Zen 3 CPUs - 500 Series or Newer Chipsets Only

kirbyrj said:
Probably depends on what CPU you use to flash with.
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Maybe they will keep 3000 series in ROM with 4000 series. But how would they decide which legacy CPU's to keep in ROM? You could probably make the argument for each series. Maybe keep the most common of each series if possible? Who knows.
 
bigdogchris said:
Maybe they will keep 3000 series in ROM with 4000 series. But how would they decide which legacy CPU's to keep in ROM? You could probably make the argument for each series. Maybe keep the most common of each series if possible? Who knows.
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If they go the route of having Zen3 customers contact motherboard manufacturers for BIOS updates, they could (though likely won't) ask which CPUs you're working with and make sure to include support for them in the BIOS package they provide.
 
ryan_975 said:
If they go the route of having Zen3 customers contact motherboard manufacturers for BIOS updates, they could (though likely won't) ask which CPUs you're working with and make sure to include support for them in the BIOS package they provide.
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The only difference between what you have now and what they are proposing is that they will actually drop support for CPUs. As it is now, if you flash an older B450 board to support Zen2, you lose some features and you can't flash back to get them. They tell you what bios to use with certain CPUs or to only flash if you are using a Zen 2 CPU in the documentation. I don't necessarily have a problem with this.
 
As we head into our upcoming “Zen 3” architecture, there are considerable technical challenges that face a CPU socket as long-lived as AMD Socket AM4. For example, we recently announced that we would not support “Zen 3” on AMD 400 Series motherboards due to serious constraints in SPI ROM capacities in most of the AMD 400 Series motherboards. This is not the first time a technical hurdle has come up with Socket AM4 given the longevity of this socket, but it is the first time our enthusiasts have faced such a hurdle.

Over the past week, we closely reviewed your feedback on that news: we watched every video, read every comment and saw every Tweet. We hear that many of you hoped for a longer upgrade path. We hear your hope that AMD B450 and X470 chipsets would carry you into the “Zen 3” era.

Our experience has been that large-scale BIOS upgrades can be difficult and confusing especially as processors come on and off the support lists. As the community of Socket AM4 customers has grown over the past three years, our intention was to take a path forward that provides the safest upgrade experience for the largest number of users. However, we hear you loud and clear when you tell us you would like to see B450 or X470 boards extended to the next generation “Zen 3” products.

As the team weighed your feedback against the technical challenges we face, we decided to change course. As a result, we will enable an upgrade path for B450 and X470 customers that adds support for next-gen AMD Ryzen™ Processors with the “Zen 3” architecture. This decision is very fresh, but here is a first look at how the upgrade path is expected to work for customers of these motherboards.

  1. We will develop and enable our motherboard partners with the code to support “Zen 3”-based processors in select beta BIOSes for AMD B450 and X470 motherboards.
  2. These optional BIOS updates will disable support for many existing AMD Ryzen™ Desktop Processor models to make the necessary ROM space available.
  3. The select beta BIOSes will enable a one-way upgrade path for AMD Ryzen Processors with “Zen 3,” coming later this year. Flashing back to an older BIOS version will not be supported.
  4. To reduce the potential for confusion, our intent is to offer BIOS download only to verified customers of 400 Series motherboards who have purchased a new desktop processor with “Zen 3” inside. This will help us ensure that customers have a bootable processor on-hand after the BIOS flash, minimizing the risk a user could get caught in a no-boot situation.
  5. Timing and availability of the BIOS updates will vary and may not immediately coincide with the availability of the first “Zen 3”-based processors.
  6. This is the final pathway AMD can enable for 400 Series motherboards to add new CPU support. CPU releases beyond “Zen 3” will require a newer motherboard.
  7. AMD continues to recommend that customers choose an AMD 500 Series motherboard for the best performance and features with our new CPUs.
There are still many details to iron out, but we’ve already started the necessary planning. As we get closer to the launch of this upgrade path, you should expect another blog just like this to provide the remaining details and a walkthrough of the specific process.

At CES 2017, AMD made a commitment: we would support AMD Socket AM4 until 2020. We’ve spent the next three years working very hard to fulfill that promise across four architectures, plus pioneering use of new technologies like chiplets and PCIe® Gen 4. Thanks to your feedback, we are now set to bring “Zen 3” to the AMD 400 Series chipsets. We’re grateful for your passion and support of AMD’s products and technologies.
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SOURCE
 
bigdogchris said:
So it seems they are going a direction that some have suggested. The new BIOS will only be made available to those with Zen 3 chips (so you probably have to contact motherboard support to obtain the BIOS). And it also appears after flashing BIOS you will be no-boot and need to swap over CPU because your existing CPU will likely be removed from support. There will also be no reverting BIOS, so once you move to the Zen3 variant you are not going back.
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Per this post on Reddit, if your board supports BIOS flashback via USB, you'll be able to flash whatever BIOS you want, so it's not a one way street for everyone.

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ryan_975 said:
If they go the route of having Zen3 customers contact motherboard manufacturers for BIOS updates, they could (though likely won't) ask which CPUs you're working with and make sure to include support for them in the BIOS package they provide.
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Possibly, but that would require 2 or 3 separate BIOS revisions per board. I think it's highly unlikely considering they didn't want to do this in the first place.

However, in the email/Reddit post, AMD did say "These optional BIOS updates will disable support for many existing AMD Ryzen™ Desktop Processor models to make the necessary ROM space available." To me that does sound like some older CPU's (probably most common ones) will stay supported on the new Zen3 BIOS.
 
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bpizzle1 said:
Per this post on Reddit, if your board supports BIOS flashback via USB, you'll be able to flash whatever BIOS you want, so it's not a one way street for everyone.

View attachment 246600
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True, but for non-flashback boards I don't see what the difference is between flashing forward to a ROM without CPU support and flashing backwards to a ROM without CPU support. Unless AMD was just making a general statement that it's not supported.
 
bigdogchris said:
So it seems they are going a direction that some have suggested. The new BIOS will only be made available to those with Zen 3 chips (so you probably have to contact motherboard support to obtain the BIOS). And it also appears after flashing BIOS you will be no-boot and need to swap over CPU because your existing CPU will likely be removed from support. There will also be no reverting BIOS, so once you move to the Zen3 variant you are not going back.
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my guess is you'll put your serial number in for the cpu and it'll unlock the download option.. as far as the no boot thing it'll depend on your original cpu.. my guess is it'll remove all first gen ryzen + first and second gen apu's at a minimum maybe maybe all of second gen as well.
 
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Well, only one of my three computers could be upgraded to Zen3 then. (B450 Asrock Fatality mITX board.) However, it has a 3600 so, we will see. (Other two computers have a 3700X and man, they are fast. :) )
 
ryan_975 said:
The clocks are derived from crystals whose shapes and sizes determine what frequency their outputs run at. The output of the crystals are fed into multiplier circuits that increase the frequency into the operating ranges we need.

In a perfect world, we could cut the crystals to be the exact shape we need every time, and the multipliers would be able to bump the frequency up perfectly. But in an imperfect world, crystals vary, multipliers drift, and measuring devices have errors. So we shoot for 32.768kHz crystals and accept a 0.001% variance, and so on.
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well i know on older boards where the fsb/blck was 200 like on athlon64, phenom II, FX , etc if you left it stock it would hover around 200 but on asus usually was a little over, but if you set it even to 201 or anything above that it was rock solid. (and there were NO problems) and i've NEVER seen multipliers "drift". Heck even if you look up OC guides for Zen that use gigabyte for their basis, which allows increments of 0.25 or whatnot they would recommend running it at 100.25 to keep it stable. Somethings up w/ the bottom end asus stuff. Asus, like i said is kinda falling off. Unless you wanna spend $1000 for their top of the line junk.
 
MaZa said:
had no choice but to either buy B450, which would have meant no upgrade path, or splurge a little and buy an expensive X570 which would have made no sense for 3600 and especially the lately released 3300X
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actually they had a choice there are low end X570 boards that'll do the trick if that's all you want it to do, and actually it would make sense to go X570 w/ 3300,3600, etc if you planned on doing a cpu upgrade to 4000 series next year... right?
 
d3athf1sh said:
well i know on older boards where the fsb/blck was 200 like on athlon64, phenom II, FX , etc if you left it stock it would hover around 200 but on asus usually was a little over, but if you set it even to 201 or anything above that it was rock solid. (and there were NO problems) and i've NEVER seen multipliers "drift". Heck even if you look up OC guides for Zen that use gigabyte for their basis, which allows increments of 0.25 or whatnot they would recommend running it at 100.25 to keep it stable. Somethings up w/ the bottom end asus stuff. Asus, like i said is kinda falling off. Unless you wanna spend $1000 for their top of the line junk.
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My $300+ Asus Pro WS X570-Ace doesn't drift the clock at all--it's always 100% stable at 99.8MHz. I wouldn't call that low-end. (Same for the X470-I Gaming I've got a 1600 on. Never seen it report anything but 99.8.)
 
ryan_975 said:
If they go the route of having Zen3 customers contact motherboard manufacturers for BIOS updates, they could (though likely won't) ask which CPUs you're working with and make sure to include support for them in the BIOS package they provide.
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I doubt it. This is already going to be extra work the motherboard manufacturers were not expecting, don't expect them to make it ten times more complex (with multiple different BIOS revisions to test for each motherboard)!

This is a one-way BIOS upgrade, so they will most likely support Zen 2 and Zen 3 chips (and maybe Zen+, if they have room). That leaves you plenty of upgrade options in the future (you could upgrade to a 16-core Zen 2 someone is selling cheap, if more cores is your style).

Given that the 3600 is already as fast as the 1700x at most operations, going further backward makes no sense. Getting a bad Zen 3 CPU from the factory is pretty unlikely, so there really is no need to have a custom backup-CPU-capable BIOS.

And for those of you who already bought Zen 2 (most of the owners of he 400-series chipsets), this will be a painless upgrade :D
 
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Here, now soak up those tears...for now.
AMD to Support Zen 3 and Ryzen 4000 CPUs on B450 and X470 Motherboards


https://www.anandtech.com/show/1580...ryzen-4000-cpus-on-b450-and-x470-motherboards



AMD today is reversing its decision to limit the BIOSes on the 400-series chipsets. To cut a long story short, the TL;DR mantra from AMD is:

‘We’ve heard our audience, and we understand the concerns. We are going to work out a way to support Zen 3 on our 400-series chipsets between now and launch – we’re still working out the what and the how, but we will update you closer to Zen 3 launch’.
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bigdogchris said:
Maybe they will keep 3000 series in ROM with 4000 series. But how would they decide which legacy CPU's to keep in ROM? You could probably make the argument for each series. Maybe keep the most common of each series if possible? Who knows.
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Considering the bios ROMs.are generally the same size found in b550's, which will be zen2&zen3 compatible, I'm not sure why they couldn't support both. But even if it's only zen3 after flashing, I can't imagine to many people downgrading after an update.
 
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