WARNING- Be careful when buying Ryzen gen 2 or 3 motherboards

[waterjug]

This only applies if you are buying a Gen 2 or 3 Ryzen cpu.

A lot of AM4+ motherboards are advertised at compatible with gen 2 or gen 3, but although they are advertised as such, many of them are only compatible with a BIOS update. But in order to update the BIOS, you need a gen 1 compatible chip in order to make the board compatible with gen 2. My friend recently was building his first PC, and after a lot of troubleshooting, he had to take it all apart after he figured out the motherboard shipped with an old bios. In fact, the way he found out was going back to look at the reviews on the product page to find this- 

 

I agree with this guy, this is ridiculous that companies cheap out with false advertising like this. 

That was a review on the board he initially purchased which was this one. Although the board says it's compatible with gen 2, it's really not and caused a huge headache.

 

He ended up returning the board and buying this board, which we only bought because the seller actually confirmed it.

Shoutout to ASRock.

 

In conclusion, read the reviews and examine the board closely if you are buying a motherboard for a Ryzen generation 2 or generation 3 processor. Or just buy a generation 1 chip and avoid this mess, or buy a stupid expensive board. This is mainly a warning for people on a budget, because I assume(or hope) this isn't an issue for more expensive boards.

 

Hopefully I saved you from the hassle and disappointment my friend went through.

[Mira Yurizaki]

The problem is that boards that don't have firmware updates could still be hanging around in warehouses. It's impractical for the manufacturer to recall every motherboard that has an older firmware just to update it. And some times, having a newer firmware version may not be desirable, as some newer versions omit support for some processors. My B450M Mortar no longer supports any of the lower end CPUs. Granted, it's not like I'll be throwing on an Athlon 200, but someone may want a B450 board with a lower end processor.

 

Also once you upgrade the firmware of AM4 based boards to a certain version, you can't roll back. I kind of find this unacceptable, especially when MSI seemed to have had versions that didn't quite work so well.

[Slottr]

If you end up with a board like this you just have to either bring it to a computer shop- who will likely do it for free

 

or get a boot kit from amd

 

I don't see what the problem is.

[RadiatingLight]

EDIT: Most of these can be upgraded afterwards to support 1st, 2nd and 3rd gen. However, this list is what is guaranteed on the shipped BIOS.

 

300 series chipsets (X370, B350, A320) guarantee support only for 1st gen

400 series chipsets (X470, B450) guaranteed support 2nd gen and 1st gen

500 series chipsets (X570, B550) guaranteed support 3rd, 2nd, and 1st gen.

 

Notable Exceptions: MSI 400 series "MAX" motherboards are guaranteed to ship with 3rd-gen compatible BIOS

 

Any motherboard with BIOS Flashback can be BIOS-Updated without a compatible CPU, so is easily upgraded to support 3rd-gen Ryzen.

[Herman Mcpootis]

this is not an MSI problem. or the problem of any manufacturer. not at all. This is just the retailer having old stock to sell that didn't have the BIOS updated to support the zen 2 CPUs.

[waterjug]

4 minutes ago, RadiatingLight said:

300 series chipsets (X370, B350, A320) support only 1st gen

400 series chipsets (X470, B450) support 2nd gen and 1st gen

500 series chipsets (X570, B550) support 3rd, 2nd, and 1st gen.

 

Notable Exceptions: MSI 400 series "MAX" motherboards are guaranteed to ship with 3rd-gen compatible BIOS

 

Any motherboard with BIOS Flashback can be BIOS-Updated without a compatible CPU, so is easily upgraded to support 3rd-gen Ryzen.

yeah just because they "support" those cpus, it doesn't mean that it's shipped compatible. If you only have the new cpu, and you need the old cpu to update it, it's kinda unusable

[waterjug]

1 minute ago, Herman Mcpootis said:

this is not an MSI problem. not at all. This is just the retailer having old stock to sell that didn't have the BIOS updated to support the zen 2 CPUs.

yeah we found other manufactures that do the same thing, it's not just MSI. it's just really annoying and disappointing that you have to jump though all of these loopholes for something that should just work.

[LauriHimself]

1 minute ago, waterjug said:

yeah just because they "support" those cpus, it doesn't mean that it's shipped compatible. If you only have the new cpu, and you need the old cpu to update it, it's kinda unusable

but those:

 

7 minutes ago, RadiatingLight said:

300 series chipsets (X370, B350, A320) support only 1st gen

400 series chipsets (X470, B450) support 2nd gen and 1st gen

500 series chipsets (X570, B550) support 3rd, 2nd, and 1st gen

ARE shipped with the correct bios, as they were meant to work with exactly those cpus. i have a X470 myself, and a ryzen 3600 cpu. for that you will need an update.

[RadiatingLight]

8 minutes ago, waterjug said:

yeah just because they "support" those cpus, it doesn't mean that it's shipped compatible. If you only have the new cpu, and you need the old cpu to update it, it's kinda unusable

The ones in my list are the ones shipped compatible.

a B350 board supports 1st gen out of the box guaranteed, and CAN BE updated to support 1st 2nd and 3rd.

[Herman Mcpootis]

3 minutes ago, waterjug said:

yeah we found other manufactures that do the same thing, it's not just MSI. it's just really annoying and disappointing that you have to jump though all of these loopholes for something that should just work.

@Mira Yurizaki has already pointed out exactly why this is a thing. would you rather AMD and intel lock down the boards to work on exactly one generation? 

[Guest]

The applies to EVERY board that existed before new CPU SKUs.

This is more a consumer education and research issue than anything else.

 

This is why boards with BIOS Flashback are awesome.

I would say the only disappointing thing is that BIOS Flashback (i.e. being able to flash a BIOS with no CPU or memory installed) is not a standard feature, but hey... market segmentation is a thing.

[PopsicleHustler]

I mean you're literally complaining about something that could've been prevented by spending 5 minutes on the internet.

 

Just go on any PC related forum and ask there. Or if you're super lazy, just go to pcpartpicker.com, enter PC components and it will automatically check their compatibility and tell you whether or not you need to update something.

 

As for the guy who has been "building PC for years". He is either building one PC every few years, or he is making stuff up about his experience. Bios updates and CPU "backwards" compatibility has been a thing since I can remember. 

 

This is why we always ask for people's build when they asking something about compatibility or something about their new build. Always ask others because 1 pair of eyes is good, entier LTT forum worth of eyes is better. Its not a good idea to think "Oh well, it was this way some time ago, so it probably hasn't changed".

[Mira Yurizaki]

Also to add, using PCPartpicker to plan your build can flag potential issues like this.

[GamerDude]

Seriously, a lot of DIY'ers in my neck of the woods are way more savvy, when they buy a pre X570 mobo (X470, B450, and below), they'd ensure that it's been flashed to support Zen 2, or they'd get vendors here (in brick and mortar shops) to update BIOs for Zen 2 support. So far, there hasn't been any posts in the local forums about this as most system builders are fully aware of this issue. So, to simply generalize the issue by saying, 'If you're using 2nd or 3rd gen Ryzen CPU, don't waste your time and money' like poster 'Old Bios' had, is just plain silly. All it takes is a little time, research and effort.

[xg32]

i mean this is not the manufacturer's problem but on the retailer going through old stock.

 

These forums have been largely been recommending only the tomahawk max for b450 for zen 2, or just straight up get a x570 prime-p or elite. The risk of getting an outdate bios board vs saving 20-40bucks is just not worth the trouble.

[TrigrH]

All the good MSI boards have bios flashback on them, if you do your research there is no risk. MSI has the best B450 boards, this is soo ass backwards lol.

 

Its like blaming MSI cos AMD has backwards compatibility???????

[Zusafek]

....if you read the description of the products it simply says they are compatible.  Some of the boards actually say Ready. The difference is simple to understand. Just because it's compatible doesn't mean it is out of the box. Ready means it is. No bad advertising on the manufacturer end or the sellers end. 

[Mister Woof]

Man you can please anyone these days.

 

People bitch at Intel for requiring motherboard upgrades every other generation

 

And then they complain when AMD doesn't but requires BIOS updates

 

Maybe this is really why Intel does it, to head off complaining

 

[Columbo]

It's why I keep a Ryzen 1200 as a backup. This is not AMD specific. There were Intel motherboards that had this same problem. It's not as pronounced because Intel likes sticking it to their customers by changing out the chipset every other generation.