BIOS settings are the ones almost everyone skips, and on a lot of systems they are where the easiest performance is sitting untouched. Not because anything is broken, but because motherboards ship conservative and never tell you.

This guide explains what the settings that matter actually do, which ones are genuinely safe, and which ones are not worth the risk. It is deliberately not a list of values to type in, and the last section explains why.

What the BIOS actually controls

Your BIOS, or UEFI on any modern board, is the layer that runs before Windows. It decides how your memory is clocked, how your processor handles power states, how the board talks to your graphics card, and what your operating system is even allowed to see.

Windows can only work with what the BIOS hands it. If your memory is running slow at this level, no amount of tuning inside Windows will fix it.

The single biggest one: your memory profile

This is the setting most people are losing performance to. RAM ships rated for a certain speed, but motherboards boot it at a safe default that is often well below what you paid for. Kit rated at 6000MHz can happily be running at 4800MHz because nobody turned the profile on.

The profile is called XMP on Intel boards and EXPO on AMD boards. Some boards call it DOCP or A-XMP. It is a single toggle that loads the speed and timings the memory manufacturer tested and guaranteed.

This is not overclocking in the risky sense. You are telling the board to use the speed printed on the sticks. It is the safest change in this entire guide and often the largest single gain, particularly in games that are CPU limited, which most competitive shooters are.

If your PC does not boot afterwards, it clears itself. Boards fall back to defaults automatically after a couple of failed attempts.

Resizable BAR

Normally your processor can only see your graphics card’s memory through a small window at a time. Resizable BAR lets it address the whole thing at once.

The gain varies by game. Some titles pick up a useful amount, some gain nothing measurable, and a small number run slightly worse. It is worth turning on and testing in the games you actually play rather than assuming.

On some boards this also needs Above 4G Decoding enabled, and the board usually prompts you.

Power states and why they cost you responsiveness

Your processor drops into low power states when idle and climbs back out when work arrives. That climb is not instant.

In everyday use this is invisible and saves meaningful power. In a competitive game it means the moment load spikes, part of your processor is still waking up. That shows up as inconsistency rather than a lower average frame rate, which is why it is easy to miss when you only watch the frame counter.

This is the same problem described in how to fix micro stutters and 1% lows, approached from the hardware side instead of the Windows side.

Virtualization

Most boards enable virtualization by default. Windows 11 then uses it for Memory integrity and Virtualization Based Security, which sit between your games and your hardware and cost real frame stability.

The important point is that this interacts with a Windows setting. Turning things off at the BIOS level to chase this is the wrong end to start from. Check Core isolation inside Windows first, because that is where the decision actually belongs and where it is reversible in seconds.

Settings that are not worth it

Manual CPU overclocking. Modern processors already boost close to their limit on their own. Manual overclocking often produces a worse result than the automatic behaviour, runs hotter, and can shorten the life of the part.

Voltage changes. This is where real damage becomes possible. There is no frame rate figure that justifies it for a gaming PC.

Disabling cores or threads. Occasionally recommended in old forum posts. Modern Windows schedules across cores far better than it used to, and you are usually removing performance.

Anything you found as a list of values to copy. BIOS options are not standard between manufacturers, and the same named setting can do different things on different boards. A value that is fine on one board can stop another from booting.

Why we do not publish BIOS steps to follow

We get asked for a step by step BIOS list regularly and we deliberately do not give one.

Every board is different. Menu names, locations and available options vary between manufacturers, between models, and between firmware versions on the same model. Written steps go stale immediately.

The failure mode is bad. Get a Windows setting wrong and you change it back. Get a BIOS setting wrong and you can end up with a PC that does not display anything, which is a much harder afternoon.

Batch files that change firmware level settings are a genuinely bad idea. If you find a downloadable pack that promises to apply hidden BIOS settings for you, you cannot see what it does before it runs, and you have no way back if it picks wrong for your board.

Turning on your memory profile is worth doing yourself. Beyond that, the sensible order is to take the safe wins in Windows first, because that is where most of the available performance is and all of it is reversible.

Where the app fits

RIP Tweaks covers the Windows and driver side of everything described here, as reversible toggles rather than commands. It surfaces the BIOS related options your system actually exposes, and skips the ones your board does not support.

Every change is undoable. Each tweak is a switch, and the app can create a restore point before it touches anything.

It never touches your games. RIP Tweaks is an optimizer, not a cheat. It only changes legitimate Windows and driver settings and never touches game files, memory or any running process. There is nothing in it that interacts with anti-cheat. Thousands of players use it daily alongside Valorant, Fortnite, CS2 and Apex.

Most people see a real improvement, and on older or bloated systems it is often the biggest jump. How much you gain depends on your hardware, your game and how your PC was set up before, so we do not quote a fixed number.

If something goes wrong

The PC will not display anything. Clear CMOS. Every board has either a button, a jumper or a removable battery for this, and it resets everything to defaults. Your motherboard manual says which.

It boots but is unstable. Load optimised defaults from inside the BIOS, then change one thing at a time.

It boots but feels slower. Check your memory profile is still enabled. Loading defaults turns it back off.

Frequently asked questions

Will enabling XMP or EXPO void my warranty? Memory manufacturers sell kits rated at those speeds and the profile is the advertised specification, so in practice this is a normal supported use.

Is BIOS tuning going to get me banned? No. Firmware settings are not visible to anti-cheat as anything unusual, and nothing here touches a game.

Should I update my BIOS? Only for a specific reason, such as support for a new processor or a fix for a problem you actually have. A failed update is one of the few genuinely unrecoverable things you can do to a motherboard.

How much will I gain? The memory profile is usually the noticeable one, especially in CPU limited games. Everything else varies enormously by system.

Related: how to increase FPS on Windows 11, hardware tweaks, and the full FAQ.