AMD Zen 3 (5000 Series), rumored 17% IPC gain.

[LeMson]

https://www.msi.com/blog/msis-max-motherboard-lineup

DO YOU NEED A MAX MOTHERBOARD?

e) You want a value-oriented motherboard that’ll support not only the latest AMD releases but will also have you covered for all future AM4 product releases.

Should be safe I guess

 

[Doobedoo]

I brought an msi max board which was released after the X570 and has a larger 32mb bios chip as AMD held back B550 which I would have brought had these been available. Now your telling me I have no right to feel a bit miffed if AMD block my board from supporting zen 3 for no technical reason exept saying the bios chip is to small when my board has double the size bios of some x570.

It’s not guaranteed that you won’t be able to yet just wait to see what happens. They also never guaranteed that you would be able to upgrade either did they? I’ll expand on the above post. Msi have but perhaps not Amd. Take it up with Msi.

I get it some people will feel they’ve missed out but like I said they’ve given more than intel ever has. Just wait to see what happens if you feel they’ve let you down then go somewhere else. Or sell your board and get an X570 or newer. Up to you really.

 

[K4Y84]

Time to ask a stupid question...



How do you find the size of the ROM chip? The spec page for your ASRock AB350 Pro 4 says "- 128Mb AMI UEFI Legal BIOS with multilingual GUI support" - I presume this is something different? Even my aging Z97 board says "64MB Flash ROM".

128Mb = 16MB. To convert megabits to megabytes divide by 8.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It’s not guaranteed that you won’t be able to yet just wait to see what happens. They also never guaranteed that you would be able to upgrade either did they? I’ll expand on the above post. Msi have but perhaps not Amd. Take it up with Msi.

I get it some people will feel they’ve missed out but like I said they’ve given more than intel ever has. Just wait to see what happens if you feel they’ve let you down then go somewhere else. Or sell your board and get an X570 or newer. Up to you really.

It's not fare to blame MSI - AMD for 12 months forced OEMs to sell B450 as the mainstream B450 chipset. They didn't release B550 and that is their fault. If there was a B550 released last year this wouldn't be happening now.

Most systems with Zen2 are B450,with a new motherboard bought in the las 12 months. Forum enthusiasts don't understand this. People are acting like everyone who bought Zen bought it in 2017 with a b350 and are using the same motherboard. Nobody will deny those users did well,but its the recent users which are the problem here.

They told HUB that they won't release microcode for them - Humbug linked to the video. This is like Intel does.

They told a system integrator that their B450 systems would work even in April.They then proceeded to find out this week from media reports,and they are perplexed. How can they not even communicate properly with system integrators? MSI maybe was told the same by AMD.

They told another channel it will work but gave reasons for not releasing it.

Martini1991 was right on the money with his comments.

 

[Anchundan]

128Mb = 16MB. To convert megabits to megabytes divide by 8.

Knew it was a stupid question didn't even notice! and yes, my old board is 64Mb.

I'm desperate to upgrade, I think I'll have to go for the Zen 3 when it comes out (hopefully this year), even if it is the last CPU for AM4.

 

[Troezar]

https://www.msi.com/blog/msis-max-motherboard-lineup

DO YOU NEED A MAX MOTHERBOARD?

e) You want a value-oriented motherboard that’ll support not only the latest AMD releases but will also have you covered for all future AM4 product releases.

Should be safe I guess

Could be, of course that's on MSI, if AMD don't release the microcode then MSI can't deliver. Then owners would have recourse to MSI if their product doesn't deliver.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Could be, of course that's on MSI, if AMD don't release the microcode then MSI can't deliver. Then owners would have recourse to MSI if their product doesn't deliver.

Until last month they told a German system integrator that B450 would work through official channels. So I don't know if MSI were told the same by AMD and released the MAX line as a result. Now the same system integrator had to hear about it the same way all of us did. If this is the way they treat their system integrators,it makes me wonder what their own marketing is doing. At least keep those customers in the loop.

Ah well if they aren't going to work on older boards then I can say thanks AMD for saving me some money. I'm not changing my x370 taichi unless it breaks!

I must say both Nvidia (with their overpricing of the 2000 series GPUs) and now this with AMD I've saved a hell of a lot of money on PC upgrades these past couple of years

I agree entirely with this sentiment.It's at least forced me to play some older games now!

 

[FoxEye]

https://www.msi.com/blog/msis-max-motherboard-lineup

DO YOU NEED A MAX MOTHERBOARD?

e) You want a value-oriented motherboard that’ll support not only the latest AMD releases but will also have you covered for all future AM4 product releases.

Should be safe I guess

Yeah but they could just as easily turn round and say, "That was our intention, but AMD screwed us over, and you too. We did everything we could - AMD made it impossible."

 

[Fire_fly]

Well they're stupid if that's the case, is it so hard to make a list that it will work for and making it clear that anything outside that list will probably brick the motherboard if they attempt a bios update? These excuses are getting more and more flimsy.

Yep. Although I can kind of see where they are coming from in regards to some sections of the market. The fact that these are targeted at a small enthusiast group who have demonstrated the ability to update BIOS' before with their previous product releases suggest that they are more that capable at doing it again. The whole things is just AMD doing it because they can and the know that people will defend them for screwing them over.

 

[humbug]

There was a segment in the Tech Deals stream regarding an email he had with someone at AMD. The short answer is that they could make it work on some 300 / 400 series boards but are going to drop support to prevent confusion with boards that don't support it causing bad PR.

They discuss it at about 1 hour and again at 1 hour 50 mins.

FFS... all they have to do is say "hey guys, due to ROM size limitations some 300 and 400 Chipset motherboards are not compatible with Zen 3, please check with your motherboard vendor to see if a Zen 3 BIOS will be available to you"

That's it, if AMD can't fit the BIOS on those 8MB ROM boards then there is nothing they can do and it would be unreasonable to blame AMD for that, or the motherboard vendors, its just one of those things....

 

[Doobedoo]

I won’t defend Amd for the sake of it like I said I don’t consider it to be much of an issue, at least for me.

If others want too that’s fine and up to them. These companies get my money when I decide to spend my money not because they want me too. If I consider something too expensive or not worth my money then I don’t give them it. Simple really.

You all have to take a look at yourselves (no one on a personal level) no one forces anyone to do anything. Not Intel, not Amd or even the greedy Nvidia. Vote with your wallets or put up with it.

 

[Martini1991]

FFS... all they have to do is say "hey guys, due to ROM size limitations some 300 and 400 Chipset motherboards are not compatible with Zen 3, please check with your motherboard vendor to see if a Zen 3 BIOS will be available to you"

That's it, if AMD can't fit the BIOS on those 8MB ROM boards then there is nothing they can do and it would be unreasonable to blame AMD for that, or the motherboard vendors, its just one of those things....

But a limitation like this is entirely avoidable, thus both would be to blame.
It's incompetent

 

[humbug]

But a limitation like this is entirely avoidable, thus both would be to blame.
It's incompetent

How so?

 

[Martini1991]

How so?

What do you mean how so?
We're talking about MB's of space.

It's entirely avoidable that this situation has occured a complete lack of foresight has caused this.

That's incompetent?

 

[keyser]

I was thinking that. AMD should have speced out the requirements for future proofed BIOS, ie. make sure your BIOS is at least 64MB etc I'm not sure if this falls under 'lets shaft and annoy our customers on purpose' or just 'whoops'. Probably whoops.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

@Martini1991 Agreed,AMD made the reference platform specifications for B450 and X470. They should have specified larger BIOS chips as standard. Many of the cheaper X570 motherboards have these smaller BIOS chips. What worries me is if AMD release an X670 for Zen3,what if X570 does not have full functionality with Zen3. AMD might say it's all OK,but then on launch day say,oops,no it isn't!

FFS... all they have to do is say "hey guys, due to ROM size limitations some 300 and 400 Chipset motherboards are not compatible with Zen 3, please check with your motherboard vendor to see if a Zen 3 BIOS will be available to you"

This is AMD after all,so when they do things such as the RX5600XT launch fiasco with the BIOSes,and then didn't realise Nvidia would also drop RTX2060 prices,it makes you wonder at times! We are all routing for AMD,but I really don't understand some of their decisions!

 

[humbug]

What do you mean how so?
We're talking about MB's of space.

It's entirely avoidable that this situation has occured a complete lack of foresight has caused this.

That's incompetent?

Two things.
1/ AMD never said fourth gen Ryzen would be compatible with 300 and 400 series Motherboards, we surmised that, i include my self in making those assumptions.
2/ AMD said "Up to 2020" how do you interpret "Up to?" if someone says to me i'll give you up to £100 for that i'm not expecting £120.

Whatever AMD do from here on is not due to responsibility from anything they have said, with that you cannot predict the size or your ROM 3 years down the line, you might think its 8MB but actually turn out to be 12MB and when Motherboard vendors are designing board's down to a cost to sell them to us at a given cost putting larger ROM chips on them might not be an option.

 

[Martini1991]

I don't know why I expect different lol.

 

[humbug]

I don't know why I expect different lol.

Why? i had a couple of Intel CPU's for years, only switched back to them with Ryzen, gave them plenty of stick for Bulldozer.
I've had multiple Nvidia GPU's for the years since the R9 290, only just switched back to AMD a couple of weeks ago, i gave AMD as lot of #### for all their intervening GPU's.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I don't know why I expect different lol.

The worst thing is AMD is CPU designer,so probably has a clue of the microcode sizes,a few years ahead of launch,as they have to have functional design specs to make prototypes for testing,etc. So to then not make their reference platforms have big enough BIOS chips,is either incompetence or the fact they expected to EOL these platforms earlier than they hinted at.

AMD then decided to hold off the B550 for 12 months. This is entirely on them!

If they knew they wouldn't release B550 for 12 months,they could have made another revision of B450 at the Zen2 launch which would have been certified to work with Zen3,ie,big enough BIOS chips,etc.

Called it B450X or something like that.