Zen 3 CPUs - 500 Series or Newer Chipsets Only

IdiotInCharge said:
Perhaps Intel has done what they've done for a reason, and now that AMD is shipping CPUs instead of ass, they're encountering the same circumstances?

Don't tell ManofGod ;)
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I still don't buy Intel's BS, especially when the necessary socket changes come coincidentally in the same time frame as their 2 CPU generations and then new platform cycle. I will cite ad nauseum that there was absolutely no reason why Coffee Lake 8th generation CPU's couldn't have worked perfectly fine on Z170/Z270 motherboards other than a money grab. My favorite video recently was Der8auer taping up all the supposed "extra power delivery" pins so it was essentially identical to a Z170/Z270 socket for power delivery and ran 8th gen CPU's without issue (even overclocked).

The real problem is that AMD implied support up and down the product stack at various times. They can argue that what they said and what was interpreted were two different things (e.g. AM4 "support" through 2020). At least with Intel you know you're going to have to do a platform upgrade after two generations (or one generation if you get the 2nd gen of that platform) whether or not it is a technical requirement or not. In AMD's case, it is literally the same socket. Plus, the delay of B550 meant that the budget boards were being sold with the assumption of next gen compatibility and then when B550 is ready to be released...no compatibility for B450.

Realistically, AMD should say there's a 3 generation rolling CPU limit for their chipsets assuming the same sockets. 3xx gets Zen, Zen+, Zen2. 4xx gets Zen+, Zen2, Zen3. 5xx gets Zen2, Zen3, etc... At least allow the customer to make an informed decision prior to purchase. Zen2 CPU's are pretty good. I don't think 3 years from now anyone is really going to complain too loudly about how they can "only" use a 3900x instead of a 4900x on a budget board. The point is that they needed to inform consumers a lot earlier than they did.
 
kirbyrj said:
I will cite ad nauseum that there was absolutely no reason why Coffee Lake 8th generation CPU's couldn't have worked perfectly fine on Z170/Z270 motherboards other than a money grab. My favorite video recently was Der8auer taping up all the supposed "extra power delivery" pins so it was essentially identical to a Z170/Z270 socket for power delivery and ran 8th gen CPU's without issue (even overclocked).
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...but what about all of the other 1xx and 2xx chipsets, and boards based on them?

The 'Z' chipsets aren't the only ones, just like the 'X' halo chipsets AMD uses.

Intel appears to have chosen a more strict approach that avoids the issues that AMD is currently encountering. Now AMD is having to appear to reneg on their promises, and is getting the same criticism Intel did.

kirbyrj said:
The real problem is that AMD implied support up and down the product stack at various times. They can argue that what they said and what was interpreted were two different things (e.g. AM4 "support" through 2020). At least with Intel you know you're going to have to do a platform upgrade after two generations (or one generation if you get the 2nd gen of that platform) whether or not it is a technical requirement or not. In AMD's case, it is literally the same socket. Plus, the delay of B550 meant that the budget boards were being sold with the assumption of next gen compatibility and then when B550 is ready to be released...no compatibility for B450.
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AMD left themselves open to interpretation and misinterpretation; Intel did not. Who did it better?

kirbyrj said:
Realistically, AMD should say there's a 3 generation rolling CPU limit for their chipsets assuming the same sockets. 3xx gets Zen, Zen+, Zen2. 4xx gets Zen+, Zen2, Zen3. 5xx gets Zen2, Zen3, etc... At least allow the customer to make an informed decision prior to purchase. Zen2 CPU's are pretty good. I don't think 3 years from now anyone is really going to complain too loudly about how they can "only" use a 3900x instead of a 4900x on a budget board. The point is that they needed to inform consumers a lot earlier than they did.
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They'd have to have communicated segmentation that the likes of yourself would then decry as 'artificial'...


I posted above that there's really no good way to do this. Arguing either side is like arguing politics.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
Perhaps Intel has done what they've done for a reason, and now that AMD is shipping CPUs instead of ass, they're encountering the same circumstances?

Don't tell ManofGod ;)
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Oh really? :D Perhaps if they could have forced all manufacturers to us 32MB bios chips from the start but, we know that was never going to happen, since they had not even proven themselves at that point.
 
ManofGod said:
Oh really? :D Perhaps if they could have forced all manufacturers to us 32MB bios chips from the start but, we know that was never going to happen, since they had not even proven themselves at that point.
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This would be nice, but I would expect when you pay $300+ for a high end MB, you would at least get a BIOS with the space overhead needed to support newer processors.

I know with the X470 Gaming M7 AC that I had to get because the Crosshair IV Formula in my sig finally died last year, MSI had to downgrade the BIOS to a more text based interface in order to get Zen2 Processor support, and ever since then, people have been complaining about Memory POST lockups.

If MSI is struggling to get Zen2 running on their board, I could only imagine what it would be like gettting a Zen3 to post.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
...but what about all of the other 1xx and 2xx chipsets, and boards based on them?

The 'Z' chipsets aren't the only ones, just like the 'X' halo chipsets AMD uses.

Intel appears to have chosen a more strict approach that avoids the issues that AMD is currently encountering. Now AMD is having to appear to reneg on their promises, and is getting the same criticism Intel did.


AMD left themselves open to interpretation and misinterpretation; Intel did not. Who did it better?


They'd have to have communicated segmentation that the likes of yourself would then decry as 'artificial'...


I posted above that there's really no good way to do this. Arguing either side is like arguing politics.
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Not the same problem. AMD isn't lying about it not running on the MB's like Intel.

At least there were a few generations before needing a MB, though they still could change their mind or somebody
makes a custom bios for the MB's.
 
ryan_975 said:
If AMD doesn't include the old chipsets in the the platform initialization code for the new CPU (i.e. AGESA), there's not much a modder will be able do.
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It is surprising what a modder can accomplish sometimes. For example, I have a GTX 550 Ti that I keep around as a backup GPU. Before I got my RX 580 I was using an RX 480, a very early AIB model, and like many of the first gen AIB boards it went bad very quickly. I had to RMA it and then wait a couple months for a replacement because they were in such tight supply. This was a bit problematic since there was a scarcity of cards around (thanks crypto mining), and the ones available were way overpriced. My trusty GTX 550 Ti to the rescue... except one other issue. I was using UEFI boot mode on my Ryzen rig and the GTX 550 Ti did not support UEFI. Dead in the water, right? Nope. I hacked the GPU bios and enabled UEFI support, despite the fact that none of the 500 series Nvidia cards supported UEFI.

I've done similar things modding memory speeds on GPUs and then hacking AMD's drivers to not barf over a modded bios. Where there's a will there is sometimes a way.

So, while I'm hoping that Zen 3 CPUs are officially supported in 300 and 400 series boards at some level, it remains possible that enterprising modders will be able to make it happen even without any official support. Time will tell. The fact that we have to tools necessary to edit and flash a BIOS gives us hope.

Anyway, for me a big part of the motivation to tinker will be whether the gains justify the work. I'm already pretty thrilled with Zen 2 coming from Zen 1. If Zen 3 is an incremental 10% improvement then I'll probably be content to keep my current CPU. I want to see what kind of performance jump Zen 3 brings.
 
Aegir said:
I hang out on bios-mods.com sometimes, and I'm quite sure anyone could get a BIOS modded for their older motherboard that runs AMD's newest processor. If it is truly compatible. AMD might still be right.

But with a shout of holy rage, let me raise the sword of ultimate elitism:

If you are a computer builder who will dare touch the sacred hardware within your machine and update CPUs, GPUs, and other components, then you will have no fear modifying the BIOS of your system to get unauthorized CPUs to work if they are truly compatible. The ethos of the 1337 h@x0r lives as a fire in the hearts of those with courage.

To be quite honest and harsh, the complete cowardice of the poor fools complaining about this issue makes me sick.
Filthy Luddites need to remember the origins of advanced technology: Matter and energy manipulation is the core of creating the divine computational substrate of our personal computers.

Just modify your BIOS. Why is there so much whining and complaining? If it's a "BIOS space limitation," or other severe incompatibility, then AMD is right, so stand down.

If it's an artificial limitation, then stand up straight and remember who you are: You are the master of your machine. Modify the internal components and hardware and software to your desire if you are as "enthusiastic" as you claim to be. And if you're not a computer enthusiast, then this issue doesn't concern you.
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I already started looking into what it would take to splice my own microcode into a bios image. Unfortunately I'm unlucky to have a board without flashback, so if I screw up I'll have to put probes in bios chip and flash through the SPI interface. I'm sure it's artificial, otherwise how could x570 support backwards and forwards CPUs? I don't recall any difference to pinout changes that would make it physically incompatible.
 
Ready4Dis said:
I already started looking into what it would take to splice my own microcode into a bios image. Unfortunately I'm unlucky to have a board without flashback, so if I screw up I'll have to put probes in bios chip and flash through the SPI interface. I'm sure it's artificial, otherwise how could x570 support backwards and forwards CPUs? I don't recall any difference to pinout changes that would make it physically incompatible.
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Platform initialization is different from one chipset to the next. So when AMD writes the PI module that motherboard manufacturers put in their BIOS images, they include different code paths for each of the platform and CPU combinations they want to support. With Zen2, AMD needed to support seven times more configurations than it did for Zen1. Zen3 and a 600 series of chipsets would bump that up to at least 12x.
 
Hagrid said:
Not the same problem. AMD isn't lying about it not running on the MB's like Intel.
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Intel wasn't lying; the new CPUs were not supported. A few (at most) nice motherboards were modded to work, but that does not constitute every board, memory, and BIOS configuration from previous generations.

Hagrid said:
At least there were a few generations before needing a MB, though they still could change their mind or somebody
makes a custom bios for the MB's.
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And?

One more, one less... more of a personal problem. Two or three is average. More than that? It means that the CPU manufacturer is stagnated to the point of not needing to advance the platform. See AMDs lost decade for example, or Intel with LGA775.

This entire thread is made up of people making excuses for AMD having to do the very thing that Intel simply planned to do. AMD has had a customer support nightmare, Intel avoided all that.

As I said before, I see merits in both approaches, as well as faults.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
Intel wasn't lying; the new CPUs were not supported. A few (at most) nice motherboards were modded to work, but that does not constitute every board, memory, and BIOS configuration from previous generations.


And?

One more, one less... more of a personal problem. Two or three is average. More than that? It means that the CPU manufacturer is stagnated to the point of not needing to advance the platform. See AMDs lost decade for example, or Intel with LGA775.

This entire thread is made up of people making excuses for AMD having to do the very thing that Intel simply planned to do. AMD has had a customer support nightmare, Intel avoided all that.

As I said before, I see merits in both approaches, as well as faults.
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Two or three is not average for Intel.. 1-2 is their average for the last 5+ CPU launches. While the customer support was a headache that could have been avoided by flashback bioses like many AIBs make, it only really affects the small number of people that actually build their own PC and upgrade their own PC.
 
Gamers Nexus is still on top of this one:




Of course Asus is the worst when it comes to supporting its customers. Nothing new there.

AMD is still either a liar or incompetent, not sure which is better.
 
Meeho said:
Gamers Nexus is still on top of this one:




Of course Asus is the worst when it comes to supporting its customers. Nothing new there.

AMD is still either a liar or incompetent, not sure which is better.
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In all seriousness, are you still using your AMD builds or did you stop? I remember your AMD threads about the CPU's you were using and wondering if you are still on them or not.
 
ManofGod said:
In all seriousness, are you still using your AMD builds or did you stop? I remember your AMD threads about the CPU's you were using and wondering if you are still on them or not.
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Haven't built my server yet if that's what you're referring (only have one pre-Ryzen AMD build in use currently) but have several Ryzen PCs for others. This situation angered me extra because only the massively out of stock market saved me from buying a B450 Tomahawk MAX just days before the AMD dropping support (went with an Asus X570-P), not to mention previous builds having the same promised upgrade door shut down on them. Thankfully, those are not prime upgrade candidates, but this latest one was definitely being built with that in plan.
 
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Meeho said:
Haven't built my server yet if that's what you're referring (only have one pre-Ryzen AMD build in use currently) but have several Ryzen PCs for others. This situation angered me extra because only the massively out of stock market saved me from buying a B450 Tomahawk MAX just days before the AMD dropping support (went with an Asus X570-P), not to mention previous builds having the same promised upgrade door shut down on them. Thankfully, those are not prime upgrade candidates, but this latest one was definitely being built with that in plan.
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Didn't you have an 1800x build before?
 
Meeho said:
Nope, you have me mixed with someone.
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Oh, ok, I must be thinking about someone else, not a problem, thanks. What I am seeing is that perhaps Zen3 will be a lot faster and have features that only support X570 and B550 boards and may not even work on earlier boards. (What I mean is things that will not physically allow it to be used on earlier boards, the cpu itself.) We will see and yes, I did watch the video.
 
I bought a 2600/b450 setup off a young guy yesterday that is all constipated from 4xxx "what ifs".

The young guy this build will be given to has been told that he can burn $ for 3900x/3950x down the road if he does something income earning. Otherwise better get godlike playing videogames/content creation and develop an income stream to pay for upgrades bc I'm 1 freebie and done with my friends kids.
 
Meeho said:
Of course Asus is the worst when it comes to supporting its customers. Nothing new there.
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yeah after 15 years of ASUS after my TUF X570 conundrum I think next time i'm gonna go w/ MSI. Just wish I would have known about the Unify befrore i got the TUF. kicking myself in the *ss

and then ASUS finallly last month adds spread spectrum and Bclk settings to bios, right? Well I have a 3800X and so before WITH spread spectrum Bclk was running at like 98.9 w/ 39x multi which gave me roughly 3.86 ...BUT NOW even though they unlocked spread spectrum they still won't let you run at 100 it's actually 99.8 but they dropped my multi to 38.75 which gives me 3.867 WTF???? why can't they just let my proc run at it's base of 3.9???? THEN if you try and up the Bclk to 101 you bascally get a system lockup. I don't think i ever got into windows but finally got back into bios after like a 3 min wait... nah man, done. asus needs to tighten up. they are getting to be like the volkswagen of motherboards.
 


AMD sent out an email confirming B450/x470 will now support zen 3 at least on the AGESA side.

other important information on how they'll make the bios available is in the video so i recommend watching it.


now i don't have to look like an asshole anymore after recommending the b450 tomahawk max to a friend because it would support zen 3(this was right before AMD came out and said zen 3 would be 500 series only).
 
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It's good to see consumers having exercising influence. Next step is on AMD to reign in their stupid marketing practices and overpromising. Especially now that they have good products and wider market support.
 
d3athf1sh said:
yeah after 15 years of ASUS after my TUF X570 conundrum I think next time i'm gonna go w/ MSI. Just wish I would have known about the Unify befrore i got the TUF. kicking myself in the *ss

and then ASUS finallly last month adds spread spectrum and Bclk settings to bios, right? Well I have a 3800X and so before WITH spread spectrum Bclk was running at like 98.9 w/ 39x multi which gave me roughly 3.86 ...BUT NOW even though they unlocked spread spectrum they still won't let you run at 100 it's actually 99.8 but they dropped my multi to 38.75 which gives me 3.867 WTF???? why can't they just let my proc run at it's base of 3.9???? THEN if you try and up the Bclk to 101 you bascally get a system lockup. I don't think i ever got into windows but finally got back into bios after like a 3 min wait... nah man, done. asus needs to tighten up. they are getting to be like the volkswagen of motherboards.
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all of them do this. there's no way to force 100 mhz bclk, it'll either be 99.8 or 101.x. why? i don't know but i'm sure there's a technical reason explained some where why it's that way.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
all of them do this. there's no way to force 100 mhz bclk, it'll either be 99.8 or 101.x. why? i don't know but i'm sure there's a technical reason explained some where why it's that way.
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Ugh. I'd been wondering about that for years.
 
TheSlySyl said:
I'm pretty sure they aren't "refusing to allow it"
They're simply making sure that it's not expected or required.

I'm positive we'll see some X470 boards with support. Maybe even some X370 on the super high end.

It's just not gonna be unanimous board support.

Yeah, "no plans", not that it's impossible, not that it's REFUSING TO ALLOW IT.
only "no plans"

Which basically means motherboard makers are on their own on this one or that plans may change in the future.
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This post aged well.
Was wrong about x370, but b450 is nice. Especially for all those tomahawk users.


https://www.anandtech.com/show/1580...boards?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook
 
Comixbooks said:
Seems to be a AMD motherboard shortage on a quick look.
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I think there's just a general hardware shortage. PSU, hard drives (especially SSDs), motherboards, monitors, RAM, they've all gone out of stock or up in price during the time of quarantine.

SSDs seem to FINALLY be falling in price again, at least.
 
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TheSlySyl said:
This post aged well.
Was wrong about x370, but b450 is nice. Especially for all those tomahawk users.


https://www.anandtech.com/show/1580...boards?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook
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yeah apparently from GNSteve's deep dive MSI was the one company pushing the hardest to get support on 400 series since it would of caused a shit load of problems for them due to them clearly stating in their marketing for b450 max that it would support zen 2 and next gen cpu's.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
all of them do this. there's no way to force 100 mhz bclk, it'll either be 99.8 or 101.x. why? i don't know but i'm sure there's a technical reason explained some where why it's that way.
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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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So here's a question, will the x570 support further chips? Or should you just jump in with both feet on the 400 series MB?
 
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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sfsuphysics said:
So here's a question, will the x570 support further chips? Or should you just jump in with both feet on the 400 series MB?
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as of right now zen 3 is the last architecture that will be supported on 500 series boards.. considering zen 4 isn't slated until 2022 that's a very very small chance that maybe AMD releases some kind of refresh cpu for am4 before the hard switch to DDR5. also another possibility is that they could do another apu series released on AM4 before it's put to pasture using zen 3/navi.

that being said if you're some one that doesn't upgrade yearly i'd move up to x570 and just sit on zen 3/x570 for the next few years while prices/growing pains settle from the move to DDR5. i don't see there being some ungodly performance increase initially with DDR5 to make worth it for the vast majority of pc users. but that's just my opinion after going through the DDR 2 to 3 transition and then DDR 3 to 4 transition.
 
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bigdogchris said:
Harbor Onbox coverage...

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This was the right decision. I understand that supporting older chipset into the far future was problematic, but the timing for dropping the support was just wrong. Because of the problems with B550's availability thousands of people who build low end and midrange systems 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.

There may be growth pains like there was with B350 and Zen 2 but in the end this is still the the most consumer friendly option in this situation. And I am sure that the people who would upgrade their CPU's on their own also understand to check the bios compatibility. If not then that is entirely their problem and a learning experience on how "to do computer things".
 
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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.
Click to expand...

Probably depends on what CPU you use to flash with.
 
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