I keep updating BIOS because newer versions often provide stability improvements and let you push higher overclocks. That in itself is not very interesting for an everyday overclock (which shouldn't push the hardware limits), but do allow for lowering the voltages used for sensitive components (like VSoC which was responsible for burning CPUs a couple of years ago). Lower voltage means safer operation and slower silicon degradation.

For example, I'm now running 6000 MT/s on stock VSoC which definitely wasn't possible on my hardware 1.5 years ago.

That said, my mobo vendor of choice is not known for doing rug pulls (unlike Gigabyte, who are also fond of releasing several board revisions under the same model with significant differences between them). It's the opposite — for example, a recent BIOS update added support for running internal graphics at 4K/120Hz on the same hardware that could only do 4K/60Hz before.

IMHO, anytime they write "stability" or "memory compatibility" is a pretty compelling reason to update. Modern systems run pretty close to the edge, and DDR5 has some nasty training times that maybe an update could help with. How much you care about security fixes for microcode loading or boot time stuff is up to you... some of that is pretty esoteric, but some people are compelled to have all known security fixes.

Updates to support new CPUs are a maybe... I can probably wait and run that update right before swapping cpus, but some people might prefer to run them now, in case their cpu fails and they need to replace it ... a lot of boards can flash without a cpu installed, but you get a lot less feedback, it's nicer to flash when things are working.

I would be surprised if they fully supported 5.0, because it's likely more expensive to maintain the 5.0 performance, and even $0.01 per mobo shipped could be millions of dollars in lost profit.

The B650 and B650E southbridges are probably the same but that doesn't mean the boards are the same. PCIe 5.0 has tighter tolerances which requires more expensive PCBs. Motherboard vendors don't future-proof low-end products when they can upsell it to you instead.

> The fact that the B650 can even do 5.0 on the GPU lanes (it is able to do 4x 5.0 on NVME) makes me wonder if the B650 chipset is the same silicon as B650E and the speed is just really a configuration setting.

All the AM5 chipsets are the same silicon, except A620 which has less capability (might just be fused off though) and the B840 which seems to be a rebranded AM4 chipset. B650, B650E, B850, and X870 are all one Promontory 21 chipset; X670, X670E and X870E are two Promonotory 21 chipsets (one chained behind the other). The B840 seems to be the Promontory 19 silicon, same as a B550 AM4 chipset; which seems weird, but it has more downstream connectivity than the A620 chipset, although the cpu to chipset link runs at pci-e 4.0 for A620 and 3.0 for B550 and presumably B840, so that's a bottleneck if you have high throughput devices behind the chipset.

The GPU lanes on AM5 all come direct from the CPU, as well as at least one x4 m.2 socket, and there's 4 more CPU lanes not earmarked by AMD. Those don't touch the chipset, and any correlation between the chipset branding and the speed of those lanes is a marketing restriction: If you put B650E branding on your board, AMD says the board must support pcie 5.0 for the GPU and first NVMe slot; but the chipset isn't involved in those lanes, it's just a marketing agreement; I'm not sure if AMD disallows using pcie 5.0 on a B650 board for the GPU slot, but capability is a matter of trace design between the slots and the cpu and maybe what the board maker is willing to certify / what the firmware is willing to enable. For B850, AMD says pci-e 4.0 for the GPU and 5.0 for the first nvme.

I'm sure there are some X870 boards that are significantly different from B850 boards, but there's probably a lot of boards where everything is the same other than the product name. Likely the same was true of B650 and B650E. For reliable PCI-e 5.0 operation, you do need to follow proper design rules for the traces, and that results in a more expensive board than following the design rules for PCI-e 4.0 operation. But it can make product sense to sell some of those 5.0 capable boards with a lesser chipset brand anyway.

>B650 can even do 5.0

No AM5 chipset can do 5.0 speeds, they are all linked via x4 PCIe 4.0 lanes. What you're thinking about is PCIe 5.0 speeds from CPU to SSDs/GPU. There's no chipset that does PCIe 5.0 speeds, they are all on 4.0.