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

[GDRRiley]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

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"?

 

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".

intel in that case was segmenting the market for no reason, AMD is trying to save the consumer from more of a headache and limited the amount of pissed people who can't get a CPU+board to work.  other than iGPU performance (which matters quite a bit on a low end chipset) RAM OC doesn't give intel a 20% boost so no one understood why they did it.
While they can do whatever doesn't mean they should, and they bought back memory OC to all CPUs in 11th gen on most boards.

 

I don't find it cool to hate on a company but I've got my reasons for disliking some
 

[leadeater]

3 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

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

You mean allowed 32MB? 16MB is pretty well the going standard at the time. It's the 16MB chips that can't fit every Zen through to Zen3 CPU and APU.

 

3 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

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?

I don't think so. The actual processor designers and architects are making choices so far ahead and base quite a lot on existing standards. It's not a surprise at all that Zen1 had a 16MB limitation as it would have been designed to address the going standard BIOS chip size at the time and it's not like at the architectural and chip design stage they are going to know that specifically 5 odd years of platform support is going to be required and the product stack is going to be so many different models and archecture all in the same socket and platform.

 

It's really not that all of a surprising oversight at all. And that's without also factoring in the chipset and AGESA are likely different teams as well.

[MageTank]

4 minutes ago, Demonking said:

Yep, my rog hero VII was almost not gonna get zen 3 support, even though it has more than enough VRM and rom space for support.

I honestly don't think it's a VRM issue. An overbuilt VRM on Ryzen is utterly pointless with AMD's EDC and PPT limits in-place in terms of CPU overclocking short of pushing LN2. You have boards with massive 300A current limits, but a 142W PPT socket limit that you can't overcome. Even if you define a higher value using motherboard values instead of CPU values, something internal to the CPU still ends up limiting you to roughly the same power draw. I'd almost wager you could get away with using an A320 board and still not kill the VRM on a board, I just wouldn't be dumb enough to try it myself, lol.

 

I think the bigger issue is going to be SMU firmware implementation and trying to support it across the entire spectrum of CPU's. Looking at several different X570 boards, all of them support Zen +, Zen 2, Zen 3, but none that I could find support the original Zen CPU's. This includes the X570 Strix boards with the 256mb ROM's, so I highly doubt this is due to a limitation in ROM size. That may have mattered on some of the earlier budget Zen boards, but I just don't see that being the case for most of the more expensive boards with decent size EEPROM's.

 

Now with AMD not supporting Zen 1 on X570 boards, it makes sense for them not to support Zen 3 on X370 boards if this is in fact an SMU issue. You would likely be in a situation where you'd have to choose support for one other the other, not both. The fact that they are doing this both ways lends further credence to this theory than if they were to simply limit it one way.

[leadeater]

4 minutes ago, MageTank said:

but none that I could find support the original Zen CPU's

I would say that is related to Zen1 16MB address limit, unless I'm remember that wrong. I'm sure that is correct though so I don't think any of the motherboard makers want to have to deal with partitioning a 32MB chip in to 16MB address spaces just so Zen1 CPU can be put in to the board and not freak out.

[MageTank]

Just now, leadeater said:

I would say that is related to Zen1 16MB address limit, unless I'm remember that wrong. I'm sure that is correct though so I don't think any of the motherboard makers want to have to deal with partitioning a 32MB chip in to 16MB address spaces just so Zen1 CPU can be put in to the board and not freak out.

I recall hearing about that as well, I just don't remember where. Still, it's definitely possible for them to do it, and we all know that AGESA support for Zen 1 exists in 1.0.0.4 (which technically launched on X570 boards, meaning they had the AGESA foundation to support the CPU's), it's just curious as to why nobody decided to actually implement the support.

[Mark Kaine]

36 minutes ago, leadeater said:

You mean allowed 32MB? 16MB is pretty well the going standard at the time. It's the 16MB chips that can't fit every Zen through to Zen3 CPU and APU.

 

37 minutes ago, leadeater said:

I don't think so. The actual processor designers and architects are making choices so far ahead and base quite a lot on existing standards

The info is a bit difficult to find now, but as i stated my main issue is that it was stated AM4 would support all upcoming Ryzen generations , or at least it was suggested, so while I understand things change and not everything can be predicted, i wouldn't really have an issue with all of this if they would call those newer chips that apparently need bigger BIOS and are therefore incompatible with older boards not AM4, but instead AM4+ or similar.

The more i think about it the more baffling it gets tbh, AM4 boards ,incompatible with AM4 CPUs, who thought  thats a good idea?

 

 

 

[leadeater]

28 minutes ago, MageTank said:

I recall hearing about that as well, I just don't remember where. Still, it's definitely possible for them to do it, and we all know that AGESA support for Zen 1 exists in 1.0.0.4 (which technically launched on X570 boards, meaning they had the AGESA foundation to support the CPU's), it's just curious as to why nobody decided to actually implement the support.

Pretty sure it was in one of the GN videos. They can use 32MB chips it's just that from memory they were partitioned in to two 16MB address spaces. This method still has the down size of limiting the newer generation stuff to 16MB as well, since they were putting all the Zen/Zen+ stuff in to one section and the Zen2 and newer in the other.

 

Of course details subject to my memory of the situation so healthy dose of salt applied.

[MageTank]

6 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

 

The info is a bit difficult to find now, but as i stated my main issue is that it was stated AM4 would support all upcoming Ryzen generations , or at least it was suggested, so while I understand things change and not everything can be predicted, i wouldn't really have an issue with all of this if they would call those newer chips that apparently need bigger BIOS and are therefore incompatible with older boards not AM4, but instead AM4+ or similar.

The more i think about it the more baffling it gets tbh, AM4 boards ,incompatible with AM4 CPUs, who thought  thats a good idea?

 

 

 

I recall the original promise being support until 2020. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/amd-socket-am4-motherboards-support-until-2020, https://community.amd.com/t5/blogs/the-exciting-future-of-amd-socket-am4/ba-p/414125, https://www.overclock3d.net/news/cpu_mainboard/amd_reaffirms_commitment_to_am4_socket_until_2020/1. The use of the word "until" is very important, and they likely chose that word for a reason. Much like ISP's like to use the magical words "up to" to avoid the mighty reach of the FTC. They delivered on that promise, seeing as Zen 3 was released in Q4 of 2020 and wasn't readily available for purchase until 2021 (gotta love paper launches).

 

Nowhere did I ever see AMD suggest that X370 boards would support Zen 3 and you'll be hard pressed to find any mention of that from AMD online. Other customers made assumptions that it would, but AMD are not liable for assumptions made by other customers.

 

As for AM4 boards not supporting AM4 CPU's and the confusing nature that brings about, this is unfortunately not something new, not even to AMD. Socket AM2 supported Socket AM2+ CPU's, but not all AM2 boards allowed this because they didn't all support the downgrade to HTT 2.0 with an AM2+ CPU installed. We also saw this with AM3, where AM3 CPU's worked on older boards due to the CPU's dual IMC (DDR2 and DDR3 support) but old AM2 CPU's didn't work on AM3 boards due to the lack of a DDR3 IMC. Those were far confusing times. If you need a more recent example, Intel's LGA1151 would be the biggest example, where you have 1151 CPU's that physically fit (and work in older boards with a #2 pencil and some firmware shenanigans), but they blocked it from working for reasons unknown to this day.

[Mark Kaine]

@MageTank alright, point taken and thanks for the links , its something ive been trying to find, or even earlier stuff, although i distinctly remember that being a sales pitch back then (think i bought my first Ryzen in 2017) maybe it was not said by AMD directly.

 

 

Anyway, what does stop AMD to label things clearly, why not just call the new chipsets AM4+?  It would remove a lot of the confusion, and would  just be an all around pro consumer move ,im sure many would  appreciate.

 

And yes, i know intel does worse / similar, doesnt  mean AMD couldn't do better.

[MageTank]

1 hour ago, Mark Kaine said:

@MageTank alright, point taken and thanks for the links , its something ive been trying to find, or even earlier stuff, although i distinctly remember that being a sales pitch back then (think i bought my first Ryzen in 2017) maybe it was not said by AMD directly.

 

 

Anyway, what does stop AMD to label things clearly, why not just call the new chipsets AM4+?  It would remove a lot of the confusion, and would  just be an all around pro consumer move ,im sure many would  appreciate.

 

And yes, i know intel does worse / similar, doesnt  mean AMD couldn't do better.

I don't think nothing would stop them from doing it, though it would break away from their previous trend as their + nomenclature typically involved an increase in pin count on the socket itself for the newer CPU's. 

 

I think people should spend less time paying attention to the socket itself and more attention to chipset support as the socket can be deceptive. If we look at the sockets, TR4 vs TRX40 would look identical but the difference in chipset is what dictates the difference in compatibility, despite the CPU's physically fitting in the boards.

 

I don't know, I can't really think of the best way to name these without someone coming out of it confused, but there definitely needs to be an improvement.

[leadeater]

5 hours ago, MageTank said:

The use of the word "until" is very important, and they likely chose that word for a reason.

I find it interesting as in my world, as in work, support means support, as in firmware updates and other fault resolutions. It can also mean sale of but applies only to that actual product/generation, products go through phases of "support"; End of Sale, End of Life and End of Support.

 

End of Sale = will no longer sell it to you

End of Life = no longer manufacturing

End of Support = no support at all offered aka go away

 

In my work frame of mind and how I interact with hardware and support all that was promised by AMD was sale of, warranty replacement and firmware updates of products on AM4 platforms. That is extremely broad while also being very specific (per actual product generation), what that means is I wouldn't even question it in that setting if there were only 1 CPU generation for AM4 at all and sale of the CPUs and accompanying motherboards ceased after 3 years so long as they honored all other parts of support.

 

Differences in expectations is always amusing, not that I would treat AMD's statement in a consumer electronics show like the above but either way support is a wildly board thing.

[Blademaster91]

14 hours ago, mr moose said:

 

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. 

 

 

 

Ok yeah sorry I misunderstood your post then, I agree companies shouldn't be promising things or making a bunch of marketing claims they can't actually bring to the consumer because of any limitations, like bios chip size. But yeah AM4 has been a bit of a mess, especially if you aren't buying the high end chipset, even with the high end chipsets, AMD didn't allow PCI-e 4.0 on X470. I recall a reason being that extra board layers are needed for PCI-e 4.0 and most boards couldn't run 4.0, but i'm not sure about that myself and I think they could've allowed users to test a beta bios as PCI-e 4.0 isn't a necessary feature unless you're needing fast storage.

[Athan Immortal]

On 5/1/2021 at 2:27 PM, mariushm said:

I'm fine with it.

AMD never promised support for x370,

 

 

In 2017 they promised support for AM4 through 2020, that's when AMD 5000 was released. That's why I adopted early, because Intel had landlocked me into 1 generation updates. I can get up to a 3000 chip and that's great, but don't pretend like they "never promised" that's horseshit.

[Moonzy]

2 minutes ago, Athan Immortal said:

they promised support for AM4 through 2020

technically the socket is still supported

 

just not x370 chipset

[MageTank]

2 hours ago, Athan Immortal said:

In 2017 they promised support for AM4 through 2020, that's when AMD 5000 was released. That's why I adopted early, because Intel had landlocked me into 1 generation updates. I can get up to a 3000 chip and that's great, but don't pretend like they "never promised" that's horseshit.

They never used the word "through". They used the word "until". Multiple sources in my previous post showed this:

 

18 hours ago, MageTank said:

I recall the original promise being support until 2020. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/amd-socket-am4-motherboards-support-until-2020, https://community.amd.com/t5/blogs/the-exciting-future-of-amd-socket-am4/ba-p/414125, https://www.overclock3d.net/news/cpu_mainboard/amd_reaffirms_commitment_to_am4_socket_until_2020/1. The use of the word "until" is very important, and they likely chose that word for a reason. Much like ISP's like to use the magical words "up to" to avoid the mighty reach of the FTC. They delivered on that promise, seeing as Zen 3 was released in Q4 of 2020 and wasn't readily available for purchase until 2021 (gotta love paper launches).

 

Find me one quote from AMD where they themselves promised support through 2020. It's important that we do not misrepresent what they said to fit our narrative, regardless of how badly we want it to be true.

13 hours ago, leadeater said:

I find it interesting as in my world, as in work, support means support, as in firmware updates and other fault resolutions. It can also mean sale of but applies only to that actual product/generation, products go through phases of "support"; End of Sale, End of Life and End of Support.

 

End of Sale = will no longer sell it to you

End of Life = no longer manufacturing

End of Support = no support at all offered aka go away

 

In my work frame of mind and how I interact with hardware and support all that was promised by AMD was sale of, warranty replacement and firmware updates of products on AM4 platforms. That is extremely broad while also being very specific (per actual product generation), what that means is I wouldn't even question it in that setting if there were only 1 CPU generation for AM4 at all and sale of the CPUs and accompanying motherboards ceased after 3 years so long as they honored all other parts of support.

 

Differences in expectations is always amusing, not that I would treat AMD's statement in a consumer electronics show like the above but either way support is a wildly board thing.

I suppose it's possible one could interpret AMD's promise of "motherboard support until 2020" as a means of disputing X570's incompatibility with first gen Ryzen, depending on how they'd define "support", though it still doesn't help them with the claims they are making involving Zen 3 being promised when it was released in Q4 of 2020. I would agree with your definitions personally as they seem more literal and that is how I prefer to interpret things when at all possible. It's also how we handle our products at our company and it has worked well for us in terms of CSAT and overall business.

[LAwLz]

On 5/6/2021 at 6:13 PM, GDRRiley said:

I don't find it cool to hate on a company but I've got my reasons for disliking some

I think anyone who has read your posts for any extended period of time will have picked up that you strongly dislike one particular CPU manufacturer and strongly likes the competitor.

 

 

11 hours ago, Moonzy said:

technically the socket is still supported

 

just not x370 chipset

Yeah, that's what they ended up meaning.

People interpreted "support AM4 until 2020" as meaning "if I buy an AM4 motherboard, new processors released in 2020 will work on it" and AMD never corrected any of those misinterpretations (why would they? It made them sell more products and gave their rabid fans some ammunition against Intel).

Since AMD never specified that the chipsets would continue to get support for newer processors they "technically" didn't lie. They just gave people the wrong idea.

 

 

8 hours ago, MageTank said:

They never used the word "through". They used the word "until". Multiple sources in my previous post showed this:

Don't try and defend them, they knew what they were doing.

According to AMD themselves, they have supported AM4 throughout 2020. Yes, they might have said "until" but in AMD's own eyes they have supported it throughout 2020.

Releasing a product on the socket counts as "supporting it" in AMD's eyes. It's like what Moonzy said. See this blog post if you don't believe me:

Quote

Q: Will the “Zen 3” architecture be compatible with AMD Socket AM4?
A: Yes! AMD officially plans to support next-gen AMD Ryzen™ desktop processors, with the “Zen 3” architecture, on AMD X570 and B550 motherboards. 

 

The people who try and defend AMD by going "well technically they never promised support throughout 2020 so by definition they didn't lie, they were just vague and that mislead people" are not only misunderstanding the issue but also misunderstanding what AMD said and define as "support AM4".

 

In AMD's eyes, they have supported AM4 throughout 2020. "Supporting AM4" does not mean supporting AM4 motherboards or chipsets though. It only means they continued to release CPUs that used the physical AM4 socket.

AMD makes a clear distinction between chipset support and socket support. Most people think they are the same though, hence a lot of confusion.

[Moonzy]

1 minute ago, LAwLz said:

People interpreted "support AM4 until 2020" as meaning "if I buy an AM4 motherboard, new processors released in 2020 will work on it" and AMD never corrected any of those misinterpretations (why would they? It made them sell more products and gave their rabid fans some ammunition against Intel).

Since AMD never specified that the chipsets would continue to get support for newer processors they "technically" didn't lie. They were just being deceiving. 

i wouldn't go so far as to say that's their original intention

 

just that supporting AM4 for that many years turned out to be more than what they asked for

[LAwLz]

1 minute ago, Moonzy said:

i wouldn't go so far as to say that's their original intention

 

just that supporting AM4 for that many years turned out to be more than what they asked for

Deceiving might be the wrong word.

I think they made vague claims because they weren't sure what they were going to do or how to do it, and they never bothered to correct the misinterpretations people had (because that would be shooting themselves in the foot).

 

AMD: "We are going to support AM4 until 2020, or maybe not we'll see" (they didn't even promise it would be supported until 2020 since they said they would change it if they had to).

AMD fans: "oh wow! Does that mean I can buy a motherboard now and then when I buy your new CPU in 2020 I can just put it in the same motherboard?"

AMD: "..."

AMD fans: "That's great! I am totally going to recommend AMD CPUs now! You're so much better than Intel regarding this!"

AMD: "Thanks"

[thechinchinsong]

9 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

In AMD's eyes, they have supported AM4 throughout 2020. "Supporting AM4" does not mean supporting AM4 motherboards or chipsets though. It only means they continued to release CPUs that used the physical AM4 socket.

AMD makes a clear distinction between chipset support and socket support. Most people think they are the same though, hence a lot of confusion.

AMD knew full well what they were doing. People didn't like Intel's policy of socket changes so AMD made an appeal to consumers back in 2017 to be better than that. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a lot harder and more complicated for them and the consumers and in the end, once AMD was done with legal obligations to that statement, they stopped. Yeah, AMD's move here is anti-consumer and honestly, it doesn't matter if it was legal, it should leave a bad taste in consumers mouths. Unfortunately, that's not going to stop people from buying AMD just like complaining about Intel socket switches didn't stop people from buying Intel.

[LAwLz]

8 hours ago, MageTank said:

Find me one quote from AMD where they themselves promised support through 2020. It's important that we do not misrepresent what they said to fit our narrative, regardless of how badly we want it to be true.

21 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Don't try and defend them, they knew what they were doing.

According to AMD themselves, they have supported AM4 throughout 2020. Yes, they might have said "until" but in AMD's own eyes they have supported it throughout 2020.

Releasing a product on the socket counts as "supporting it" in AMD's eyes. It's like what Moonzy said. See this blog post if you don't believe me:

 

The people who try and defend AMD by going "well technically they never promised support throughout 2020 so by definition they didn't lie, they were just vague and that mislead people" are not only misunderstanding the issue but also misunderstanding what AMD said and define as "support AM4".

 

In AMD's eyes, they have supported AM4 throughout 2020. "Supporting AM4" does not mean supporting AM4 motherboards or chipsets though. It only means they continued to release CPUs that used the physical AM4 socket.

AMD makes a clear distinction between chipset support and socket support. Most people think they are the same though, hence a lot of confusion.

 

Also, they did say "through 2020".

They have since deleted all references to "through 2020".

 

You can still find posts where they say "through 2020" on the way back machine such as this one:

Quote

With the launch of the AM4 platform in 2016, we at AMD made a commitment to maintain and support socket AM4 through 2020.

 

[Vishera]

11 minutes ago, thechinchinsong said:

AMD knew full well what they were doing. People didn't like Intel's policy of socket changes so AMD made an appeal to consumers back in 2017 to be better than that. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a lot harder and more complicated for them and the consumers and in the end, once AMD was done with legal obligations to that statement, they stopped. Yeah, AMD's move here is anti-consumer and honestly, it doesn't matter if it was legal, it should leave a bad taste in consumers mouths. Unfortunately, that's not going to stop people from buying AMD just like complaining about Intel socket switches didn't stop people from buying Intel.

AMD have always had great support for their main sockets,

For example AM3 supports: Thuban,Zosma,Deneb,Propus,Heka,Callisto,Regor,Rana,Sargas,Bulldozer and Piledriver.

[GDRRiley]

27 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I think anyone who has read your posts for any extended period of time will have picked up that you strongly dislike one particular CPU manufacturer and strongly likes the competitor.confusion.

I don't strongly dislike intel, I'm excited to see what DG2 can bring but I am tired of their anti consumer moves like locking down OC, no ECC and increasing hot chip that aren't any faster and the price  climb.
I don't like AMDs price climb ether and zen1 had issues. Zen+ though has been great other than laptop APUs, but thats weird driver choice

[Demonking]

59 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

 

Also, they did say "through 2020".

They have since deleted all references to "through 2020".

 

You can still find posts where they say "through 2020" on the way back machine such as this one:

 

I'm loving you calling out these guys for their hypocrisy. AMD is not your friend, they'll screw you just like intel does, they tried it with not allowing zen 3 on 400 series boards.

[Blademaster91]

47 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

I don't strongly dislike intel, I'm excited to see what DG2 can bring but I am tired of their anti consumer moves like locking down OC, no ECC and increasing hot chip that aren't any faster and the price  climb.
I don't like AMDs price climb ether and zen1 had issues. Zen+ though has been great other than laptop APUs, but thats weird driver choice

I've been disappointed with Intel for the reasons you mentioned, and their changing the socket so much. I don't really get the stability reason, Intel spends more on their R&D than what AMD's entire market value is, I'm sure Intel could figure out how to support 3 CPU generations on one chipset.

I hope DG2 can at least match Nvidia and AMD on midrage GPU's, LTT has done a video on the price climb of GPU's, so has Gamers Nexus. And I think both Nvidia and AMD have been screwing over the consumer since the last mining boom with increasing prices but not significant jumps in performance like they have been doing with past cards, like the GTX 970 to GTX 1070.

And people want to call me an AMD fanboy but I want Alder Lake to be successful, AMD has gotten a bit too confident and increased prices with Ryzen 5000, competition gives everyone more choice and some strong competition would get AMD to lower their prices.

 

[thechinchinsong]

2 hours ago, Vishera said:

AMD have always had great support for their main sockets,

For example AM3 supports: Thuban,Zosma,Deneb,Propus,Heka,Callisto,Regor,Rana,Sargas,Bulldozer and Piledriver.

It helps when you take a break from making competitive chips in the middle of a socket's lifetime.