Have you recently purchased a Razer Blade 14 (2022) (opens in new tab)? Then good news: Razer has released a firmware update that upgrades the gaming notebook's two USB Type-C ports from the 3.2 specification to full USB4. This is an important upgrade and raises the question of how much of an impact it will have on similar software improvements on other PC platforms.

According to Razer, Blade 14 is already hardware compliant with USB4, and the upgrade opportunity arose when AMD released USB4 drivers for its Ryzen 6000 series mobile CPUs, also known as Rembrant ( via PC World (opens in new tab))

The update includes a full upgrade to the 40Gbps specification, so the Razer 14 is also fully Thunderbolt compliant, supporting all that high-speed jazz, including docking goodness, multiple 4K displays, and fast external SSDs. [Normally, software and firmware upgrades to USB port specifications are not possible. So the question is how broadly this type of update will be possible; AMD's desktop support for USB4 is currently limited to two ports on the X670E chipset; the X670, B650, and B650E do not support USB4. At least, not yet.

It is unlikely that a firmware or BIOS update will suddenly transform a desktop motherboard's USB Type-C port from a 10Gbps socket into a 40Gbps monster. But that is exactly what happened with the Razer 14. Watch this space.

In related news, the Razer Blade 14 firmware update also switches on the Microsoft Pluton security core in the Ryzen 6000 chip. Pluton has been reported to be very effective in preventing hacking on Xbox, and its inclusion in PCs would be very welcome. However, so far, Pluton has only been used in AMD hardware. It is not installed on Intel CPUs.

Existing Blade 14 (2022) owners can access the update by visiting the Razer website (opens in new tab).