AMD not supporting Zen3 on older motherboards :(

[mr moose]

7 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Ah yes so knowing about the problems means they immediately know the solution to the problem or have made a decision about it immediately, sure. That's totally how things work......

That's exactly what you are expecting the consumers to work out.

 

How can you sit there (or stand if that's what you are) and argue that the consumer should have seen it coming but not AMD?

[GDRRiley]

2 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

Even the high end B450 boards except for a few MSI max boards only have a 16MB bios chip

or at least communicated better with board partners

that all about board partners cutting costs and I'm sure most would rather sell you a new board over supporting more chips. Nothing says board makers couldn't charge 10-20$ and send out larger bios chips that will have support for all zen chips upto zen 2 and maybe zen 3 chips.

but then you get a weird case where like some camera firmware you have to ask which it has.

[Bombastinator]

5 minutes ago, tehxf said:

No, as a business they are the same. That is the point i am making. Since when have these giants genuinely cared about the end user... they dont. So changing chipsets should not be a surprise to anyone...

Do they care? Perhaps not. Corporations by definition have no souls and are actually legally required to act in what is very often the most evil manner possible.  The requirement is not for evil but the effect often is. 
 

That’s not the point though.  
 

Binary thinking is handy because it’s very very fast and allows a person to make quick decisions.  It’s got flaws though, and they can be exploited by someone who knows how. With care a person can be made to come to what is actually the opposite decision of the one they normally would have made.  Binary thinking is so exploitable it can be turned on its head.

 

The situation so potentially more complicated than you make it out.  It’s possible it isn’t. We don’t know yet.  IF there is no good reason not to create the binaries necessary to make b450 max boards take zen3 chips then sure.   What defines a good reason gets complicated though. 
 

As a customer Going forward, it’s pretty simple: Do not buy a b450 or x470 board thinking you can run anything ryzen3 on it.  This might mean that intel is a better buy for you because of motherboard cost.  It probably still doesn’t, because intel’s boards are frequently EOL too, but doing the math makes sense.

 

The bright side: even if b450 Max never even gets an unofficial bios update for zen3 it can still run 3700x which is fast enough cpu wise to beat an Xbox/ps5, so regardless the machine will have a good deal of life.
 

If you DID buy one of these boards after x570 came out planning on using b450 to run ryzen3. AND a bios update doesn’t come out, you may be due something.  It’s going to take a good deal of time for all that to shake out though.

[leadeater]

Just now, Blademaster91 said:

Yes because thats how it worked before? Even the high end B450 boards except for a few MSI max boards only have a 16MB bios chip, so they shoud've seen it coming, or at least communicated better with board partners so they aren't putting up false advertising.

No that's not how it worked before, before some amount of time was done to work on the problem and that was done because B450 was the current generation chipset for that generation of CPUs and boards were shipped and in stock with BIOS versions that did not support Ryzen 3000. It also meant AMD had to supply CPU upgrade kits so people could actually do the BIOS upgrade. This work was then ported across to other chipsets, some on a 'Beta' basis and others even less than that (A320).

 

This work was not done immediately and neither was the decision made immediately.

 

Zen 3 is not even a released product yet and you're saying they knew enough about Ryzen 4000 in July 2019 and the AGESA binaries that they could have done all the work then and made the decision then? Right in the middle of their very important Ryzen 3000 and X570 launch? About a product still in design planning and prototyping.

 

So when exactly between now and July 2019 was the time they knew they had to or were going to drop 400 series support for Zen3?

[leadeater]

7 minutes ago, mr moose said:

How can you sit there (or stand if that's what you are) and argue that the consumer should have seen it coming but not AMD?

Simple, it was a problem before and it's naive to think it won't still be a problem. You're assuming that AMD could or would do the same, well guess what.....

 

Not interested.

 

You were forewarned. You were.

[Blademaster91]

11 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

that all about board partners cutting costs and I'm sure most would rather sell you a new board over supporting more chips. Nothing says board makers couldn't charge 10-20$ and send out larger bios chips that will have support for all zen chips upto zen 2 and maybe zen 3 chips.

but then you get a weird case where like some camera firmware you have to ask which it has.

It has me wondering how much a bios chip really is, yet board partners pile on more VRM's for marketing which actually adds cost.

Having a bios chip in a removable socket would be great, but then you get people having no clue what firmware they have and ending up with their board not working. This also relies on people knowing enough to mess with finding bios files and knowing whats compatible, instead when the CPU manufacturer should be supporting the chipset when the board still uses the same socket.

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

Simple, it was a problem before and it's naive to think it won't still be a problem. You're assuming that AMD could or would do the same, well guess what.....

 

Not interested.

 

You were forewarned. You were.

You are still placing all the technical understanding, oblligation and ability to determine future support on the consumer and not the Company making the stuff.

[tehxf]

7 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Do they care? Perhaps not. Corporations by definition have no souls and are actually legally required to act in what is very often the most evil manner possible.  The requirement is not for evil but the effect often is. 
 

That’s not the point though.  
 

Binary thinking is handy because it’s very very fast and allows a person to make quick decisions.  It’s got flaws though, and they can be exploited by someone who knows how. With care a person can be made to come to what is actually the opposite decision of the one they normally would have made.  Binary thinking is so exploitable it can be turned on its head.

 

The situation so potentially more complicated than you make it out.  It’s possible it isn’t. We don’t know yet.  IF there is no good reason not to create the binaries necessary to make b450 max boards take zen3 chips then sure.   What defines a good reason gets complicated though. 
 

As a customer Going forward, it’s pretty simple: Do not buy a b450 or x470 board thinking you can run anything ryzen3 on it.  This might mean that intel is a better buy for you because of motherboard cost.  It probably still doesn’t, because intel’s boards are frequently EOL too, but doing the math makes sense.

 

The bright side: even if b450 Max never even gets an unofficial bios update for zen3 it can still run 3700x which is fast enough cpu wise to beat an Xbox/ps5, so regardless the machine will have a good deal of life.
 

If you DID buy one of these boards after x570 came out planning on using b450 to run ryzen3. AND a bios update doesn’t come out, you may be due something.  It’s going to take a good deal of time for all that to shake out though.

No, you are confusing what i have said and putting your own spin on it.

 

ALL I AM SAYING IS THAT YOU SHOULDNT BE SURPRISED THAT THEY HAVE DONE THIS.

 

SIMPLE AS THAT.

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

No that's not how it worked before, before some amount of time was done to work on the problem and that was done because B450 was the current generation chipset for that generation of CPUs and boards were shipped and in stock with BIOS versions that did not support Ryzen 3000. It also meant AMD had to supply CPU upgrade kits so people could actually do the BIOS upgrade. This work was then ported across to other chipsets, some on a 'Beta' basis and others even less than that (A320).

 

This work was not done immediately and neither was the decision made immediately.

 

Zen 3 is not even a released product yet and you're saying they knew enough about Ryzen 4000 in July 2019 and the AGESA binaries that they could have done all the work then and made the decision then? Right in the middle of their very important Ryzen 3000 and X570 launch? About a product still in design planning and prototyping.

 

So when exactly between now and July 2019 was the time they knew they had to or were going to drop 400 series support for Zen3?

Re: that’s not how it worked.  There does appear to be an official and unofficial bios system.  B350 does not officially support zen2 but unofficially often does at least somewhat.  It’s possible b450 will get this treatment for zen3.  We won’t know until zen3 releases though, or an announcement is made.  One thing I don’t know is if 400 series chipsets have merely a bios size limitation or if there is another reason zen3 cannot be put on b450.

 

5 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Simple, it was a problem before and it's naive to think it won't still be a problem. You're assuming that AMD could or would do the same, well guess what.....

 

Not interested.

 

You were forewarned. You were.

I disagree about the forewarned. There were serious mixed signals about that one.   Can they be interpreted as forewarning? Sure.  There was nothing explicit until the last announcement though and that announcement was really late for some people.  It still hasn’t completely penetrated.  I fielded two build assistance requests on the forum where there were people who STILL thought b450 would run zen3 when it came out.

[GDRRiley]

7 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

It has me wondering how much a bios chip really is

Having a bios chip in a removable socket would be great, but then you get people having no clue what firmware they have and ending up with their board not working. This also relies on people knowing enough to mess with finding bios files and knowing whats compatible, instead when the CPU manufacturer should be supporting the chipset when the board still uses the same socket.

I'd expect a few pennies for larger ones given how small they are.

I'm not saying I'd recommend it but I wouldn't be surprised if someone like asus ROG or any others top end like that were willing to send bigger chips with a sticker or something to go on the board that says its got a big bios.

[mr moose]

3 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

 I fielded two build assistance requests on the forum where there were people who STILL thought b450 would run zen3 when it came out.

 

And this is why it is so important.  We can;t just assume anyone is able to determine future support based on what has happened.  There is definitely not enough concrete data in any of the issues or from the company to determine that it wasn't going to happen.

[leadeater]

12 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

 It’s possible b450 will get this treatment for zen3.

Going by AMD's statement the current standing is they will not. That could change but right now their position is no.

 

12 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

There was nothing explicit until the last announcement though and that announcement was really late for some people.

I know that, the presiding problem for that is the delay of B550. There are two ways to look at that 1) People would have been buying B550 but not yet know B450 was not getting support (B450 support and B550 release being unlinked information releases) 2) During B550 announcement 400 series support was announced (what happened).

 

So if number 2 happened in August at the very least people would not having been buying B450 thinking Ryzen 4000 would be supported. If number 1 happened in August there would be people buying both chipsets, old and new, so it would have still been a problem and for those buying old even less chance of getting support. MSI Max board updates likely would never have happened either.

 

B550 has been nothing but a disaster.

 

12 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

There does appear to be an official and unofficial bios system.

Look where that has gotten things though, not that I don't support this and think it should be a board partner option again.

[Bombastinator]

15 minutes ago, tehxf said:

No, you are confusing what i have said and putting your own spin on it.

 

ALL I AM SAYING IS THAT YOU SHOULDNT BE SURPRISED THAT THEY HAVE DONE THIS.

 

SIMPLE AS THAT.

That wasn’t what you said though.  Your statement was not about lack of surprise. It was about how they are “just as bad”.  I also disagree about the shouldn’t because there were clearly mixed signals that were not being disavowed.  That’s a different thing though.  

[Bombastinator]

5 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Going by AMD's statement the current standing is they will not. That could change but right now their position is no.

 

I know that, the presiding problem for that is the delay of B550. There are two ways to look at that 1) People would have been buying B550 but not yet know B450 was not getting support (B450 support and B550 release being unlinked information releases) 2) During B550 announcement 400 series support was announced (what happened).

 

So if number 2 happened in August at the very least people would not having been buying B450 thinking Ryzen 4000 would be supported. If number 1 happened in August there would be people buying both chipsets, old and new, so it would have still been a problem and for those buying old even less chance of getting support. MSI Max board updates likely would never have happened either.

 

B550 has been nothing but a disaster.

 

Look where that has gotten things though, not that I don't support this and think it should be a board partner option again.

TL;DNR:

we are mostly in Agreement I think.  There are a few small differences.

Re: AMD’s statement.

 Currently true. 

 

re: B550

I’m not sure if “nothing but a disaster” is totally true.  There has been some disaster certainly.

the late release of b550 is causing consternation in the community.  Not all b450 buyers bought thinking zen3 would be supported.  People said zen3 will happen for b450 and AMD did not say no.  Now they are.  

 

re: official vs. unofficial.

oh the whole thing has made a mess.   Sometimes things need to be messy though.  It’s nice when they aren’t but things don’t always work out that way.
 

[Blademaster91]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

No that's not how it worked before, before some amount of time was done to work on the problem and that was done because B450 was the current generation chipset for that generation of CPUs and boards were shipped and in stock with BIOS versions that did not support Ryzen 3000. It also meant AMD had to supply CPU upgrade kits so people could actually do the BIOS upgrade. This work was then ported across to other chipsets, some on a 'Beta' basis and others even less than that (A320).

 

This work was not done immediately and neither was the decision made immediately.

 

Zen 3 is not even a released product yet and you're saying they knew enough about Ryzen 4000 in July 2019 and the AGESA binaries that they could have done all the work then and made the decision then? Right in the middle of their very important Ryzen 3000 and X570 launch? About a product still in design planning and prototyping.

 

So when exactly between now and July 2019 was the time they knew they had to or were going to drop 400 series support for Zen3?

Weren't the B550 boards supposed to be out last year or in February or March ? AMD still had enough time to tell board partners to change their marketing, and yeah I think the CPU upgrade program was kind of a mess just so you could update the BIOS, but I think it's better than no support at all. And the whole "forewarning" thing relies on people knowing of how the upgrade process worked on A320 or B350.

Although I think B550 is enough a mess that AMD should have just scrapped it because of the delays, and because the roadmaps show Zen 3 is the last cpu to use AM4 and DDR4, if B550 only gets Zen 3 4000 series it's a dead end chipset not worth buying.

[Bombastinator]

6 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

Weren't the B550 boards supposed to be in February or March ? AMD still had enough time to tell board partners to change their marketing, and yeah I think the CPU upgrade program was kind of a mess just so you could update the BIOS, but I think it's better than no support at all. And the whole "forewarning" thing relies on people knowing of how the upgrade process worked on A320 or B350.

Although I think B550 is enough a mess that AMD should have just scrapped it because of the delays, if B550 only gets Zen 3 4000 series it's a dead end chipset not worth buying.

Depends on how good zen3 turns out to be.  If it’s garbage like intel’s latest oh yeah. If not though it may be a thing.

[leadeater]

15 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

Weren't the B550 boards supposed to be out last year, or February or March?

Something like that, but I think it should have been August or September ideally, especially now the 400 series isn't getting the future CPU support.

 

15 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

And the whole "forewarning" thing relies on people knowing of how the upgrade process worked on A320 or B350.

That also applied to B450 and X470 too, and you would of known about it at the time. The problem was so much time went by, 400 series was still getting manufactured and sold and started coming with Ryzen 3000 supporting BIOS version and that's where it all started to go wrong. People who were affected did the BIOS update and later people didn't have to and as time went by these problems faded in our minds.

 

Without B550 you had to buy X570 or B450 and still remember the whole BIOS size thing, which a good amount of people wouldn't have experienced. My problem is those who do follow tech news, look at architecture developments, watch reviews that covered the problem then get all pissed off at a problem they knew about. The only new thing here is the decision AMD made, not the past problems that were known about.

 

That is why for me the problem is B550 not 400 series support getting dropped, 400 series getting dropped is crap but that's not really the root issue. Not in a conversation about buyers thinking they had future support then ended up not having it, it's only a factor within that situation caused by B550 delay.

[tehxf]

4 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

That wasn’t what you said though.  Your statement was not about lack of surprise. It was about how they are “just as bad”.  I also disagree about the shouldn’t because there were clearly mixed signals that were not being disavowed.  That’s a different thing though.  

No, You just cherry picked a comment off the back of a response. Original post is below... Its not about being worse or better, which was never the case or stated. IT WAS THAT AS A BUSINESS THEY ARE THE SAME, THEY ARE OUT TO MAKE MONEY. Jesus, the walls of text from someone that is clearly lacking basic comprehension skills. It was a simple statement and you have taken the last day to try and justify your opinion with irrelevant information.

 

On 5/11/2020 at 9:13 AM, tehxf said:

Cant have your cake and eat it too.

 

Intel being doing this for years...

 

[leadeater]

 

[Arika]

54 minutes ago, leadeater said:

 

this thumbnail could easily be an indie death metal enthusiast who only does covers...cover

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

 

At 9:09 he says exactly what I said earlier. 

 

Quote

The insinuation that you can support all the CPU's associated with that socket with all the chipsets associated with that socket is what got AMD into trouble"

 

Absolutely this is true, this is exactly why everyone was recommending B450 when the person asking wanted to trade up to zen3 in the future. 

 

It really doesn't matter if the bios issue is real or not (looks like it was wise not assume they canned support purely arbitrarily), the marketing was clearly there and no effort was made, beyond changing a few ambiguous words in marketing material, to properly educate consumers regarding that aforementioned support promise.

[leadeater]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

It really doesn't matter if the bios issue is real or not (looks like it was wise not assume they canned support purely arbitrarily), the marketing was clearly there and no effort was made, beyond changing a few ambiguous words in marketing material, to properly educate consumers regarding that aforementioned support promise.

Well the problem is I, and many others, don't care nor look at what is posted on Reddit so I never saw any of those AMD statements other than the original Supported Until 2020 that was originally used during the press event and press slides.

 

3 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Absolutely this is true, this is exactly why everyone was recommending B450 when the person asking wanted to trade up to zen3 in the future. 

Because there was no other option and seemly everyone forgot or ignored all the BIOS issues and CPU support problems or was relying on split BIOS support like before. The problem there is the signs existed that ongoing support is a problem due to the BIOS and that semi/non official but kind of official Beta BIOS support would happen again.

 

5 minutes ago, mr moose said:

properly educate consumers regarding that aforementioned support promise

Well guess what happened on the 7th. I get it you wanted the information sooner, but that's not what happened and I have no idea when it was actually decided to drop support and how much sooner this information could have been provided. A lot of this is largely reliant on the B550 situation. Just because AMD has known about a problem doesn't mean they have settled on what they are going to do about it and getting B550 ready takes precedence over putting engineering resources in to Zen 3 400 series support.

 

You just got what you asked for, just not as soon as you wanted.

[Blademaster91]

7 hours ago, leadeater said:

Something like that, but I think it should have been August or September ideally, especially now the 400 series isn't getting the future CPU support.

 

That also applied to B450 and X470 too, and you would of known about it at the time. The problem was so much time went by, 400 series was still getting manufactured and sold and started coming with Ryzen 3000 supporting BIOS version and that's where it all started to go wrong. People who were affected did the BIOS update and later people didn't have to and as time went by these problems faded in our minds.

 

Without B550 you had to buy X570 or B450 and still remember the whole BIOS size thing, which a good amount of people wouldn't have experienced. My problem is those who do follow tech news, look at architecture developments, watch reviews that covered the problem then get all pissed off at a problem they knew about. The only new thing here is the decision AMD made, not the past problems that were known about.

 

That is why for me the problem is B550 not 400 series support getting dropped, 400 series getting dropped is crap but that's not really the root issue. Not in a conversation about buyers thinking they had future support then ended up not having it, it's only a factor within that situation caused by B550 delay.

Except those who follow tech news, look at architectural developments, and watch reviews were all told B450 & X470 were a better value because you could expect Zen 3 support from it, I'm sure tons of people bought B450 based on build guides from reviewers. Of course people are pissed when everyone had the assumption and the marketing was there saying there would be support, with nothing from AMD saying otherwise right until B550 launches, this is the problem I have, AMD had months to figure it out with the delays and enough time to tell board partners to change marketing, instead of laying the blame on the consumer.

3 hours ago, tehxf said:

No, You just cherry picked a comment off the back of a response. Original post is below... Its not about being worse or better, which was never the case or stated. IT WAS THAT AS A BUSINESS THEY ARE THE SAME, THEY ARE OUT TO MAKE MONEY. Jesus, the walls of text from someone that is clearly lacking basic comprehension skills. It was a simple statement and you have taken the last day to try and justify your opinion with irrelevant information.

 

 

The excuse of "but Intel does it" still isn't a very good one, it doesn't make it any more right for AMD to do the same thing.

EDIT:  I understand they're out to make money like any other company I get that, and Intel is worse with their dropping support for chipsets because people found especially with Z270 newer CPU's could be run on it with modded bios.

[mr moose]

3 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Well the problem is I, and many others, don't care nor look at what is posted on Reddit so I never saw any of those AMD statements other than the original Supported Until 2020 that was originally used during the press event and press slides.

That doesn't mean the advertising wasn't out there. And even though GN concentrated on the reddit part, that's not the only advertising AMD do.

 

3 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Because there was no other option and seemly everyone forgot or ignored all the BIOS issues and CPU support problems or was relying on split BIOS support like before. The problem there is the signs existed that ongoing support is a problem due to the BIOS and that semi/non official but kind of official Beta BIOS support would happen again.

There were other options,  but they weren't considered because the commonly accreted knowledge was that zen 3 will work on B450. 

 

3 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Well guess what happened on the 7th. I get it you wanted the information sooner, but that's not what happened and I have no idea when it was actually decided to drop support and how much sooner this information could have been provided. A lot of this is largely reliant on the B550 situation. Just because AMD has known about a problem doesn't mean they have settled on what they are going to do about it and getting B550 ready takes precedence over putting engineering resources in to Zen 3 400 series support.

 

You just got what you asked for, just not as soon as you wanted.

 

It doesn't matter what happened with the B550.  They were still allowing the promotion of B450 being supported with zen3.   Regardless when they made that decision, enough information was clearly available to them to make it much earlier than they did.  And that is the problem. 

[mr moose]

3 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

 

The excuse of "but Intel does it" still isn't a very good one, it doesn't make it any more right for AMD to do the same thing.

I know it read that way, I read it that way too, but I don't think he meant it that way.