cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Processors

juriyx
Journeyman III

Unlock Gen3 x4 speeds for M.2 PCIe SSDs on systems with Athlon 2XX GE

Hello. After AMD Athlon 200GE entered the market, it had speed limitations for RAM (2666 MHz) and M.2 PCIe SSD (Gen3 x2).
But on my motherboard, AsRock B450 Pro4, on early BIOS versions, full SSD speed (Gen3 x4) was unlocked. Then ASRock (after AMD's permission, I suppose) unlocked RAM speed to more than 2666 MHz in the newer BIOS. At the same time, it locked speed for M.2 to Gen3 x2.
Why did AMD unlock RAM speed and didn't unlock SSD speed?
This is illogical, in my opinion, because the processor allows the SSD to run at its designed speed, you can see it in my comparison tests below.

My config:

MB: ASRock B450 Pro4 (AM4)

BIOS: 4.20

CPU: AMD Athlon 200GE

RAM: Crucial DDR4-3200 C16 2x8GB

GPU: AMD Radeon Vega 3 Graphics

Disks: NVMe SSD ADATA SX8200NP, DT01ACA300 (2 pcs)

OS: Windows 10 Pro 64 bit (2004)

A request to AMD representatives: please remove this restriction, since it has no logic and since the company has already removed the restriction on the maximum memory frequency for this line of processors.

And a question for the members of the forum: do you know if it is already possible to remove this limitation with the BIOS settings?

2 Replies

ASRock controls the settings on their bios implementation. AMD only sets a reference spec. You would have to speak with ASRock to find out why it changed. You could likely go back to a bios you were happy with. 

You are certainly welcome to ask AMD, these forums are just other users. Contact AMD here: https://www.amd.com/en/support/contact-email-form 

0 Likes

Thanks. The old BIOS didn't install and unfortunately, it reverts back 2666 MHz RAM frequency restriction that is even worse 😂

I wrote to AMD, they promised to say developers about this M.2 restriction but in the new 4.50 BIOS, it is the same.

I will write to them again to ask.

0 Likes