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msimic
Adept II

No support for Zen3 on 400 series of boards?

Is this really true?

Many of us have bought AMD for the promise of support throughout 2020.

Is AMD going Intel full throttle? IS AMD becoming MAD?

Even worse, scamming customers with promise of future upgrades.

Intel at least gives no promises like: "We will support AM4 throughout 2020".

Intel has the tick/tock, you know that you get one generation or skip one and that's it. No promises attached.

And the promise for B450 was still active at the launch of Ryzen 3000 series. Read more on the quote of the AMD Marketing manager later in the post.

I bought recently B450 + Ryzen 3xxx. The B450 was the only midrange option, since B550 is not yet available.

And basically I have ZERO upgrade path?? That is worse than most intel upgrade paths, that usually offered one generation of upgrade.

The BIOS size is a moot argument, only boards that have less than 256Mbit BIOS chips might not have space for the new chips. But anyhow the new 128Mbit Gigabyte boards will miraculously not have this problem with Zen3? And if that really is a problem forking new BIOS revisions of series 400 chipsets to exclude support for pre-Zen chips is not an option?? Who runs A series APUs on 400 series board? And if so, they don't need to flash new BIOSes.

Edit: The BIOS size is a blatant lie. Read more about BIOS chip usage on the internet. Most of the higher part of the 128MBit BIOSes is filled with graphics while microcode uses only a part of it. The X570 also miracoulously supports both Zen2 and Zen3 without BIOS size issues.

This comes in one of the worst times possible as well. DDR5 and AM5 is on the horizon. So this move seems just a cash grab to sell more 500 series boards that would otherwise be less enticing.

Another thing that has been said is that AMD will not offer the necessary microcode for OEMs to implement support themselves, which is even worse. A confirmation about the real motivation behind this.

AMD just wants more $$ in this case. At the cost of losing their customer base.

Either that or they do not have the b*lls to tell to the motherboard partners: "Shut up and implement it, at the cost of removing some graphics from the BIOS"

I for one do not need another Intel. I already had one.

If this happens to be true, I am going back to Intel.

Yes they suck and are greedy, but they at least do not give false promises.

Intel never scammed me, AMD did, if this holds to be true.

I will not build AMD systems for others, and will do as much as I can to deter others from buying AMD. I am also prone to support anybody who opens a class action lawsuit, by searching for the statements made by AMD officials regarding this "future upgrade on AM4" subject.

One quote from the AMD Product Marketing Manager Erin Maiorino (1 year ago):

"With the launch of the AM4 platform in 2016, we at AMD made a commitment to maintain and support socket AM4 through 2020. During that time, we have continued to evolve the platform to offer new features, more performance, and greater functionality. With a single socket ranging from entry level to enthusiast class motherboards, consumers have the flexibility to start with the hardware that meets their needs today, and upgrade to their growing performance demands tomorrow. "

Still online: https://community.amd.com/community/gaming/blog/2019/05/27/socket-am4-platform-longevity-getting-ryz... 

> "commitment to maintain and support socket AM4 through 2020 ... start with the hardware that meets their needs today, and upgrade to their growing performance demands tomorrow"


Start with a motherboard today and upgrade the motherboard tomorrow? If that was the intention then this is clearly and purposely a choice of words to trick the customer into buying and demands a court trial. Also there is no upgrade path if you choose B450 or B550, to jump forward from B450 to B550 you need to change the whole combo, CPU+Mobo, since B450 does not support Zen3 and B550 does not support Zen2. So the whole support of the socket is irrelevant. It could have easily be another socket with the same result.

17 Replies
erroneus
Adept I

This is highly disappointing AMD and with moves like this, we might as well go with Intel next time. I got an high-end X470 board, which easily can run zen 3 cpu's and that I bought because it was promised to get support for Zen 3. I will not be buying a new motherboard to get a Zen 3 CPU and that seems to be the general take. So with this move you are going to sell lots less Zen 3 CPU's, as it would make much more sense for people to use the money on a better GPU, then a new motherboard.

You might be on top again, but if you think people will not leave you, when you start screwing them over, you underestimate your customers and Intel.

pjw3bst3r
Adept I

I also am very dissapointed by this decision and would ask that AMD reconsiders their position given that a large selling point for the AM4 platform was support for future generations of CPUs. When I purchased my x470 motherboard for my 3700X CPU I was lead to beleive by AMDs own marketing that I would be able to upgrade to Zen 3 in 2020. I decided on an X470 motherbaord over X570 because I did not need PCIE4 or active chipset cooling, if I had any idea that my decision would exclude me from upgrading to Zen 3 I would not have made the decision I did. The reason AMD are giving for not supporting Zen 3 on non 56 series boards is the 16MB BIOS size, however my Asus CH7 like many other 4xx series boards has a 32MB BIOS rom. Additionally a similar issue was identified when Zen 2+ was released and motherboartd manufacturers were able to get round this through stripping out unnecesary options within the BIOS and / or removing the GUI interface. I therefore beleive that this is not an insurmountable issue and is one that AMD could resolve it it had sufficient motivation.

I was really happy to switch back to AMD especially given the shoddy business practices displayed by Nvidia and Intel, unlike them AMD seemed to care about their customer base especially with promises of extended platform support which meant that a new AMD system was a long term investment. I feel that with broken promises and low platform lengevity AMD are potentially just as bad as their competitors, whilst I can understand this will make them more money in the short term, it will loose them the loyalty they have worked hard to gain and is not a good idea in the long term. I hope that they will reconsider.

Both of you may want to respond to this current AMD Thread at General Discussion‌ opened by Black_Zion: BOMBSHELL: NO Ryzen 4000 Series "Zen 3" support for 300/400 series chipset motherboards 

Here is the article from that AMD Thread: https://community.amd.com/community/gaming/blog/2020/05/07/the-exciting-future-of-amd-socket-am4 

Thanks - I have added a post to the thread you linked.

msimic
Adept II

It is even worse.

The BIOS size is a blatant lie. Even 128MBit BIOS chips are not full as of now.

And then there is the X570 that can miraculously work with both Zen3 and Zen2 chips, without BIOS size issues.

Also as stated by Hardware Unboxed, AMD will not provide the microcode to OEMs to implement the support themselves, which tells a lot where the motivation is.

There is currently no budget or midrange solution for an AMD board that has current compatibility and future compatibility.

The only reason for something like that is cash grab.

irisena
Journeyman III

MSI pledged for future AM4 processor on their B450 MAX motherboard. I wonder how AMD will answer MSI and their consumer? And MSI better be giving some damn good excuse or else there will be a class action lawsuit coming their way. 

Anyway, AMD's reason is clearly inadequate. I myself own a B450M MORTAR MAX. My BIOS chip still got ton of room left for a zen3 update. Some older X370 from ASUS also sport a 32MB BIOS capacity. Not to mention that some X570 board is still using a 16MB BIOS chip. So yeah, the excuse of "not enough BIOS memory" is not explaining anything. 

Please AMD, you've been building goodwill on your community for so long, it's such a waste to spend it all here for a quick cash grab. There are TONS of B450 users who wish to go zen3 when it's out, and that's a lot of sales you can get simply by allowing B450 boards run zen3. So why pull this move now? you can gain more money and gain more goodwill by allowing B450 and X470 run zen3. A lot of techtubers are also complaining since they have promised their audience that B450 is the right choice because they can have a better upgrade path to zen3, which is not happening anymore. You are effectively betraying your marketing partner, your OEM partner like MSI, and most importantly, your consumers.

Do you think this is all worth it AMD? 

msimic
Adept II

Added quote from AMD Product Marketing Manager in post.

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My R5 3600 does not work very well on X470 Gaming Plus. No UEFI etc. 

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This Tech site offers another reason than the BIOS size as being the reason why the 400 series Motherboards won't support the Zen 3 processors: AMD Zen 3 CPUs will only be compatible with 500-series motherboards | PC Gamer 

But what of AMD CPU future? The announcement that a 500-series board is the only place you'll be able to house a Zen 3-based CPU come their launch towards the end of the year is interesting, but maybe not that surprising.

One of the things AMD has been keen to do throughout the entirety of Ryzen's existence is champion the AM4 socket's continued CPU compatibility. That broke around the graphics-free Ryzen 3000 CPUs where, due to the limitations of the size of the 300-series BIOS chips, it simply couldn't fit enough microcode in there to support all the different processors AMD offered. 

That isn't the case with the 400-series motherboards, however, which are almost endlessly compatible with Ryzen past and present.

The caveat to all that is that even with a seemingly compatible motherboard you still needed to make sure that, when you were ready to drop in your chip, you had the very latest BIOS updates installed ready for Ryzen 3000 processors. If the BIOS wasn't right you could forget the theoretical compatibility; your new Ryzen processor simply wasn't going to boot.

That led to some headaches for AMD where it had to loan out chips to individuals building their own PCs in order to get them to boot so they could change the BIOS settings, so they could install their shiny new Ryzen silicon. Lowly Athlon 200GE processors were loaned out as a short-term 'boot kit' to get gamers' motherboards into the BIOS screen for an update.

That update hassle, as much as any potential technical limitations, could well be why AMD has chosen to put a hard limit on the motherboard compatibility for its upcoming Ryzen 4000 processors. 

So according to the article above is to cut down on sending BOOT KITS to Users to update the BIOS for the Zen 3 processors.

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The boot kit was a bandaid for a deeper problem of simply being backwards and forwards compatible

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there is an another solution with this problem. AMD can earn money on this. Like to sell cheap 5-10 backs "processors" which fake Zen 1 and which allow you to upgrade the BIOS, and provide a notification everywhere that you need to upgrade the BIOS for B450/X470 mobos. Or put this devise together with processor. 

Ryzen R9 5900X, Radeon RX6800XT, ASUS Strix X570-E
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zxz12 wrote:

there is an another solution with this problem. AMD can earn money on this. Like to sell cheap 5-10 backs "processors" which fake Zen 1 and which allow you to upgrade the BIOS, and provide a notification everywhere that you need to upgrade the BIOS for B450/X470 mobos. Or put this devise together with processor. 

my old r5 2400g works on motherboards galore so i can use it for BIOS updates etc

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the problem with B450/X470 motherboards which will be selling for 4th gen Ryzen, like it was with B350/X370 when it was bought for Ryzen gen 2 or gen 3.

Ryzen R9 5900X, Radeon RX6800XT, ASUS Strix X570-E
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There seems to still be quite a few Ryzen 1000 and Ryzen 2000 series processors available but Ryzen 3000 series are being more widely supported than originally intended.

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cherullo
Journeyman III

Q: Will the “Zen 3” architecture be compatible with AMD Socket AM4?

A: Yes! AMD officially plans to support next-gen AMD Ryzen desktop processors, with the “Zen 3” architecture, on AMD X570 and B550 motherboards.

Sheesh, this is turning out to be a mess... a misleading question, a dishonest answer.

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Where is B550 though?

From products that actually exist in the market only X570 will support Zen 3,

Sounds like AMD are choosing the easy route - It's easier to support only 2 chipsets rather than 6 or 7 of them.

But the easy route is not the best route...We all remember how AMD disregarded the major GPU driver issues until it exploded in their face.

There is no upgrade path or an alternative for B450 boards - because B550 doesn't exist in the market!

Therefore axing support for B450 is a d*** move.

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B550 should be available widely in a few months time

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