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General Discussions

colesdav
MVP
‎05-10-2020 02:51 AM

Is a new AMD motherboard standard with new easily upgradeable and replaceable BIOS Chip needed?

I purchased MSI Tomahawk B450 motherboard for a budget R5 3600 builds.
I am very happy with that.
That CPU is great.
Very easy builds, good performance, had no problems at all so far.


However I was hoping to upgrade the R5 3600 CPU to a newer generation AM4 CPU in future when/if AMD produce something with a significant uplift in IPC or CPU core clock frequency.


Perhaps I misunderstood the Marketing from AMD or made assumptions that were not based on facts.


Regarding BIOS on AMD Motherboards and lack of memory on BIOS chips on older motherboards.

I am not certain if memory limitations on BIOS chips on all AIB B450 boards is a problem I have not checked.

Perhaps it might be an idea to make sure that all AMD Motherboard manufacturers produce motherboards with an easily replaceable and upgradeable BIOS chip?


I have old ASUS Z97 Motherboard for I7-4770K Haswell which has a BIOS chip that sits in a plastic IC socket and can be removed and replaced.


Here is a picture of the removeable BIOS Chip sitting in its plastic socket: https://www.overclockers.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/asus_z87deluxe-84.jpg


This is useful in case the BIOS flash fails and bricks the motherboard.


I can easily remove the BIOS chip with a pair of tweezers and replace it with a new one.


If AMD implemented an easily removeable and replaceble BIOS Chip in plastic IC Socket standard on all of their motherboards, then if significant increase in BIOS memory were needed in future, it should be possible to upgrade the BIOS Chip.


Since Motherboard Manufacturers need to make money for their efforts, perhaps they should give you a choice to:

  1. Pay for a new BIOS flash with limited UI and feature set due to BIOS Chip limitations which will allow you to use new CPU with existing BIOS chip if that is possible.

  2. Pay for a new BIOS Chip which would allow you to run your older board with a newer generation AMD CPU. All you would have to do would be upgrade the BIOS Chip.

  3. Upgrade your motherboard to a newer motherboard chipset and features which supports new AMD CPU.

Does that sound like a better solution moving forward?

13 Replies