Asus has made updating your BIOS with EZ Flash 4 easier. This method of updating your motherboard no longer requires you to unpack the compressed file containing the updates, saving you a little time and effort. Asus North America showcased this tiny improvement on its Z890 AMA YouTube stream (h/t Uniko's Hardware), which would help make it easier to update the BIOS, even if you’re not a tech enthusiast.
This feature is available in Asus Z890 motherboards with EZ Flash 4. In addition to EZ Flash 4, Asus also updated its BIOS interface so that it runs at a native resolution of 1920 x 1080, which is what many monitors use. These quality-of-life improvements won’t impact the overall performance of your motherboard or PC, but they will at least make it easier to navigate under the hood of your computer.
Windows Update can sometimes keep your Asus motherboard updated, but there are times when you will have to do this manually. For example, the crucial 0x12b microcode patch that Intel released to prevent its Raptor Lake and Raptor Lake Refresh chips from instability issues requires a manual BIOS update. Although none of the just-released boards would be affected by this microcode update, having the install from zip capability would reduce the number of steps needed to update your motherboard, making it easier for the average user to deploy BIOS updates that can’t be released via Windows.
Another quality-of-life feature that Asus Z890 motherboards have is the PCIe Slot Q-Release button, which lets you remove your GPU (or any other PCIe add-in card, for that matter) without needing to reach deep into the motherboard to move the latch. This is particularly helpful if you have a pretty large graphics card, like an RTX 4090, and many other components that make it hard to reach inside.
Many PC builders and enthusiasts will appreciate these small things, as they will make life easier when building and maintaining a PC. Nevertheless, performance and reliability still top these features, so Asus needs to stay on top of its game to keep ahead of the competition.
