Can someone explain the pros/cons of the a14+ BIOS vs the a16 BIOS?

I was about to go flash the a14+ BIOS while i was installing my EDP cable tonight, but then i realized that there is now an additional a16 BIOS, but theres really nothing i can find listing the differences between the two. I see the a16 has the spectre/meltdown patches removed for the bump in speed, but other than that im pretty much clueless.

 

A16 you have 5 versions of modified Bios
1:

2,3:

4,5:

The differences between A14 + and A16 are as mentioned above

A14 +

In all versions of A16 Bios _FIT_ the address of the microcode is correct in version A14 + it is wrong
The settings should be the same except for "1" A16

In versions 2,3,4,5 A16 Service Tag you do not need to edit in Hex program, now you only need to enter Bios manually in "Security" in "Service Tag" and you also have choice between microcode rev.22 and rev.25 and you also have the option to install GTX drivers without disabling the digital signature and modifying nvdmi.inf.

 

I recall a recent thread where you mentioned you would also add 10xx cards to that list?

I have been busy (at work) but was that successful or does it need to be tested still?

 

I tested Bios on my two Alienware 17, it works well, but I'm not sure how it will be in other Alienware 17.
I still needs more information about how Bios worked in other Alienware 17.

 

Thanks for using V22, most of us probably don't care about the security especially when it hits performance.

 

Yes, you have option to test differences between v22 vs v25 versions.
In my opinion, there is no such drop in performance, but it is only my subjective feeling.

 

Depends on the test, in some cases 10-13 percent was documented as a performance loss.

Beyond that, V22 seems to let you oc a couple more hundred mhz or drop the voltage a little for the same clocks.

 

Is the currently available to download version the one with 10XX series support, or is there a separate one? If there is a separate one is there a way i can download it?

 

He linked all of them in his post.

 

So the a16 bios that supports up to the 980M also supports 10 series cards?

 

The BIOS in this case doesnt affect the GPU support. What he had done is add them to the BIOS so that when installing the driver nvidia doesnt tell you to screw yourself.

Also he was able to make it possible to enter the service tag yourself in the BIOS, so no hex needed.

Unless of course I misunderstood the posts, but this is how I see them at present.

As for your question, not sure he didnt just include all of them into one list or not. He's playing it safe and letting us decide to test that to the best of my knowledge. Which is why there are like 6 versions.