Support Zen3 CPUs for older AM4 motherboards [Petition]

[EGN]

Just created a Petition "Continue support Zen3 CPUs for older AM4 motherboards [Let's make AMD great again]" on the Change.org

If you want to support - please follow this link http://chng.it/KDjKBw4c

[spartaman64]

ok you volunteer to go upgrade the memory chips on every b450 motherboard?

[Statik]

[nick name]

2 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

ok you volunteer to go upgrade the memory chips on every b450 motherboard?

Or orrrrrrr AMD could allow vendors to create a specific BIOS just for Ryzen 4000 CPUs on boards that can't support a BIOS for multiple CPU generations.  

[EGN]

It's totally clear that there is absolutely no technical reason to drop the support of older chipsets and breaking the promise. The capacity of flash memory chips cannot be a technical issue, because firmware can contain whatever CPU support list AMD want (f.e. AMD can easily drop support of Summit Ridge Generation to provide support of Vermeer with no problem).

[MartinKweh]

as it stands, im fine with the board switch. i mean, with the addition of PCIE Gen 4 support, thats already a big thing. Imagine future GPU and storage devices that can transfer data at the fastest state they can. AMD is already holding back a lot of stuff on their CPU so that they can support the AM4 a bit longer so i think its time they move on to a new chipset. 

[spartaman64]

19 minutes ago, nick name said:

Or orrrrrrr AMD could allow vendors to create a specific BIOS just for Ryzen 4000 CPUs on boards that can't support a BIOS for multiple CPU generations.  

im going to quote my response to the other thread

Quote

i mean they can probably remove cpu support for other cpus to add support for ryzen 4000 but that would create a massive headache. what if someone buys a ryzen 1700 and a b450 motherboard and it doesnt work and they search it up and it says they need to revert it back to an old bios version so they need to scramble to find someone with a ryzen 3000 or 4000 cpu they can borrow to downgrade their bios. and then later they get a ryzen 4600 and they put it in and then it doesnt work and they find out they need to update the bios. and probably 80% of consumers dont even know what a bios is let alone how to update it

 

also theres motherboard product lineups so theres the regular b450 tomahawk motherboard that dont support ryzen 3000 and need a bios update and you need to buy a ryzen 2000 cpu to perform the update on some of them. and then theres the b450 tomahawk max motherboard that support ryzen 3000 out of the box but not ryzen 4000 and then are they going to release a b450 tomahawk max ultra? that supports ryzen 4000 but not ryzen 1000. so you are going to have 3 different versions of every b450 motherboard just to denote out of the box compatibility 

 

and this is all assuming that clearing out ryzen 1000 makes enough room for ryzen 4000 what if theres more ryzen 4000 products or ryzen 4000 code takes up more space which is pretty likely then they would need to either remove some or all ryzen 2000 support also or only support some ryzen 4000 cpus

also lead brought this up

Quote

You forgot about APU support which is a bigger thing on B series chipsets as those are an architecture behind but carry the newer generation product naming. So if you drop Zen+ support then you can put in a Ryzen 3700 but not a Ryzen 3400G.

 

[mariushm]

There's a few reasons why AMD may not want to allow Ryzen 3rd gen on older boards.

 

* the lack of space on the bios chip to support so many generations

* the desire to be more consistent and guarantee pci-e 4.0 support for video card and first m.2 connector no matter what board you get

* the desire of motherboard manufacturers to have a refresh of their motherboards and make more money and not have to support motherboards that are a few years old anymore.

 

Let's go from the last point to the first.

It's quite possible most manufacturers want to move to B550 anyway, to have a full refresh of their board lineup... there's no onboard sound chips and network chips and mosfets used in VRMs that would be cheaper to buy in volume .... for example, moving from ALC887 and ALC892 to ALC1200/ALC1220 , from ancient 1gbps realtek to 2.5gbps, moving to new wifi ax standard etc

BUT, probably AMD thought hey, we're looking good right now, and we won't be blamed so much if we say future cpu won't be supported, buy the new stuff, and keep the motherboard manufacturers happy.

 

For second point ... don't discount AMD wanting to have 100% guarantee that all motherboards on which that Ryzen 4xxx will go will be capable of pci-e 4.0 to the first one or two pci-e x16 slots and to the m.2 connector.

If they enable support at some point for B450 boards or x470 boards, they may have complaints about not getting pci-e 4.0 working on them, or there may be various bugs that make pci-e 4.0 video cards blue screen or crash due to all kinds of issues.

 

Bios... yeah there's motherboard models which have big bioses which could accept support for Ryzen 3 as well, but most people are not smart enough to update their bios or to do research beforehand.

There's LOTS of motherboards that don't support bios flashback, so you need to update the bios with an older CPU before installing a new CPU.

AMD may not want the situation where a user buys a Ryzen 4xxx with a cheap 60$ B450 motherboard which comes with older bios, and now they can't update the bios unless they visit a friend or ask the store to do it for them.

Yeah, motherboard makers can make one bios for  Before Ryzen + Ryzen 1 and Ryzen 1+ , one bios for Ryzen 1+ Ryzen 2 , and one bios for Ryzen 2 and Ryzen 3.... but how confused will users buying these motherboards be?

What bios should you expect to receive with the motherboard when you buy it?

 

For example, maybe someone upgrades their CPU and donates their old Ryzen 1400 to a friend, and this friend goes to the store to buy a cheap B450 motherboard and some RAM.... he buys the motherboard only to find out the preinstalled bios only supports Ryzen 3xxx and Ryzen 4xxx processors and that he must pay 10-20$ for the shop to downgrade the board to Ryzen 1xxx support.

 

[chnapo]

1 hour ago, MartinKweh said:

as it stands, im fine with the board switch. i mean, with the addition of PCIE Gen 4 support, thats already a big thing. Imagine future GPU and storage devices that can transfer data at the fastest state they can. AMD is already holding back a lot of stuff on their CPU so that they can support the AM4 a bit longer so i think its time they move on to a new chipset. 

Hey, but remember that PCIe Gen 4 is compatible with older AM4 motherboards and was removed artificially the same way as support for Zen 3...

[EGN]

We're doing great! Keep it up!

 

Remember - every voice counts and every voice is important. So, if you haven't supported it, you can still do it on Change.org - http://chng.it/KDjKBw4c

 

[Haro]

3 minutes ago, EGN said:

We're doing great! Keep it up!

 

Do you know that this already happened ?

[EGN]

how to delete this post?

[EGN]

6 minutes ago, TofuHaroto said:

Do you know that this already happened ?

Unfortunately, AMD confirmed that some B450 boards will be supported and it depends on the vendor.

There is no info about X370 B350 and A320 supporting yet.

[Haro]

Just now, EGN said:

There is no info about X370 B350 and A320 supporting yet.

I don't know what part of "physically we can't do it " you don't understand

[EGN]

According to Robert Hallock (Technical Marketing lead for AMD consumer processors) post:
"AMD has no plans to introduce “Zen 3” architecture support for older chipsets. While we wish could enable full support for every processor on every chipset, the flash memory chips that store BIOS settings and support have capacity limitations. Given these limitations, and the unprecedented longevity of the AM4 socket, there will inevitably be a time and place where a transition to free up space is necessary—the AMD 500 Series chipsets are that time."

 

...it's totally clear that there is absolutely no technical reason to drop the support of older chipsets and breaking the promise. The capacity of flash memory chips cannot be a technical issue, because firmware can contain whatever CPU support list AMD want (f.e. AMD can easily drop support of Summit Ridge Generation to provide support of Vermeer with no problem).

[mariushm]

They went back and said they're gonna offer support to motherboard manufacturers so that they'll be able to make bioses which enable support for Zen 3 on B450 and x470 motherboards.

 

However, due to limitations, it's gonna be difficult and most likely if you update the bios to enable Zen3 support, you will lose support for Zen 2 processors and it can't be reverted back * (easily, i mean you could buy a new bios chip and a programmer and replace existing chip with your own bios with an older version of bios installed)

 

So because of this, and because noobs may download such bioses and install them when they don't have Zen3 processor and end up with unusable motherboards, you may have to go through some process (wizard, confirm you have a zen 3 cpu and so on) or a motherboard maker may not offer these bioses at all.