firmware version?

Do I have to go to a Z790 board that costs 3X as much to get direct support?

Thanks,
BJB

[BJBBJB]

Thanks for the tips @JohnAb! Glad it is not just me.

PC runs fast.... just need to try to set my memory at XMP 6000, it is running at bootup speeds of 4600 or something. Have read some have to manually play with voltages even when trying XMP. Not looking forward to that.

[JohnAb]

In theory, just turn on XMP and that should be it. If you do need to try a bit of manual tweaking, Nate152 just posted a response to my question about memory overclocking here:

https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?131709-Basic-RAM-Overclock-Advice-Please

I haven't needed to make any adjustments at all luckily, XMP just works fine for me, but I do have slower memory anyway. I was asking about memory overclocking beyond XMP, but I think that Nate's advice showing the main settings that can be changed might be very useful if you do need to make any adjustments.

[BJBBJB]

@JohnAb,
Thanks! Great info
BJB