AMD prevents motherboard manufacturers from releasing beta BIOS for Ryzen 5000 on X370

[GDRRiley]

4 hours ago, LAwLz said:

No they don't.

The news here is that AMD are preventing motherboard manufacturers who has already developed the code from releasing BIOS updates.

 

Just because some boards were bad does not mean it is okay to prevent all of them from being updated.

You are also making generalizations about the boards here. My motherboard which is an X370 does not have a small BIOS chip. Why cater to the lowest common denominator? 

 

Why? We already have later motherboards that doesn't support zen1 and zen+.

Doesn't really make the landscape anymore confusing than it already is.

 

But you forgive AMD when they do a similar thing...

AMD makes the agesa code and gives it to the MB makers. thats 90% of the bios

 

because your going to make it more of a pain for the mass if only some X370 boards work on all zen chips but others end up only working on zen1-zen2 or zen2-3. that alone will make the used market for 300 boards a mess.

thats easier though, 5000 boards don't support CPUs launched before them

I don't forgive AMD, I want AMD to fix their possiton and lock it down to 300 should only support zen1-zen2, 400 boards may support every CPU (bios size), 500 support zen2 and zen3.

[GDRRiley]

2 hours ago, iCypticx said:

Well said! As a consumer I obviously agree with this but you've got to admit, they're probably making a lot of money from disabling zen 3 support on X370

AMD no, they make a few bucks on a chipset vs the hundreds an R9 chip can give them. MB makers though would be making maybe 10% on a board
if AMD was really after money they'd stop making GPUs on 7nm right now given how profitable zen is.

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, GDRRiley said:

AMD makes the agesa code and gives it to the MB makers. thats 90% of the bios

I'd love for you to post some source for that, because I am pretty sure you just assume that's true because you want it to be true. 

 

Think about this for a sec... If that was actually true then why did AMD develop this and then block a motherboard manufacturer from shipping it? 

[GDRRiley]

8 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I'd love for you to post some source for that, because I am pretty sure you just assume that's true because you want it to be true. 

 

Think about this for a sec... If that was actually true then why did AMD develop this and then block a motherboard manufacturer from shipping it? 

we watch as for some early 300 boards they started cutting away features, GUIs or dropping old CPU support to add newer ones because AGESAs eat up space on the old 16mb bios chips
I don't have an overall number given for every MB it will be different.

because early testing during development. and just because they made 1 version doesn't mean they want to constantly update and test it for all the chips

[DildorTheDecent]

4 hours ago, rcmaehl said:

The community will step up as always, still upsetting to here this officially condemmed though

Some dude modified a few of the AsRock X370 BIOS with Ryzen 5000 support: https://cloud.hkepc.com/index.php/s/4KqNNzRhvbH2prx

 

Brief article: https://www.techspot.com/news/89464-bootleg-firmware-adds-ryzen-5000-support-asrock-x370.html

Sauce: https://www.hkepc.com/20184/

[mariushm]

Yes, AGESA is like a binary blob that's supplied by AMD to manufacturers and they need to include it in the bios unmodified.

That AGESA increased in size with every new family/generation of processors added to it.

The mobo makers design interface, icons, overvclocking menus, maybe training programs for memory, overclocking features for overclockers, add driver binary blobs for peripherals (for example onboard wireless)

 

At some point, they reduced the AGESA size by removing support for the pre-zen based processors, those OEM only socket AM4 processors based on 28nm Bristol Ridge/Excavator

I think that at some point they also had to remove Ryzen 1000 series support to keep the size down, but then they optimized the AGESA to make it smaller without having to drop support for it - at least I remember some motherboards removing Ryzen 1xxx support then bringing it back.

 

The mobo manufacturers also resorted to changing their bioses, for example like MSI did making their bioses grayscale instead of full color ... until they released the models with MAX in the name which had 32 MB bioses instead of the standard 16 MB.

 

 

[rcmaehl]

31 minutes ago, DildorTheDecent said:

Some dude modified a few of the AsRock X370 BIOS with Ryzen 5000 support: https://cloud.hkepc.com/index.php/s/4KqNNzRhvbH2prx

 

Brief article: https://www.techspot.com/news/89464-bootleg-firmware-adds-ryzen-5000-support-asrock-x370.html

Sauce: https://www.hkepc.com/20184/

 

Also different versions of Asrock BIOS on Chiphell.com if you look hard enough. Think there's some for Asus or MSI X370 boards too.

[MageTank]

38 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I'd love for you to post some source for that, because I am pretty sure you just assume that's true because you want it to be true. 

 

Think about this for a sec... If that was actually true then why did AMD develop this and then block a motherboard manufacturer from shipping it? 

90% isn't as gross of an overestimate as one might think when it comes to AMD's BIOS structure. AGESA in and of itself stands for "AMD's Generic Encapsulated System Architecture" and it's the foundation for which all modern AMD BIOS's are built. It's for this reason that you have common structures across all vendors (CBS, PBS, etc). Board partners can define additional parameters such as which voltage rails to provide access to (VDDP for instance isn't available on all boards, but manufacturers can allow access to it as it's not a requirement to provide access to this rail in the base AGESA firmware). They can also add custom features such as ASUS's XMP Modes (1 being their "optimized" mode which sets additional secondary timings & tRFC values and 2 being legitimate default XMP/DOCP). MSI has a board explorer feature which includes a 3D topology of the board that users can use to locate various features & headers on their board, and I am sure other vendors add their own flavoring to the base AGESA revision to customize it to their liking.

 

Even the overclocking structure is dictated by AMD's AGESA hierarchy (as alluded to with my mention of CBS/PBS options) due to their strict control over PBO and the defined EDP/socket current limitations.

 

Now as for what dictates the sheer size of the BIOS, I'd wager a lot of that depends on the supported hardware the BIOS is targeting. For instance, you'll have EFI OPROM's for disk controllers (RAIDXpert2), EFI AMD GOP drivers (hopefully signed, but knowing AMD, probably not, lol), OPROM VBIOS's for each individual generation of APU's (Cezanne, Renoir, Picasso, Raven 1 and 2), EFI/OPROM UNDI drivers for network controller and the massive list of CPUID microcodes for every single processor you wish to support within the firmware and corresponding data to tell the firmware/board what to do with those processors (boost behavior/limits, feature-level support, etc).

 

I don't really have a source other than myself, I've tinkered around with the MSI B550 Unify X BIOS quite a bit in an attempt to achieve the lowest memory latency possible, so feel free to disregard my contribution to this discussion.

 

As for my thoughts on AMD not supporting Ryzen 5000 on 300 series boards, I support this move entirely. It took them far too long to get the 500 series boards stable with the 5000 series CPU's and even then people still complain about every other AGESA firmware update breaking something that was previously working (PBO frequency override, CBS NBIO Common Context Menu, etc). I still won't even use 1.2.0.1 on my B550 because the USB fix breaks my voltage menu, lol. If I make an adjustment in the base advanced OCing menu, it will not apply. I have to enter the AMD PBS Overclocking menu and match the settings identically in order for the settings to properly apply. Talk about tedious...

 

People expect too much out of companies when it comes to backwards compatibility. Nobody seems to have learned their lesson the last time they let AMD do this with AM2/AM3 and the dual-IMC DDR2/DDR3 boards that stifled processor improvement for years. Then we end up with AMD's genius redesign involving Bulldozer and everyone mocks AMD for not being able to catch up after they forced them to shoot themselves in the foot to cater to people that refuse to upgrade a platform every few years when they want to. This is partly AMD's fault for their false altruism trying to convince gamers they are on their side and that they care more about them than their bottom line, but still... We have to draw a line somewhere and stop the rest of you from holding back product innovation simply because you want the newest processors to be supported on 4 year old boards.

 

Those of you that think this decision should be entirely in the hands of board vendors need to understand how consumers think. When ASUS or MSI releases a BIOS update to support Zen 3 on X370 and something goes awry, do you think the majority of consumers are going to blame the board vendors? Or are they going to blame AMD? God forbid something goes wrong across multiple vendors, then AMD becomes the common denominator despite advising against support in the first place. They have an image to protect and if they want to dictate the environment in which their product is supported to their contracted board partners in order to ensure stability and overall great consumer experience, I am fine with that.

 

 

[Demonking]

7 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I don't think it's even worth convicting him that he got the world completely backwards.

If someone is so delusional that they truly believe that Intel never gets any flack for only supporting 2 generations of CPUs on their boards, then he is either lying, living in a parallel universe or doesn't really read many threads on this forum. Which is weird because Blademaster91 has literally said that people complain about Intel cutting chipset support sooner than they should before:

Damn you caught his ass in 4K 

[Sorenson]

I don’t think the argument that AMD wants to force older users to buy new motherboards for upgrade to new chips makes much sense.

 

AMD presumably makes a lot more money from selling CPUs than it does from the licensed motherboards. It would then make more business sense for AMD to lower the friction for existing am4 motherboard owners to upgrade their systems from old ryzen CPUs to new ones. 
 

I don’t think AMD would lock out the upgrade path without a good reason. However, that’s never stopped intel so maybe I’m wrong.

[Blademaster91]

20 hours ago, Arika S said:

Yes, the news section of this very forum, you're views seem to be completely swapped than how this forum normally operates

 

Intel = bad

AMD = good

 

People will rag on intel at any chance they get and defend AMD as hard as they can. 

There will always be people on both sides, but on this forum, AMD get WAY more passes than Intel

That doesn't seem to be the case here. 

People are giving possible reasons why AMD might be blocking the bios update= AMD gets called bad anyway.

Intel drops support after two generations= few complaints but not a huge uproar when Intel comes out with a new motherboard that uses the same damn socket.

9 hours ago, mr moose said:

It really wasn't that long ago when people where smashing Intel for only supporting two generations per motherboard. At the time I was trying to illustrate that AMD's platform "longevity" was really not as solid as people made out.  It seems as I predicted back then that the whole AM4 socket has turned out to be pretty much a repeat of the AM2+ and AM3 deal from a decade back.  I say that meaning the confusion that ensued and the various features that some support but that others don't etc etc.

 

I think the reality is that the tech economy moves so fast that even if AMD/Intel where on the ball 100%, there would still be issues they couldn't  100% mitigate.  Anyway, in this case I don't know why anyone would give AMD a pass though, it seems a very arbitrary and anti consumer move.

And I did criticize AMD for trying to drop support for B450, they took way too long to get B550 out so it was a rather sh*tty move for them to just drop compatibility and try to push everyone on something you couldn't buy yet. I'd like to see board manufacturers push a X370 beta bios because companies have put out beta bios before without the support of the CPU manufacturer, I think Asrock has at least. However X370 got 3 CPU upgrades, and there are other issues possibly preventing AMD from wanting to add microcode to X370 such as weak VRM's, but I blame motherboard manufacturers for that because Gamers Nexus pointed out when AMD wanted to drop B450 support the motherboard manufacturers didn't trust AMD Ryzen yet, so board specs and features still weren't up to what they should have been.

Spoiler

 

 

[LAwLz]

3 hours ago, GDRRiley said:

we watch as for some early 300 boards they started cutting away features, GUIs or dropping old CPU support to add newer ones because AGESAs eat up space on the old 16mb bios chips
I don't have an overall number given for every MB it will be different.

because early testing during development. and just because they made 1 version doesn't mean they want to constantly update and test it for all the chips

So no source?

It's just something you came up with and want to be true because your argument hinges on it?

 

Again, if what you claim is true (that 90% of the BIOS is just what AMD has developed and is AGESA code) then why did they develop it for X370 to begin with? Just so that they could tell motherboard manufacturers no, don't release this?

 

 

 

For those wondering, AGESA isn't just a single file. It's a collection of files. Each processor family has their own branch in the AGESA. 

When AMD ships a new platform, they don't just send out one massive AGESA file to motherboard vendors and say "add this, don't touch it". They send out updated (or not) Vbios files for each family of products.

For example when AMD says "version 0.0.7.0 supports Zen 2 based processors" they mean that their AGESA tree now has a branch for Zen 2 based processors. 

When motherboard manufacturers says they have "updated the AGESA" they haven't just dragged and dropped a new binary blob. They have probably updated tens of binary blobs for the different processor families.

 

How do I know this? BECAUSE AMD USED TO RELEASE THEIR AGESA CODE AS OPEN SOURCE!

I have literally looked at AGESA code from 2019 and it is nothing like what the people in this thread are describing because they are pulling shit out of their asses.

 

 

 

I wish people who didn't know what they were talking about wouldn't post at all... It just leads to misinformation.

 

I mean, if people would just stop and think for one second they would realize that different motherboards running the same AGESA version support different CPUs.

The MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon running AGESA 1.0.0.6 has a different list of supported CPUs than the Asus Prime X370-PRO running AGESA 1.0.0.6.

How do you explain that if we assume that AMD just gives motherboard vendors 90% of the BIOS in the form of the AGESA; and they aren't modify it?

 

 

 

My guess is that some motherboard manufacturer (ASRock and some others?) took the new AGESA for the 5000 series, added that branch to their X370 BIOS and then AMD got pissed.

 

Why AMD got pissed we don't know. My guess is that it would further cause confusion. AM4 is already a clusterfuck of a platform with a ton of incompatibilities depending on motherboard and BIOS version. One CPU might work on one board but not another from the same generation. One motherboard might support 3 generations of CPUs while another might only support 2.

AMD probably don't want to make the situation any worse than it already is.

This situation by the way, is one of the reasons why Intel changes socket so often. My guess is that AMD will start doing that too, or at the very least put up more restrictions that could shorten the lifespan of each motherboard.

 

They needed a good selling point for the platform and they sold everyone on the idea that it would be more upgradable than Intel. Then when it came time to actually support it they ran into a bunch of issues they didn't really want to deal with.

The people who thought AM4 would be a long lasting socket with a good upgrade path were kind of fleeced. It was at best slightly better than what Intel offered, and at worst the same, but the cost was this clusterfuck.

 

I don't think AMD think it was worth it and will not do it again. Especially not now when they are in the lead.

I don't think it's that big of a loss anyway. If you feel like you need to upgrade your processor every year then you are doing something wrong. Either you're not planning your build accordingly, or you just want to spend money recklessly for bragging rights.

If you ask me, people should only need to upgrade their CPU roughly every DDR generation, and if you are going to change memory then you will need to change motherboard as well.

[Blademaster91]

10 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I don't think it's even worth convicting him that he got the world completely backwards.

If someone is so delusional that they truly believe that Intel never gets any flack for only supporting 2 generations of CPUs on their boards, then he is either lying, living in a parallel universe or doesn't really read many threads on this forum. Which is weird because Blademaster91 has literally said that people complain about Intel cutting chipset support sooner than they should before:

Thats an interesting way to twist what i said about the B450 beta bios issue into something that fits your argument. The B450 beta bios issue did deserve a ton of criticism because AMD wanted to cut support after 2 CPU generations, forcing you to buy a more expensive motherboard because B550 was delayed. But X370 got 3 CPU upgrades for support, and people in this thread have put up some very reasonable points why AMD might not want to add microcode to X370.

10 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I have the complete opposite view of this forum. People are very quick to give AMD a pass and take their words in good faith, while people go on witch hunts to find reasons why Intel are bad and take everything they said in bad faith.

Also, why are you trying to push the narrative that these BIOS updates that are blocked are breaking boards? Nothing in the story indicates that they are. The fact that they are labeled as beta does not really meaning anything either other than them being in early development. If AMD hadn't forced motherboard manufacturers to stop distributing them then they would presumably stop being beta versions down the line.

I'm looking at reasons given such as low quality VRM's, which means motherboard makers would only be able to support the 6 and 8 core Ryzen 5000 cpu's, that would be a mess for anyone wanting to put a 12 or 16 core CPU into a X370 board, and AMD would be getting the blame for it. And support for Ryzen 1000 and 2000 series CPU's would have to be removed, along with removing BIOS features and having to change the BIOS UI because all the needed code won't fit into the BIOS chip.

10 hours ago, LAwLz said:

If we assume that "beta => bad => don't developing it" then no software would ever get released. The BIOSes that are currently used on release boards, including those that X370 launched with, were also beta versions once. It's just that they were further developed on instead of cut off by AMD.

Did I say beta software is bad? Have you ever had to deal with all the headaches AMD bios were when AMD Ryzen was still new with things like ram compatibility, or how there are still bugs in bios for X570 and B550 motherboards? For example, the USB port issue on X570 and B550 that causes some USB devices to lose connection.

I have to agree with @MageTank here, motherboard makers don't want to deal with buggy beta bios, AMD would still get blamed for it, and people would still complain even if there were a beta bios.

[GDRRiley]

22 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

So no source?

It's just something you came up with and want to be true because your argument hinges on it?

 

Again, if what you claim is true (that 90% of the BIOS is just what AMD has developed and is AGESA code) then why did they develop it for X370 to begin with? Just so that they could tell motherboard manufacturers no, don't release this?

 

For those wondering, AGESA isn't just a single file. It's a collection of files. Each processor family has their own branch in the AGESA. 

When AMD ships a new platform, they don't just send out one massive AGESA file to motherboard vendors and say "add this, don't touch it". They send out updated (or not) Vbios files for each family of products.

For example when AMD says "version 0.0.7.0 supports Zen 2 based processors" they mean that their AGESA tree now has a branch for Zen 2 based processors. 

When motherboard manufacturers says they have "updated the AGESA" they haven't just dragged and dropped a new binary blob. They have probably updated tens of binary blobs for the different processor families.

 

If you ask me, people should only need to upgrade their CPU roughly every DDR generation, and if you are going to change memory then you will need to change motherboard as well.

I don't have a hard source for that. because no one talks about their BIOS like that but on everything that had to be cut as more CPUs got added

My argument doesn't hinge on it. I'm talking about 1 reason.

likely for internal testing or because X370 isn't all that different from X470 or B450

No one said it was a single file. but the collection of them has grown massively

 

I've upgraded twice in DDR4 and I'm looking to do it 3 times. I moved from a 6600k to a 2700x, now looking to move to a 3950x/5900

A because DDR4 is going to be cheap compared to DDR5 for a while

B 5950x/3950x is plenty for me

C. I got a nice barley used B550 board I can use

[Demonking]

Some people in this thread can't just admit they AMD fanboys and call it a day, and revel in your hypocrisy.

[HenrySalayne]

8 hours ago, Demonking said:

Some people in this thread can't just admit they AMD fanboys and call it a day, and revel in your hypocrisy.

May I remind you there is still this contradiction:

theory: greedy AMD is screwing 300 series owners <--> fact: the profit margin on chipsets is close to nothing

 

[LAwLz]

10 hours ago, GDRRiley said:

I don't have a hard source for that. because no one talks about their BIOS like that but on everything that had to be cut as more CPUs got added

So you are just making assumptions. Got it.

 

10 hours ago, GDRRiley said:

No one said it was a single file. but the collection of them has grown massively

Yes they did. Aren't you reading the thread? Here is one person saying it just a couple of posts above yours.

14 hours ago, mariushm said:

Yes, AGESA is like a binary blob that's supplied by AMD to manufacturers and they need to include it in the bios unmodified.

 

 

In any case, you don't seem to understand what you are talking about so I would prefer if you didn't comment on it. It just leads to misinformation.

Here are your arguments for why AMD aren't bad for doing this:

1) AMD should be allowed to tell motherboard manufacturers what they can and can't do with their boards because AMD are the ones developing the AGESA, which according to you is "90% of the BIOS". This is wrong for multiple reasons. The AGESA isn't "90% of the BIOS". I don't have the source code for a modern BIOS but I would be surprised if the AGESA is even 50%. Hell, the PSP code takes up way more space than most AGESA code from what I've seen. It is also wrong because AGESA isn't just one thing. It varies in size depending on which processors the motherboard manufacturer choose to support.

 

2) It is okay for them to do this because "3x0 boards were mostly bad". I don't think this is true either. Even if it is true, it still doesn't justify blocking it on boards that weren't bad. There are plenty of good X370 boards out there. There are plenty of X370 boards I'd consider superior to the lower end boards with later chipsets. I mean, you can't tell me with a straight face that the ROG Crosshair VI Hero is a worse motherboard than the Asus Prime A520M-K, yet AMD aren't blocking anyone from putting a Ryzen 9 5950X on that board. Only the first board is being blocked. That also disproves the whole bullshit "they are doing it to protect people from putting high power CPUs on weak boards" argument I've seen people try to pull as well.

 

3) It would be a mess to only support some chips from a certain generation but not other chips. For example split so that half of the 5000 series chips are supported and half of the 3000 chips are supported. But they are already doing that! AMD aren't doing it (because AMD aren't the ones deciding which CPUs gets support on which motherboard, except now that they are strong-arming it), but motherboard manufacturers are.

We are already in the situation you are describing as too complicated.

 

[LAwLz]

33 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

May I remind you there is still this contradiction:

theory: greedy AMD is screwing 300 series owners <--> fact: the profit margin on chipsets is close to nothing

I don't think AMD are doing it to get more profits from chipsets.

I think AMD overpromised in the early days of AM4 in order to try and pursue people into buying the platform, and now that they are suppose to deliver on what customers were sold on they realize it's too complicated and are throwing in the towel.

They tried to sell Zen on future promises that they weren't sure on how to keep.

 

*In before people try and argue that they technically didn't promise anything so therefore they are in the clear. But what I mean is that people who bought the early AM4 motherboards thought they would get a long lasting platform because of the wording and statements from AMD. As it turned out, it was just barely better support than what Intel offers with their standard 2 generation support on motherboards.

If we go back and look at posts not just from the early days of AM4 but even just last year, we see a ton of people championing on how long lasting and future proof AM4 is or will be as one of the main reasons to go AMD over Intel. That selling point was way overpromised and underdelivered. 

[leadeater]

12 hours ago, LAwLz said:

So no source?

It's just something you came up with and want to be true because your argument hinges on it?

 

Covers quite a bit, long time since I've watched the whole thing but this time stamp covers some stuff motherboard vendors have had to do to fit everything required in to the BIOS chip on the motherboards. Also note that older generation Ryzen CPUs and chipsets don't actually support 32MB BIOS chips, I think covered in the video from memory, but rather the MB swaps chip partitions used depending on what CPU is installed. I don't fully remember but the situation is complex due to decisions made long before anyone really knew how things would play out both market adoption and AGESA versioning/size over time.

[mr moose]

12 hours ago, Blademaster91 said:

And I did criticize AMD for trying to drop support for B450,

 

I don't remember what your stance was on it, I wasn't singling you out in my post (at least I didn't mean to), I was just pointing out that many people were conveniently forgetting/ignoring AMD's track record with feature support and platform options in an attempt to slag off Intel.   Technology these days is so complex and needs to be moved at such a pace that there is no way any company can avoid things going wrong, whether it is exploits like spectre and meltdown, or if it is bios size incompatibilities.  All I am asking for is forewarning form the companies rather than all the marketing BS trying to sell you their wares then dropping the "sorry you can't do that" policy on us. 

 

 

 

[MageTank]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

So you are just making assumptions. Got it.

 

Yes they did. Aren't you reading the thread? Here is one person saying it just a couple of posts above yours.

 

 

In any case, you don't seem to understand what you are talking about so I would prefer if you didn't comment on it. It just leads to misinformation.

Here are your arguments for why AMD aren't bad for doing this:

1) AMD should be allowed to tell motherboard manufacturers what they can and can't do with their boards because AMD are the ones developing the AGESA, which according to you is "90% of the BIOS". This is wrong for multiple reasons. The AGESA isn't "90% of the BIOS". I don't have the source code for a modern BIOS but I would be surprised if the AGESA is even 50%. Hell, the PSP code takes up way more space than most AGESA code from what I've seen. It is also wrong because AGESA isn't just one thing. It varies in size depending on which processors the motherboard manufacturer choose to support.

 

2) It is okay for them to do this because "3x0 boards were mostly bad". I don't think this is true either. Even if it is true, it still doesn't justify blocking it on boards that weren't bad. There are plenty of good X370 boards out there. There are plenty of X370 boards I'd consider superior to the lower end boards with later chipsets. I mean, you can't tell me with a straight face that the ROG Crosshair VI Hero is a worse motherboard than the Asus Prime A520M-K, yet AMD aren't blocking anyone from putting a Ryzen 9 5950X on that board. Only the first board is being blocked. That also disproves the whole bullshit "they are doing it to protect people from putting high power CPUs on weak boards" argument I've seen people try to pull as well.

 

3) It would be a mess to only support some chips from a certain generation but not other chips. For example split so that half of the 5000 series chips are supported and half of the 3000 chips are supported. But they are already doing that! AMD aren't doing it (because AMD aren't the ones deciding which CPUs gets support on which motherboard, except now that they are strong-arming it), but motherboard manufacturers are.

We are already in the situation you are describing as too complicated.

 

Isn't everyone in this thread just making assumptions? People are assuming AMD is doing this out of greed or malice without questioning if they have valid motives for doing so. 

 

I gave you some insight on the breakdown of the bios structure, but if you legitimately need a breakdown of the AGESA size, that won't be hard to provide. AMIBCP is readily available online to view the structure of these bioses and UEFITool will show you the extracted ROM sizes. Still, I doubt you'll be satisfied knowing the sizes given the fact that you still believe AMD has no say in how their own products are to be supported in the wild on their own chipsets.

 

It would be one thing if it were purely an artificial limitation akin to Intel's coffee lake shenanigans, but until we know how the SMU works on X370 with Zen3, we can't be certain the experience will be stable, let alone perform on par with modern boards. If you think board partners should be allowed to roll the dice on that and AMD take the fall in the court of public opinion, then you're being naive. 

 

Feel free to go through my post history, I've been quite consistent with my views on this subject. As much grief as I give Intel for their artificial limitations, I still defended their right to do so much like I am doing for AMD. 

[Moonzy]

After reading some replies, it does make sense that they don't allow it, but still, meh

 

About Intel only limiting two generation per "socket", I'm actually fine with it

They didn't promise longevity

 

AMD on the other hand, iirc, supported am4 until 2020

Technically yes, the socket is still supported, but not allowing the CPU that launched that year to fit into the socket isn't what I took away from it though

Honestly I don't see much people that bought AMD first gen would buy zen 2, zen 3 however was about the time that they start looking to upgrade, only to realize they needed a new board anyways, making the longetivity of the socket a moot point

 

That said, I'm interested to see if AMD will pull the same stunt on am5, they either continue on with what they learnt from am4, or just go the Intel route

[Mark Kaine]

I think its a bit disingenuous to say the 16mb chips are "too small", AMD should have known this ,and also who's to say its *impossible* to make a BIOS with a smaller footprint, apparently motherboard manufacturers think it is possible?

 

So first AMD *allows* 16mb chips, but then *disallows* to actually use them?  Just a bit sus, heh.

 

They could have easily avoided this by calling the (allegdelly) incompatible CPUs AM4+, but decidedly decided against doing that probably because they feared the backlash of announcing such a thing.

 

"The BIOS chip is too small, we couldn't have possibly known this" is a much better excuse apparently, but for me certainly not sufficient and ill remember this when buying my next CPU .

 

 

[StDragon]

1 hour ago, Moonzy said:

That said, I'm interested to see if AMD will pull the same stunt on am5, they either continue in with what they learnt from am4, or just go the Intel route

It really depends on what new I/O technologies comes to market. DDR5 will be part of the AM5 platform with PCIe 5.0 possibly on roadmap sooner or later. The limiting factor will be with PCIe lanes, but that's a CPU arch issue if anything.

 

It's hard for me to imagine a whole lot of additional innovation above and beyond that for AM5. IMHO, I think AM5 might be a long running platform with fewer chipsets this time around; specifically with the chip shortages for the next 3 to 5 years. Not kidding about that last one, that's about how long it takes to build a plant and produce chips.

[LAwLz]

3 hours ago, MageTank said:

Isn't everyone in this thread just making assumptions? People are assuming AMD is doing this out of greed or malice without questioning if they have valid motives for doing so. 

I don't have any problem with assumptions being made.

I have a problem with people saying "this is how it is" when they are making assumptions without any actual knowledge on the subject.

 

I've made assumptions in this thread too, but I have made it clear when I do.

It's one thing to say:

5 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I would be surprised if the AGESA is even 50%. 

 and another to say:

22 hours ago, GDRRiley said:

AMD makes the agesa code and gives it to the MB makers. thats 90% of the bios

 

  

 

  

3 hours ago, MageTank said:

I gave you some insight on the breakdown of the bios structure, but if you legitimately need a breakdown of the AGESA size, that won't be hard to provide. AMIBCP is readily available online to view the structure of these bioses and UEFITool will show you the extracted ROM sizes. Still, I doubt you'll be satisfied knowing the sizes given the fact that you still believe AMD has no say in how their own products are to be supported in the wild on their own chipsets.

I think the AGESA size is kind of irrelevant because yes, I do think that AMD shouldn't tell motherboard vendors what they can and can't do with their motherboards.

Remember like a year ago when Intel started limiting memory speeds on their lower end motherboards? We had threads like these and people were absolutely flaming Intel for it, including our friend @GDRRiley.

Notice how nobody is saying "well it's Intel's chipset so they can do whatever they want with it"?

Then we have had threads like these where people are saying they bought an AMD processor because Intel had done things like block Gigabyte from releasing a BIOS with multiple CPU generations of support. Or this thread where people were praising ASRock for allowing overclocking Intel processors on non-Z motherboards.

 

If we go back even further then we can see a similar thing happened in 2015 when ASRock and MSI enabled base clock overclocking on Intel motherboards (allowing non-K processors to be overclocked).

Thread 1

Thread 2

Thread 3

Thread 4

Thread 5

 

 

This was before it was cool to hate Intel though so people aren't going #FuckIntel over it. People were more indifferent about Intel and as such just went "this is great news". Nobody said "oh I hope Intel blocks this because they have the right to do that and it might be bad for consumers".

 

 

 

3 hours ago, MageTank said:

It would be one thing if it were purely an artificial limitation akin to Intel's coffee lake shenanigans, but until we know how the SMU works on X370 with Zen3, we can't be certain the experience will be stable, let alone perform on par with modern boards. If you think board partners should be allowed to roll the dice on that and AMD take the fall in the court of public opinion, then you're being naive. 

Ehm... It's a beta BIOS. Of course we can't be sure how stable it is. It's still in development.

"It might be unstable in its current form" does not validate blocking it though. Blocking it only makes it so that development can't go on and improve. It's completely backwards logic going on in this thread.

If something might be unstable then what should happen is that it should be tested and further developed upon. Not abaondned because it wasn't 100% perflect and flawless right out of the gates.

 

Also, who says AMD would get the blame? That's a massive assumption that I have seen 0 evidence to support.

Let's be honest here, this BIOS update is only appealing to enthusiasts. Not the average Joe. If you are swapping your CPU then you are already an enthusiast. If you are not only swapping out your CPU but also reading BIOS patch notes and figuring out which BIOS supports which CPU then you are most likely in the camp that realize it is not AMD's fault if one CPU doesn't work with a specific motherboard with a specific BIOS version.

 

If the argument is that "people will see AM4 and then get mad at AMD when their AM4 processor doesn't work" then that's a really shit argument because that is exactly the situation we are already in. If someone buys a 5600X because it is an AM4 processor and tries to put it in an X370 motherboard because it has an AM4 socket then it won't work, and now AMD are blocking motherboard manufacturers from making it work. I honestly think it is mind blowing how much mental gymnastics are going on in this thread to try and defend AMD.

I think the explanation I came up with for why AMD are doing this is the only logical one. 

 

 

3 hours ago, MageTank said:

Feel free to go through my post history, I've been quite consistent with my views on this subject. As much grief as I give Intel for their artificial limitations, I still defended their right to do so much like I am doing for AMD. 

I don't like what you are doing right now.

"I don't defend their behavior, I defend their right to do what they are doing" is usually said by people who desperately want to defend a company without endorsing what the company is doing because they themselves deep down think it is wrong.

Do you think it is a good or bad thing for consumers and motherboard manufacturers that AMD are telling motherboard manufacturers that they are not allowed to add support for Ryzen 5000 series processors on X370 motherboards?

Another question would also be, do you think Intel would have gotten defended this hard if it was them that did something similar? Do you think people would have argued in good faith if it was Intel blocking certain processors from working on certain boards, or do you think the people who are currently arguing in good faith for AMD would have argued in bad faith if it was Intel?