AMD not supporting Zen3 on older motherboards :(

[Doobeedoo]

9 minutes ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

 

 

 

So end of the day, as I stated before I don't really think this is a *huge deal*, but there is very valid reasons to complain about lacking support when there is no realistic reason support cannot be added via bios (the bios chip being too small is straight BS, even if you had to pick and choose supported processor sets). Just like people complaining when Intel doesn't even change the pinout and forces a new motherboard series, ofc people complain.

 

I have no problem whatsoever (as discussed by me above) when AMD does decide to move to a new socket killing all support. I mean ofc they would. Why wouldn't they? I likewise appreciate that they have stayed on the same socket for so long. But since Zen 3 is the same socket as Zen 2, and apparently Zen 3 isn't going to be DDR5 exclusive or anything (since 500 series mobos are still supported) there is not a physically valid reason to support 500 series boards and not 400 series ones. I also have no problem saying that the boards must have certain features (like for example 125W processor support), but the indications are not that that is what AMD is doing here either. 

 

Finally the biggest issue as @Bombastinator rightly pointed out... B550 hasn't even arrived yet. If B550 had been out from the start of Zen2 that would be a very different situation. But they haven't been available so people would naturally be forced to buy B450 or X4/570, which means they get the double slap from not being able to choose in the first place. and X570 motherboards are flipping expensive. (until you get to the mid-high end where it isn't THAT much more than the equivalent, but the entire bottom of the market disappeared).

 

 

 

Again, if AMD was moving to AM5, none of these complaints are relevant. But they clearly are not since 500 series boards are supported at all. 

I don't see it as a huge deal too. Maybe it's mostly to OEMs not sure. They could say, make various BIOS packages for latest gen and the specific one you had, so it's an easy swap, or something like that. Just gives me bad taste that OEMs are the one that don't put effort into this.
As for B550 coming much later, that was odd indeed. Can't speak for prices everywhere, but I got the cheapest X570 the Aorus Elite and really price was great for it. 

[NumLock21]

Both Intel and AMD are here to make a profit, but they are not the only ones, even board manufactures too. So you can see why they are doing what they're currently doing. At least on Intel's side while they also screw the consumers with their platform upgrade and such at least they locked users with older boards out of newer cpus with a socket change, so they don't accidentally put the wrong CPU and damage everything. 

[Andk1987]

This about sums up why im pissed off about it too, lets be honest everyone assumed that at least the 4xx boards would be good until AMD switched over to DDR5 or a new socket.

 

[Doobeedoo]

6 minutes ago, Andk1987 said:

this is why everyone is up in arms, from what was said to hardware unboxed it seems that AMD will be locking 3xx/4xx chipsets out of being supported in the AGESA bios code they release to motherboard manufacturers like they did when they blocked PCIe 4 on compatible 4xx motherboards

Yeah, same deal as with PCIe thing, may and can work, but complicated way etc. and to avoid dealing with various issues. I still feel OEMs half ass on their side. Oh well. 

[Raptor_Fawr]

2 minutes ago, Andk1987 said:

This about sums up why im pissed off about it too, lets be honest everyone assumed that at least the 4xx boards would be good until AMD switched over to DDR5 or a new socket.

 

I can agree completely with Raffaele Esposito, I am in the same position

[Andk1987]

1 minute ago, NumLock21 said:

Both Intel and AMD are here to make a profit, but they are not the only ones, even board manufactures too. So you can see why they are doing what they're currently doing. At least on Intel's side while they also screw the consumers with their platform upgrade and such at least they locked users with older people out of newer cpus with a socket change, so they don't accidentally put the wrong CPU and damage everything. 

everyone knows that, companies are out to make money, thing is there isnt any real technical reason to not support 4xx boards with the new Zen3 chips though, and to top it off alot of people were practically forced into the older boards because AMD didnt release a b550 on Zen2 launch

[Neftex]

9 minutes ago, EChondo said:

Even though this would be the best option at the current moment, it'll unfortunately never happen.

 

Most vendors can't even update a single BIOS in under 3-4 months. There's no way they'll have 2-3 concurrent releases of a BIOS for a single motherboard.

how often do you think they update bioses? they release few in the first year of the board on the market and then pretty much never. whats so hard about freezing said old working bios in that state (which is what they already do) and releasing NEW bios without legacy support for the NEW gen? and repeat the same cycle

11 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

That's not practical for them. It would cost too much to maintain several different bios versions. Not to mention how do you even go about telling buyers what package to use depending on their CPU and it just gets very messy.

 

Ultimately the long term solution is A) motherboards need larger memory chips for the BIOS (which would make motherboards more expensive) and B) greater transparency about what is and isn't supported and for how long that support lasts.

see above + buyer only needs to care if they are buying old motherboard for new generation in which case its up to them to update bios (this is already the case atm)

[MageTank]

24 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

The difference between explicit and implicit.  Yeah, heard that one before.  Can and should are also different things.  

Where was it ever implied that the 400 series chipsets would support Zen 3? Unless I am missing something, I don't recall ever seeing that claim made.

 

23 minutes ago, Andk1987 said:

except there really isnt any reason to cut off the 4xx/3xx boards, 5xx will be the last AM4 boards, that would have been "the perfect time" to call it quits and cut support, not when youve just forced anyone to use the older revision chipset because they didnt release a B550 on zen2 launch, which made it impractical to purchase £200 mobo (even if you could find one) for a £190 cpu, and at the time it was thought that those boards would be compatible until the end of the AM4 socket support, which Zen3 is...... this is AMD making a hard cut because theyre caving into thier board partners to force everyones hand on buying B550 or X570 boards because they can, and people wont mind because likely Zen3 will put AMD very much on top of the competition and not just "close" like they are with Zen2

Do we know this for certain? Or are we just assuming? If AMD's sole excuse is the size of the EERPOM, then sure, it's a flimsy excuse, but are we absolutely certain there isn't stuff under the hood that simply wouldn't be compatible with 300/400 series chipsets? Let's say the older boards are physically compatible and you can get them to work, do we know what compromises need to be made in order to do so? Right now, all I see is speculation that AMD could make it work, but until we actually know more about Zen 3, nobody can know this for certain.

 

Also, there is no such thing as a "perfect time" to kill backwards compatibility. No matter when you choose to axe it, there will always be those that just bought the newest "last gen" board to complain about it. We even saw this when AM4 first launched and people were still buying 990FX boards, despite the massive improvement in performance and features that first gen Ryzen brought compared to Vishera.

 

21 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

There reason to cutoff support for X470/B450 is weird, sure the 16MB bios limitation is on the motherboard companies for cheaping out on flash chips, but if there could be enough cuts to be made to have zen 3000 cpu support on older boards,then I don't see why it can't be done with X470/B450 boards. The people that bought the B450 boards because B550 got delayed should be upset and give the same grief people give Intel for cutting chipset support sooner than they should.

I still don't subscribe to this belief, mostly because I don't buy things thinking I'll be upgrading while keeping the same platform, but I suppose I'll have to concede on this point. To me, if there was no mention that the 400 series supported newer processors, and I was fine buying it anyways, then that's the end of it. It's partly why I buy the best of whats available so that it lasts me longer in general, regardless of whether or not the manufacturer intends to allow me to upgrade processors while keeping the same board.

 

I guess to that end, we follow the moral stories of "Companies are not your friend" and "Lower your expectations, or else you'll be disappointed". 

25 minutes ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

 

 

 

So end of the day, as I stated before I don't really think this is a *huge deal*, but there is very valid reasons to complain about lacking support when there is no realistic reason support cannot be added via bios (the bios chip being too small is straight BS, even if you had to pick and choose supported processor sets). Just like people complaining when Intel doesn't even change the pinout and forces a new motherboard series, ofc people complain.

 

I have no problem whatsoever (as discussed by me above) when AMD does decide to move to a new socket killing all support. I mean ofc they would. Why wouldn't they? I likewise appreciate that they have stayed on the same socket for so long. But since Zen 3 is the same socket as Zen 2, and apparently Zen 3 isn't going to be DDR5 exclusive or anything (since 500 series mobos are still supported) there is not a physically valid reason to support 500 series boards and not 400 series ones. I also have no problem saying that the boards must have certain features (like for example 125W processor support), but the indications are not that that is what AMD is doing here either. 

 

Finally the biggest issue as @Bombastinator rightly pointed out... B550 hasn't even arrived yet. If B550 had been out from the start of Zen2 that would be a very different situation. But they haven't been available so people would naturally be forced to buy B450 or X4/570, which means they get the double slap from not being able to choose in the first place. and X570 motherboards are flipping expensive. (until you get to the mid-high end where it isn't THAT much more than the equivalent, but the entire bottom of the market disappeared).

 

 

 

Again, if AMD was moving to AM5, none of these complaints are relevant. But they clearly are not since 500 series boards are supported at all. 

These are all fair points. I am still going to wait and see what Zen 3 actually looks like, and reserve my judgement on the "why" aspect of them not supporting these on older chipsets until we have more information. 

 

While this might seem like a controversial opinion nowadays, I am fine with the concept of zero backwards compatibility, as long as it means strong generational improvements each and every release. If Zen 3 axes backwards compatibility and fails to deliver, then it will be interesting to see what impact that has on AMD's meteoric rise in market share.

[NumLock21]

29 minutes ago, Andk1987 said:

This about sums up why im pissed off about it too, lets be honest everyone assumed that at least the 4xx boards would be good until AMD switched over to DDR5 or a new socket.

 

Can you link the source to that post. Thanks!

Anyway never promise something you don't know what will happen in the future. It's dumb to promise your friend about something you don't know about. Besides B450 with Ryzen 3600 is a great combo, why the upgrade. Sometimes, one has to wonder, who are they building the system for, themselves or someone else. If you want to build it for yourself with the latest features, then keep it to yourself. Telling your friends about it, where they aren't into these things, then there is no point of telling them, just build them the best PC you can for their budget. PCIE 4.0 isn't a must have feature. By the time they need a upgrade it will be years later.

[Bitter]

Might board partners be able to enable this on higher end X470 boards which have the BIOS memory available for the larger AGESA needed or might they be able to axe older CPU's from support to enable support of newer CPU's to keep the BIOS file size within the chip memory limits? I recall an update to my Asus X470 or the MSI B450 removed support for older Athlon X4 CPU's, likely to make room for newer Zen 2 CPU's. I wouldn't mind seeing Zen/Zen+ CPU support culled to make room for Zen2+Zen3?

[MageTank]

5 minutes ago, Bitter said:

Might board partners be able to enable this on higher end X470 boards which have the BIOS memory available for the larger AGESA needed or might they be able to axe older CPU's from support to enable support of newer CPU's to keep the BIOS file size within the chip memory limits? I recall an update to my Asus X470 or the MSI B450 removed support for older Athlon X4 CPU's, likely to make room for newer Zen 2 CPU's. I wouldn't mind seeing Zen/Zen+ CPU support culled to make room for Zen2+Zen3?

It will depend entirely on what else these new CPUs are offering, and whether or not any newer features will be compatible with older boards, or if they will have to be disabled entirely. I imagine they could add it. I mean, ASRock went out of there way to allow overclocking on non-K CPU's in the past, so they can absolutely try. Whether or not AMD will put their foot down on it is an entirely different story.

[Bombastinator]

42 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

I think AMD also supports 2 gen of cpu per chipset or I’m wrong on that.

 

AMD didn’t really locked their Ryzen 3000 series cpu from those who have a B450 or x470 chipset board. It can still be used just like you have mention, since you got one. X570 just adds pcie 4. This on the other hand, will have to see what happens when people can get their hands on one. AFAIK b500 won’t be available until mid June 

I’m starting to be real glad I didn’t update yet.  I’m still running x97.  June huh?  I wonder if b550 will take 1600af.  Won’t find out till then. Me I’m waiting to find out what the capacity and requirements of the new consoles and GPUs are.  That doesn’t currently sound like it will happen till well after June.

[NumLock21]

13 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

I’m starting to be real glad I didn’t update yet.  I’m still running x97.  June huh?  I wonder if b550 will take 1600af.  Won’t find out till then. Me I’m waiting to find out what the capacity and requirements of the new consoles and GPUs are.  That doesn’t currently sound like it will happen till well after June.

While I like to keep up with the latest stuffs. I don't upgrade just because something new is out. Still using my X99 and I don't see the need to upgrade for quite some time, even though my system is 6 years old.

[Curufinwe_wins]

11 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

I’m starting to be real glad I didn’t update yet.  I’m still running x97.  June huh?  I wonder if b550 will take 1600af.  Won’t find out till then. Me I’m waiting to find out what the capacity and requirements of the new consoles and GPUs are.  That doesn’t currently sound like it will happen till well after June.

I might end up updating again soon. My x99 system motherboard failed for the 3rd time and I needed it running during the downtime (wasn't sure if it would be replaced this time. thank goodness for hilarious 5 year TUF warranty, I've gotten my money worth from it), so I ended up buying a 9700k in early March. Zen2 had come out, but I've said this in a lot of threads, but having an iGPU was a requirement after years of less than good experiences dealing with/troubleshooting systems without them.  So I might re-update with Zen3 or if they come out with a reasonably good 8C+ APU this time around (they already are doing it for mobile. com'on AMD give me what I want! hahaha

[Bombastinator]

57 minutes ago, Andk1987 said:

everyone knows that, companies are out to make money, thing is there isnt any real technical reason to not support 4xx boards with the new Zen3 chips though, and to top it off alot of people were practically forced into the older boards because AMD didnt release a b550 on Zen2 launch

Afaik the jury is still out on technical reasons.  I’d like to know more about that one, but it wouldn’t be my call.

[Bombastinator]

7 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

While I like to keep up with the latest stuffs. I don't upgrade just because something new is out. Still using my X99 and I don't see the need to upgrade for quite some time, even though my system is 6 years old.

I suspect such a thing may occur soon.  It hasn’t happened for me quite quite yet but there is a darkness in the corner with Console  logos on it and it is large.

[spartaman64]

lots of people are saying amd is doing this because they are greedy but do they even benefit from this? they dont make the motherboards i bet the board makers were complaining that if they made zen 3 compatible with 400 series boards then they won't make much sales

[Andk1987]

the salt is coming in fast on Reddit

 

https://old.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/gfub3b/robert_hallock_amd_it_seems_hostile_and_abusive/

[pas008]

21 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

lots of people are saying amd is doing this because they are greedy but do they even benefit from this? they dont make the motherboards i bet the board makers were complaining that if they made zen 3 compatible with 400 series boards then they won't make much sales

not to mention resources for stability testing for aibs and alot of backtracking which is kinda futile for moving forward

 

i dont understand the cry on this, NEW technology moves forward which needs NEW things at times

its like everyone whining about this is crying over a couple or few hundred dollars so they can have their cake and eat it too

if you want NEW shit, you have to buy NEW shit accessories/etc too

 

these people crying about this is reason why we cant move forward faster

and this guff about features like pcie4 is hilarious, just because you want it? for what? a gpu down the road? that doesnt exist yet, just like other cpus/ram/etc

when you bought product X you bought it for your needs/wants and possible additions which were never promised

 

[NumLock21]

4 hours ago, Morgan MLGman said:

Well, according to AMD's latest slide my configuration also isn't "supported":


And yet I'm happily running a 3700X on an X370 board with 3600MHz memory.

That slide is by AMD, why do some other site add their own watermark. it's stupid!

[Bombastinator]

42 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

lots of people are saying amd is doing this because they are greedy but do they even benefit from this? they dont make the motherboards i bet the board makers were complaining that if they made zen 3 compatible with 400 series boards then they won't make much sales

I kind of concur here.  What I do not think they should do is further delay or hamstring a product in order to fix this problem.  Spending some coding time as available getting an AGESA out to board creators that will fit in a b450 or b450 max bios seems like the minimally decent thing to do though. It’s possible that even that isn’t possible I suppose.  

[NumLock21]

57 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

I suspect such a thing may occur soon.  It hasn’t happened for me quite quite yet but there is a darkness in the corner with Console  logos on it and it is large.

So you're upgrading just so you can be ahead of current gaming consoles?

[Hilltrot]

So all those people who suggested a certain B450 board for $2000 builds will eat crow?

[Bombastinator]

25 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

So you're upgrading just so you can be ahead of current gaming consoles?

I’m not upgrading yet at all.  I originally started reading this forum because I thought such a thing would likely be necessary if I wanted to continue to play recently released games.  It’s what happened the last time there was a major console update.  The only thing known at the time was the new consoles were slow 8/16 and game creators generally write to the maximum capacity of the hardware in the fastest and therefor sloppiest way possible.  This meant they would utilize all the cores but do it in a slap dash way that might make such a game only work well if that many cores were actually present.  GPU was unknown.
 

my financial circumstances have been changed drastically so it is possible I will not be able to upgrade at all.  There’s been a lot of peanut butter in my life lately.  Computers are a luxury for me.  One that may wind up being outside of my capacity.  New release games don’t matter as much.  I’ve thought about selling what I got  and hauling my 12 year old backup Qquadro out of the basement.  These days mostly I’m keeping up just to keep up.  

[Morgan MLGman]

39 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

That slide is by AMD, why do some other site add their own watermark. it's stupid!

True, it was taken from a quick google search so I'm sorry I didn't find the original one