AMD "decided to change course" with Zen 3 B450/X470 support

[DanceswithUnix]

If the manufacturers makes an x4xx board, which BIOS do they put on it?

They put on the old BIOS. The Zen 3 BIOS is described as a beta, not a release BIOS, so not something you can ship in a product.

*If* boards with 32MB roms can have this turned into a product, which depends on how much AMD have messed with the internals of their binary blob parts, then those boards could get support for all CPUs out of the box, but I don't think we have any idea how hard that is yet. Pretty much anything is possible in software, just some things aren't worth the development effort (no-one would care about a unified B450 BIOS if it takes so long we are all using 600 series chipsets anyway).

Frankly, i would expect AMDs turnaround was more because of the possible litigation that can be made against them.

Oh well.

AMD apparently announced this on Reddit. I think this was entirely about appeasing the enthusiast retail segment which while the OEM sector seems to be increasingly using Ryzen parts in their machines, currently if us lot walk away from using AMD chips their recovering economics will take a dive.

[Tabbykatze]

They put on the old BIOS. The Zen 3 BIOS is described as a beta, not a release BIOS, so not something you can ship in a product.

*If* boards with 32MB roms can have this turned into a product, which depends on how much AMD have messed with the internals of their binary blob parts, then those boards could get support for all CPUs out of the box, but I don't think we have any idea how hard that is yet. Pretty much anything is possible in software, just some things aren't worth the development effort (no-one would care about a unified B450 BIOS if it takes so long we are all using 600 series chipsets anyway).

From what I understand, the blob partitioning of the 32MB BIOS effectively makes it so that Zen/Zen+ CPUs physically cannot read the BIOS anymore as they cannot address higher than 16MB. Frankly, that's where AMD screwed up by making Zen/Zen+ only able to address 16MB even though 32MB was already starting to become a bigger thing.

Yes, it's a beta BIOS but what happens if the customer wants to use Zen3? Do they send out a bootkit with it?

[Syphadeus]

"buy our boards, we don't screw you over like intel"
"Great, you bought our boards! Thanks! Anyone mind if we screw you over like intel?"
"Oh you do mind, ok ok we did say we wouldn't do that so we won't. Mostly. But you can't have your cake and eat it. We'll needlessly make it a one-way trip"

Aren’t you missing out some quite vital context?

“Buy our boards, we won’t screw you over like Intel” and for a long time they did not. They have offered unrivalled longevity for AM4. Yours is not a direct quote, nor will you find one, but if a consumer chooses to construe the inference of such hyperbole to mean that AM4 will be the only socket and compatible forever, then who is at fault? The party that insinuates in a marketing claim or the party that infers the hyper unrealistic?

“You bought our board, thanks!” OMG I feel so ripped off that my board with a year old chipset is not going to be compatible with as yet unannounced CPU SKUs that are not set to go on sale until the end of the year! How unreasonable! Given what AMD touted 2 to 3 years ago I expected to be forking out $150 for a board that would last me until at least Zen 12!

“We’ll needlessly make it a one way trip”. Define needless please. Because clearly it’s not a simple BIOS AGESA microcode update. This statement alone betrays an entitled attitude. If you have Zen 2 and want to put Zen 3 in, what does it matter that it’s a one way deal for most people? The rationale for doing it this way has been set out quite clearly by AMD so it doesn’t leave customers in a potentially no boot situation. The alternative is risk it and have loads of less tech savvy buyers with useless board and CPU combinations. The other alternative was to not concede and instead draw the line there.

Make no mistake, I’m not defending AMD. They’re a big tech company and they have dullards in their marketing department. If anything I agree that the suddenness of the compatibility drop was bad. They knew it all the time while selling B450 and having a comms blackout on the conspicuous lack of B550 info. But I believe in balance when considering these things and your comments are lacking in this area I feel.

[DanceswithUnix]

From what I understand, the blob partitioning of the 32MB BIOS effectively makes it so that Zen/Zen+ CPUs physically cannot read the BIOS anymore as they cannot address higher than 16MB. Frankly, that's where AMD screwed up by making Zen/Zen+ only able to address 16MB even though 32MB was already starting to become a bigger thing.

Yes, it's a beta BIOS but what happens if the customer wants to use Zen3? Do they send out a bootkit with it?

A Zen/Zen+ cpu can happily use a 32MB BIOS, it can only see half of it. The trick would be to steer the older CPUs to only need that half of the BIOS. Note that AMD are expecting motherboards to only have a 16MB flash prom, so all their support must be well under 16MB to fit other things into a 16MB BIOS chip. So a 32MB chip can fit two of them.

Gamer's Nexus latest video says AMD are still considering whether they will allow boot kits for people who buy a 400 series board for a new Zen 3 CPU. If B550 pricing is sane, that should be a pretty rare need.

Edit: However people feel about whether/how much AMD mislead us in the past, I think it is fairly clear at this point that there are complexities in maintaining AM4 and it would take a pretty steep discount for me to consider pairing a Zen 3 CPU with a B450 board in a new build. If I do upgrade my X470 with a Zen 3, the pulled 3700X is going into a B550 at least to upgrade another machine.

[Kumagoro]

Reminds me of fiddling with socket 775 Bios to make them accept socket 771 chips. I rancher them being stuffed with all manor of obscure CPU's. I just removed some of them and added the several 771 ones I had or thought I was likely to come across.

I don't see why they (mobo companies) can't offer multiple beta versions and you go through a wizard to get the one you need. Put what chip or family you have and what you want and there you go, then you have your old and new chips working.

They should be able to have the bios update detect what you have as well so no mess ups.

[Blaineoliver]

I don't believe the issue is that Zen/Zen+ cannot hjandle a 32MB bios, otherwise the new MAX B450 motherboards that advertise 32MB flash wouldn't support 1xxx and 2xxx chips, when they do.

[DanceswithUnix]

I don't believe the issue is that Zen/Zen+ cannot hjandle a 32MB bios, otherwise the new MAX B450 motherboards that advertise 32MB flash wouldn't support 1xxx and 2xxx chips, when they do.

As does my X470 board which shipped with a 32MB BIOS from its first release, and seems to support every AM4 chip released.

[ik9000]

As does my X470 board which shipped with a 32MB BIOS from its first release, and seems to support every AM4 chip released.

exactly ! It all smells fishy to me. Especially when you add to that observation that the entirety of Gigabyte's Aorus x570 range only have 16MB chips. Anyone else finding this kind of smelling of something?

[pp05]

If/When this comes to pass I don't see how AMD loses.

They have more consumers for their chips.

[ik9000]

If/When this comes to pass I don't see how AMD loses.

They have more consumers for their chips.

what wrankles is this "irreversible path" line. So if I had an X470 with ryzen 2700 say, I buy the 4900x for a processor lift. Then I get an x770 board when DDR5 comes out and stick the 4900 in that. Now I want to use the x470 for a NAS server but I can't put the 2700 back in it? What's the point?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

While I can believe ASUS weren't bothered how this all panned out, whether they embrace the new way forward is another thing entirely. They won't want to be singled out, and being the size they are may even have more resource to throw at it. My worry with Asus is the whole "you need to show you bought a Zen3 to get the Beta BIOS" thing. That involves attempting to interact with Asus support, something which from past experience fills me with dread.

What will be interesting is how the 32MB Bios chip boards get implemented. I notice that my X470-Pro CPU support list seems to include everything from the old Excavator based Athlons and APUs with no notes of any of them being removed. Now Gamer's Nexus said rather interestingly that the older chips can only address a 16MB boot rom, so I guess it is already a done deal that Asus and MSI at least can put the boot support for old chips in the lower half of the 32MB rom (so they only see a 16MB image) and only make the newer chips attempt to address the upper portion allowing a single ROM to cover all chips. So fingers crossed this gets rolled into a standard BIOS image.

The Asus B450i/X470i Strix have 32MB BIOS chips,so I hope my motherboard gets an update! Also with a 6+1 phase VRM,the B450 version had one of the best B450 VRM setups too.

[3dcandy]

what wrankles is this "irreversible path" line. So if I had an X470 with ryzen 2700 say, I buy the 4900x for a processor lift. Then I get an x770 board when DDR5 comes out and stick the 4900 in that. Now I want to use the x470 for a NAS server but I can't put the 2700 back in it? What's the point?

You would have to flash an older BIOS somehow...
I see the point but it's not hampered a lot of people over the years - many would sell the processor and mobo together if that's the case.

I see what you're saying but there are numerous ways around it... plus that's overkill for a NAS sire

[ik9000]

You would have to flash an older BIOS somehow...
I see the point but it's not hampered a lot of people over the years - many would sell the processor and mobo together if that's the case.

I see what you're saying but there are numerous ways around it... plus that's overkill for a NAS sire

hypotheticals - but AMD are saying it will not be possible to go back to an older bios. Why not?

[Domestic_Ginger]

Apparently the low level flash will increase the chance of bricking the board. More RMA etc etc so not a great business model. Usb flash etc may or may not work.

I watched the gamersnexus vid. I don't really know much :/

[Corky34]

“Buy our boards, we won’t screw you over like Intel” and for a long time they did not. They have offered unrivalled longevity for AM4. Yours is not a direct quote, nor will you find one, but if a consumer chooses to construe the inference of such hyperbole to mean that AM4 will be the only socket and compatible forever, then who is at fault? The party that insinuates in a marketing claim or the party that infers the hyper unrealistic?

They didn't say forever though, they said until the end of 2020 (or was it 21), then that changed to through 2020, and then it changed to we sort of, kind of, meant the socket not the chipsets.

Personally i don't really care what they said but i can understand why people were peeved as they were lead to believe an AM4 board bought on day one would work with the last processors to support AM4, whether they should've is sort of besides the point as most people aren't as sceptical as you or I and they tend to take what they're told at face value.

If we apply the same logic to Intel they've supported the same socket for the last 4 years.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

They didn't say forever though, they said until the end of 2020 (or was it 21), then that changed to through 2020, and then it changed to we sort of, kind of, meant the socket not the chipsets.

Personally i don't really care what they said but i can understand why people were peeved as they were lead to believe an AM4 board bought on day one would work with the last processors to support AM4, whether they should've is sort of besides the point as most people aren't as sceptical as you or I and they tend to take what they're told at face value.

If we apply the same logic to Intel they've supported the same socket for the last 4 years.

TBF,AMD did tell a German system integrator called Schenker,that its B450 based laptops would work with Zen3. Not just any laptops,the only laptop with a Ryzen 9 3950X and a RTX2070,ie,the most powerful AMD based laptop on the market. Then they found out the same day as us,it wouldn't work!

Look at the statement I posted from them in post 28.

Senior AMD people were on Reddit in the last year,and could see what people were saying regarding the B450 motherboards. No wonder after those kind of statements and AMD not saying anything for 12 months,did people think everything was fine.

If AMD had said,we can't guarantee Zen3 compatibility on B450/X470 at launch,but X570 will work fine,then at least it would have been easier to navigate any negativity. Then main problem was probably all the new converts to AM4 since the Zen2 launch on B450 based mainstream motherboards.

A lot of AMD fans were being utterly obtuse,acting like 100% of Zen buyers bought a motherboard in 2017 at launch and started with a first generation Zen based CPU. Somebody who bought a B350/X370 motherboard in 2017 did very well and got 4 generations of CPUs.

The whole "but,but it had 100 generations of CPUs already" is practically pointless,as most Zen2 buyers in the last year would have been on B450 in 2019/2020,ie,one generation of CPUs. For them the fact Bristol Ridge,or first generation Zen was supported was of no use to them.