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

[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.

[Moonzy]

I think so far, we can agree that trying to support multiple generations on a single chipset is more trouble than its worth

and that AMD's restriction can be justified based on this

 

the issue is with them giving a promise that they wont (or cant) keep

 

in the end i still think that if motherboard manufacturers thinks their board is stable enough to support those chips, they should be allowed to do it.

I'm on the boat that buys a board when I buy cpu anyways, because having more cpu than boards at home is kind of weird, so, meh.

[Kisai]

8 hours ago, Moonzy said:

I think so far, we can agree that trying to support multiple generations on a single chipset is more trouble than its worth

and that AMD's restriction can be justified based on this

 

the issue is with them giving a promise that they wont (or cant) keep

 

in the end i still think that if motherboard manufacturers thinks their board is stable enough to support those chips, they should be allowed to do it.

I'm on the boat that buys a board when I buy cpu anyways, because having more cpu than boards at home is kind of weird, so, meh.

 

DMI 3.0 x8 is basically a 8 PCIe 3.0 lane in bandwidth anyway. Maybe Intel should dispense with the idea that DMI is anything, move the Intel-specific part into the CPU, and just have 8 PCIe lanes directly served by a trimmed down PCH.

 

Meanwhile AMD:

AMD's PCH and Intel's PCH have the same bandwidth, except AMD's is Just straight up PCIe.

 

Is there any reason why Intel or AMD, other than the logical physical CPU shape and firmware, couldn't just put drop the CPU directly onto a motherboard that has a universal PCH on the PCIe bus?

 

Seems to me that theoretically two outcomes:

- Break the motherboard in half, where the CPU and RAM live, and where the PHY ports/slots live. Imagine being able to buy something that looks like an ITX board that you just attach to a bigger mATX, ATX or E-ATX board.

- Put the PCH itself into a "PCIe slot" that the physical USB 3.x ports, ethernet, wifi, bluetooth, are soldered to (the entire faceplate) so if a new USB 5.0 standard comes out, or 10GbE becomes a new standard you can just pull this part out and replace it with a newer PCH.

 

That said, if there really is nothing requiring a new chipset other than the physical chip needing more pins to access more power or pcie lanes, I think maybe the PCH should be on a 4-lane PCIe card. That would add one complexity, but it would also greatly remove the number of different board configurations that need to be made. Just make one good board in an ITX shape, attach the PCH to the edge of that to give you the plate with the ports on it, and then attach that to the PCIe Bus board, which has as many sata and usb/3.x/usb2.x ports as needed that use up PCIe lanes. I'd sure love to have a base plate that has 8 PCIe x16 slots, but the GPU's now consume 3 slot's worth of space, and it's almost a certainty that the two slots beneath the GPU will be unusable.

 

I remember back on XT/AT/386 chassis that used to have these punch-out plates for 9-pin and 25-pin serial/parallel ports on them, that would solve the problem of not having enough slots for the ports by allowing you to move the ports themselves to the front/rear of the chassis. Now it looks like if we want to do that with USB ports, we have to move the entire plate to a weirdly positioned plate, or move the GPU and have it connected via a 16-lane PCIe lane extender.

 

[kaiju_wars]

Supporting AM4 through 2020...

looks at calendar

It's 2021... I don't really give a shit then.

It's a corporation, not your friend.  It's not 2020, so I don't expect a single thing from any corporation what they promised years ago or what they promised for a year it no longer is.

It sucks, sure, but like... we know these corporations don't care.  I'll say my part on twitter sure, and maybe not even purchase AMD CPUs and motherboards, but ultimately that's all I can do.

[leadeater]

57 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Is there any reason why Intel or AMD, other than the logical physical CPU shape and firmware, couldn't just put drop the CPU directly onto a motherboard that has a universal PCH on the PCIe bus?

Yes, all the things to do with platform security, secure boot and the like. Unless that becomes an industry standard then chipsets can never be universal.

 

Basically fat chance that will happen as they are already based on industry standards with their own sprinkles on top that make them not cross compatible.

[Kisai]

16 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Yes, all the things to do with platform security, secure boot and the like. Unless that becomes an industry standard then chipsets can never be universal.

Yeah I get that, but that doesn't explain why we can't just have a straight up PCIe "PCH-less" system. I'd prefer a standard, but that's mainly so I don't need to choose from 100 different motherboards from 10 vendors, with two different cpu lines with another 5 chipsets each. Most of that stuff is just low-quality trash, and the MEBx stuff could just be moved to a chiplet on the cpu package.

 

Interesting thing to note. Every single Precision laptop I've ever opened at the office, has a "ME disabled" sticker in it. Yet they are still using Secure Boot. The latitudes actually have MEBx on the boot menu and Bios. Even more to the point, repaired units (eg the motherboard replaced,) still have the ME disabled. So that straight up tells me that Dell is actually sending the parts out this way. Or it's just disguised in the firmware and no laptop of that line has it enabled.

 

16 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Basically fat chance that will happen as they are already based on industry standards with their own sprinkles on top that make them not cross compatible.

It's not the biggest war I want to see fought, but back when Intel and AMD could use the same northbridge chips, often the third party chipsets from Acer and such were just garbage, but the Intel ones were solid. VIA and SiS also made some terrible chipsets as well.

 

 

[Arika]

1 hour ago, kaiju_wars said:

It sucks, sure, but like... we know these corporations don't care

i truely think some people in this thread do think AMD cares about them.

 

1 hour ago, kaiju_wars said:

Supporting AM4 through 2020...

looks at calendar

It's 2021... I don't really give a shit then.

the 5000 series was released in 2020 though.

[kaiju_wars]

3 minutes ago, Arika S said:

i truely think some people in this thread do think AMD cares about them.

 

the 5000 series was released in 2020 though.

Oh shit that's right.  I actually forgot.

At the same time, this doesn't excuse it, but I consider half the products that released in 2020 as a soft launch.  They released on paper, but with all the issues with production and the global recession, they weren't truly available.  

But since they were released in 2020, AMD should support it.  I just know they won't cause they don't care.

[leadeater]

15 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Yeah I get that, but that doesn't explain why we can't just have a straight up PCIe "PCH-less" system

You can, AMD EPYC has no PCH

[Vishera]

2 hours ago, leadeater said:

Unless that becomes an industry standard then chipsets can never be universal.

Chipsets used to be universal: Socket 5 , Socket 7

Both supported various models of both Intel P5 Pentium and AMD K5 processors.

[freeagent]

Ehh..

 

Honestly.. I probably wouldn't complain much. I might be a little disappointed if I were in your shoes but..

 

As an Intel user, it is expected that you buy a mobo to use for just one generation, that's it.. and we are generally ok with it. Yeah sure people grumble about it, but not all people. You guys got from Zen1 to Zen2, from quads to octos.. out of it.. not a bad run.. More than the average Intel user gets more often than not.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, Vishera said:

Chipsets used to be universal: Socket 5 , Socket 7

Both supported various models of both Intel P5 Pentium and AMD K5 processors.

Sort of, the other CPU vendors at the time were designing around being supported by Intel chipsets and specifications because it was a necessity to at the time. Even today AMD could make CPUs that would work with Z590 if given all the right technical information and specifications however I wouldn't call that universal support and more a chosen standard or design choice.

 

That's a bit like saying Thunderbolt was a universal standard and protocol before it was opened up by Intel and folded in to USB4. Anyone could use it so long as you used an Intel chipset or TB microcontroller, whereas basically any company can make their own USB microcontroller and any other system (CPU, SoC, microcontroller) would be able to connect to it and use it.

 

For a chipset to really be universal then any CPU or SoC should be able to connect to it by following published technical specifications with extensions on to that for feature support so new technology can be added and it's just down to the generation of the chipset and what it supports.

 

Basically this is ideological differences between standardizing on a given thing versus something being designed for the purpose of being universal, one is more picking a winner and becoming a de facto standard.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Vishera said:

Chipsets used to be universal: Socket 5 , Socket 7

Both supported various models of both Intel P5 Pentium and AMD K5 processors.

Jeez, that was a long time ago man. K5? 99.9% of the people reading this just googled it.

 

So this is back when firmware was super duper basic and for the lack of a better generic word, standardized. At a point in time when working together experimenting on the first release of X86 processors. I mean we weren't even running 200mhz yet.... Video interface was at it's basics yet. 

 

Yes, the dawn of X86. It was a collaboration to improve processing power.

Today it's a marketing gimic. 

[Beerzerker]

17 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.

Actually it's AM3+, not AM3 that fully supports all that.
There are a few AM3 boards that do but I believe it's limited to Zambezi only and if Vishera is part of that, only the 4, 6 and 8 series CPUs - Definitely not the 9 series.
Even most AM3+ boards can't properly support a 9 series Vishera without frying.

[GamerDude]

On 5/8/2021 at 9:15 PM, freeagent said:

Ehh..

 

Honestly.. I probably wouldn't complain much. I might be a little disappointed if I were in your shoes but..

 

As an Intel user, it is expected that you buy a mobo to use for just one generation, that's it.. and we are generally ok with it. Yeah sure people grumble about it, but not all people. You guys got from Zen1 to Zen2, from quads to octos.. out of it.. not a bad run.. More than the average Intel user gets more often than not.

Yeah, just look at the X370 chipset, I believe it support ZEN, ZEN+ and ZEN 2 CPU's, three iterations of AM4 CPUs.....show me any recent Intel chipset/mobo that supports three gens of Intel CPU's. I'd gotten an X570 mobo although I knew I was getting a 3900X, with just one more upgrade path in the 5000 series CPU's, I'm okay with that. But, it seems peeps would just hate an AMD chipset that supports up to 3 iterations of AMD CPU's , yet are okay with Intel chipset/mobo that supports only one iteration of CPU....perhaps two at best.

 

And no, I'm not so naive to believe everything AMD does is for the consumer, they're a profit making company after all.

[MageTank]

On 5/7/2021 at 5:32 PM, 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.

You mistake me pointing out the flaws with your argument as "defending AMD". Companies do not require my defense, nor would I feel inclined to defend them. They should be fighting to earn my business, not the other way around. You and I have had this conversation on this forum before, we know where each other stands on this, let's not pretend we are fanboys here.

 

Let's get back to breaking down what you're saying.

 

In "AMD's own eyes" (whatever that may mean), they claimed they would support until 2020. Not through, UNTIL. There is evidence of this in slides released well before Zen 3 was launched:

(Source: https://www.overclock3d.net/news/cpu_mainboard/amd_reaffirms_commitment_to_am4_socket_until_2020/1) - Posted in 2018

 

Call this defending AMD all you want, but I take literal definition very seriously regardless of the context. Any attempt to twist the words of another to further ones own narrative will earn my indignation, it's that simple. 

 

On 5/7/2021 at 5:32 PM, LAwLz said:

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:

I find it interesting that you quoted a source that I myself provided you, as if I haven't read it. I was unaware that I come across as someone that doesn't read the information they present to others. I'll have to work on that... Any who, you're correct in that I do not believe you, mostly because the source you provided is contradictory to your claims.

 

Here is the full quote from the source:

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. This will require a BIOS update. Specific details about this update will come at a later time, but we’re committed to keeping you up-to-date. We’ve also updated our official chipset/CPU support matrix to take future “Zen 3” processors into account (below)!

Feel free to point out how this information bolsters your claims that AMD is misguiding people with their words and fancy chart. The flaw of your argument is that you keep confusing socket support with chipset support as if they are the same thing. Let's take a look at Past MageTank's post: 

On 5/6/2021 at 1:51 PM, 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).

 

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.

In all 3 of those sources, none of them promised X370 supporting Zen 3. None of them even implied it.

 

If you want to go on a rant about how you feel it's wrong AMD isn't supporting these CPU's on these chipsets, by all means, grab that pitchfork and go to work. Just make sure you don't represent your feelings as facts as if what you "feel" they implied is somehow automatically the truth. That's a dangerous line of thinking and I suspect you are intelligent enough to understand that. 

On 5/7/2021 at 5:55 PM, 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:

Quote

Well butter my backside and call me a biscuit, I stand corrected on this one. Both Robert & Erin are in charge of marketing at AMD (Robert being in chart of Technical Marketing, Erin being in charge of Ryzen Desktop Product Marketing), hard to determine who is actually right, but I am going to assume both failed at marketing given their conflicting information. Still, none of their actual marketing materials references Zen 3 on older platforms, so you can argue what their intent is at the end of the day.

 

Definitely bums me out that I saw your second post after writing all this up about your first post, I am just too stubborn to delete it at this point, lol.

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, MageTank said:

You mistake me pointing out the flaws with your argument as "defending AMD". Companies do not require my defense, nor would I feel inclined to defend them. They should be fighting to earn my business, not the other way around. You and I have had this conversation on this forum before, we know where each other stands on this, let's not pretend we are fanboys here.

 

 

In "AMD's own eyes" (whatever that may mean), they claimed they would support until 2020. Not through, UNTIL. There is evidence of this in slides released well before Zen 3 was launched:

(Source: https://www.overclock3d.net/news/cpu_mainboard/amd_reaffirms_commitment_to_am4_socket_until_2020/1) - Posted in 2018

 

Call this defending AMD all you want, but I take literal definition very seriously regardless of the context. Any attempt to twist the words of another to further ones own narrative will earn my indignation, it's that simple. 

Except there is no flaw in my argument because they have used the word "through 2020" before. I even linked you to a now-deleted post from them where they said "through 2020".

But arguing semantics like "did they say through or until" misses the point because AMD themselves have said that they think they have supported AM4 through 2020. The problem is that "support AM4" just means "release products that uses AM4" to AMD. Ryzen 5000 uses the AM4 socket, so therefore they have supported it. They never said they would support the X370 chipset even though that's what people assumed they meant with "support AM4".

 

 

And when I say "AMD's own eyes" I mean, if you were to ask AMD's marketing team they would say they supported AM4 through 2020.

When AMD released the Ryzen 5000 series CPUs they said:

Quote

Historic upgradeability is what AMD Socket AM4 has been known for throughout its life, and that legacy continues—even now in 2020. So, if you’d like to know more about the AMD B550 chipset, please visit AMD.com. And if you’re interested in building a new gaming rig around AMD B550, motherboards will be available starting June 16th.

 

Again, when AMD say they "support AM4" they do not mean supporting some chipset. All they mean when they say "support AM4" is that they will or have released a product that uses the physical socket AM4 layout and will fit in it. Nothing more and nothing less.

They could have released an AM4 CPU that didn't work on any AM4 motherboard and they could still say they "supported AM4" because well, they kept releasing products for it. 

What AMD means when they say "support AM4" is not the same as what a lot of people think when they hear "support AM4".

AMD means "release products for AM4".

What a lot of people think it means is "AM4 motherboards will work with newer CPUs", which is not the case.

 

In the same article I just linked, AMD specifically says they are "supporting AM4 in 2020" and also that they are not going to make pre-500 series chipsets compatible with Ryzen 5000.

 

Again, AMD said they would support AM4 until 2020 (yes they have used the words "until 2020") and they have said they have "supported it in 2020". They never said anything about supporting x370 or any other chipset until 2020. AMD has made that distinction. AM4 and chipsets that uses AM4 are two separate things in AMD's eyes.

 

 

1 hour ago, MageTank said:

I find it interesting that you quoted a source that I myself provided you, as if I haven't read it. I was unaware that I come across as someone that doesn't read the information they present to others. I'll have to work on that... Any who, you're correct in that I do not believe you, mostly because the source you provided is contradictory to your claims.

 

Here is the full quote from the source:

-image-

Feel free to point out how this information bolsters your claims that AMD is misguiding people with their words and fancy chart. The flaw of your argument is that you keep confusing socket support with chipset support as if they are the same thing. Let's take a look at Past MageTank's post: 

Not sure what you are trying to prove here.

Are you trying to say that AMD were clear in their marketing and information and could not possibly have mislead anyone? The chart you are posting is from H2 2020. That's several years after they had given the impression to people that if they bought an AM4 motherboard "now" (in this case, 2017 or whatever) they they would be able to keep using that motherboard for products released in let's say 2019 or 2020.

 

 

1 hour ago, MageTank said:

In all 3 of those sources, none of them promised X370 supporting Zen 3. None of them even implied it.

But they did imply it.

It's easy to construct this as "it was obvious what they meant back then" now that we have these compatibility charts in hand today. But if we were to go back in time to when AMD first started talking about how long lived AM4 would be then I bet that people would go "yeah if I buy a motherboard today I'll just be able to upgrade my BIOS and install a new AM4 processor". Even the article you yourself posted from rockpapershotgun says:

Quote

AMD have confirmed once and for all that their AM4 motherboard platform will continue to receive support until the year 2020. This will come as excellent news for existing Ryzen users and incoming Ryzen+ buyers, as it means that any potential new motherboard purchase isn't about to go the way of every other tech purchase these days and be made redundant in six months. Good times. 

Well guess what, the new motherboards people purchased sometimes did end up being redundant because they don't support newer AM4 processors.

The entire article on rockpapershotgun echoes the same ideas that were widespread on this forum. Notice how the article talks about how x370 will be able to support future processors with BIOS updates, and the newer chipset the x470's strength is that it supports the new processors without needing a BIOS update and it comes with StoreMI?

If someone reads that article they will most likely get the impression that an x370 board would support Ryzen 5000, and the only difference between x370 and x470 were some minor things. Not that x370 and x470 would end up supporting very different products and would essentially be one or more generations apart.

 

 

 

My problem with this whole thing is that AM4 gave people the impression that AM4 motherboards, regardless of the chipset, would keep on being compatible with new products.

If you go back and read posts like the one from rockpapershotgun, or on this forum, you will see that people were convinced that their AM4 motherboards would keep supporting new CPUs for a long time. A lot of people used the "future proofness" of AM4 as a major reason to get AMD over Intel. AMD never bothered to clarify "hey, when we say AM4 we don't mean AM4 motherboards or chipsets, just the socket itself. Your board might end up not supporting future AM4 CPUs" because why would they? They benefited from the confusion and misinformation that was being spread. Instead they fanned the flames. That's why people got so upset and confused when AMD started announcing that the older AM4 motherboards would not support newer AM4 CPUs. Because people had been sold on the idea that they would.

 

If we had a time machine and went back to 2017 and told people "you know, that AM4 motherboard will not support CPUs released in 3 years" people would laugh at you. Yet, here we are.

That's my issue. AMD gave people the wrong impression and never bothered to correct expectations until they had to announce "hey, your AM4 motherboard won't work with these new AM4 CPUs", which was a shock to many people.

 

 

1 hour ago, MageTank said:

Well butter my backside and call me a biscuit, I stand corrected on this one. Both Robert & Erin are in charge of marketing at AMD (Robert being in chart of Technical Marketing, Erin being in charge of Ryzen Desktop Product Marketing), hard to determine who is actually right, but I am going to assume both failed at marketing given their conflicting information. Still, none of their actual marketing materials references Zen 3 on older platforms, so you can argue what their intent is at the end of the day.

 

Definitely bums me out that I saw your second post after writing all this up about your first post, I am just too stubborn to delete it at this point, lol.

I know that feel all too well.

It's worth pointing out that I am sure I have seen other posts from AMD which said "through 2020" but it's hard to find. As I said before, AMD have since deleted those posts so they are probably on the waybackmachine somewhere, but it's hard to find.

But I don't even think this matters because AM4 think they have supported AM4 in 2020. They have "just" dropped support for some chipsets.  To users that's the same thing but to AMD there is a difference.

 

Edit:

Found another time AMD claimed "through 2020".

At 19:50 in this interview with Overclockers UK, James Prior says:

Quote

that will all happen because we want to support AM4 through 2020 using existing infrastructure. in a perfect world it will be beautiful drop-in compatibility with just a BIOS flash. That's what we are aiming for.

He also talks about not needing to replace your motherboard during the interview, which implies that new CPUs released in 2020 will be supported on your (at the time) current motherboard, which was the 300 series chipsets.

[MageTank]

38 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Not sure what you are trying to prove here.

Are you trying to say that AMD were clear in their marketing and information and could not possibly have mislead anyone? The chart you are posting is from H2 2020. That's several years after they had given the impression to people that if they bought an AM4 motherboard "now" (in this case, 2017 or whatever) they they would be able to keep using that motherboard for products released in let's say 2019 or 2020.

If you would have asked me this prior to your super sleuthing detective work, I would have said no, on the grounds that they did not seem to be intentionally deceptive but instead were simply reckless in how they conveyed support from a technical perspective. In light of your recent sources showing a potential cover-up, it's hard not to see it as potentially misleading.

 

 The issue again stems from their decision to word it as "AM4" and not mention specific chipsets. If we are arguing specifics, the socket is still supported through 2020 (even now in 2021), while older AM4 chipsets are not. Still, I'll concede this as your recent digging has definitely left a sour taste in my mouth with how AMD has decided to remove their information. I am all for people making claims, but if you made a mistake with your wording, go back and notate that it was a mistake, don't delete it and hope nobody finds out.

 

42 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Again, when AMD say they "support AM4" they do not mean supporting some chipset. All they mean when they say "support AM4" is that they will or have released a product that uses the physical socket AM4 layout and will fit in it. Nothing more and nothing less.

They could have released an AM4 CPU that didn't work on any AM4 motherboard and they could still say they "supported AM4" because well, they kept releasing products for it. 

What AMD means when they say "support AM4" is not the same as what a lot of people think when they hear "support AM4".

AMD means "release products for AM4".

What a lot of people think it means is "AM4 motherboards will work with newer CPUs", which is not the case.

This is unfortunately the sad truth of our industry. Is it predatory marketing? That's up for the FTC to decide. If you are trying to make the point that AMD should have been more forthcoming in their advertising of product support, I am in favor of that as well, however I also do not believe they did anything deceitful as that would imply intent. These products were not out when X370 launched and when the majority of these statements were made. That said, if AMD got over their heads and failed to deliver on their promises, they should have owned up to that as well. This should be another lesson to consumers that companies are not your friends, and to never trust the marketing departments, they'll do anything to sell a product.

 

47 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

But they did imply it.

It's easy to construct this as "it was obvious what they meant back then" now that we have these compatibility charts in hand today. But if we were to go back in time to when AMD first started talking about how long lived AM4 would be then I bet that people would go "yeah if I buy a motherboard today I'll just be able to upgrade my BIOS and install a new AM4 processor". Even the article you yourself posted from rockpapershotgun says:

The articles I provided were from 2018 and well before Zen 3 was anything but a rumor. That was only a year after Zen 1's initial launch, so I'd say it's quite early in the grand scheme of AMD's plan. They were just bad at planning and too stubborn to admit it, lol.

 

49 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Well guess what, the new motherboards people purchased sometimes did end up being redundant because they don't support newer AM4 processors.

The entire article on rockpapershotgun echoes the same ideas that were widespread on this forum. Notice how the article talks about how x370 will be able to support future processors with BIOS updates, and the newer chipset the x470's strength is that it supports the new processors without needing a BIOS update and it comes with StoreMI?

If someone reads that article they will most likely get the impression that an x370 board would support Ryzen 5000, and the only difference between x370 and x470 were some minor things. Not that x370 and x470 would end up supporting very different products and would essentially be one or more generations apart.

That article was from 2018, if anything, the "newer processors" would have likely been in reference to Ryzen 3000, with 5000 being a stretch. If someone read that article back in 2018 and thought it would be compatible with Ryzen 5000, I'd accuse them of sorcery above all else. In all seriousness, I provided that source as a means of showing AMD's stance during that time (at least what they were publicly claiming to tech publications) as well to highlight that they promised nothing more than what they already delivered on (at least not in terms of that article, the threads you found afterwards require further explanation from AMD).

 

54 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

My problem with this whole thing is that AM4 gave people the impression that AM4 motherboards, regardless of the chipset, would keep on being compatible with new products.

If you go back and read posts like the one from rockpapershotgun, or on this forum, you will see that people were convinced that their AM4 motherboards would keep supporting new CPUs for a long time. A lot of people used the "future proofness" of AM4 as a major reason to get AMD over Intel. AMD never bothered to clarify "hey, when we say AM4 we don't mean AM4 motherboards or chipsets, just the socket itself. Your board might end up not supporting future AM4 CPUs" because why would they? They benefited from the confusion and misinformation that was being spread. Instead they fanned the flames. That's why people got so upset and confused when AMD started announcing that the older AM4 motherboards would not support newer AM4 CPUs. Because people had been sold on the idea that they would.

 

If we had a time machine and went back to 2017 and told people "you know, that AM4 motherboard will not support CPUs released in 3 years" people would laugh at you. Yet, here we are.

That's my issue. AMD gave people the wrong impression and never bothered to correct expectations until they had to announce "hey, your AM4 motherboard won't work with these new AM4 CPUs", which was a shock to many people.

I am not in disagreement with you here. While I do not believe AMD committed false advertisement by saying "AM4 will be supported until 2020" (or through, given your recent findings), it would be far more accurate to list chipset support for their generational CPU releases in terms of product support as that would be far more relevant to what customers need to know for their systems. Nobody cares about what the socket itself will support, go ask Intel fans what they think about LGA1151 and it's compatibility. They'd rather know from the start that X chipset won't be compatible with Y processors. I am all for this line of thinking, just as long as we aren't misrepresenting the words of one party simply because we may have interpreted them differently. Understand, we can't always help how people interpret what we say, though in those situations it's also up to us to clarify what we mean (and double down if need be), and that is where AMD failed here (and doubly so for going back and removing their words).

 

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

I know that feel all too well.

Nothing wrong with getting to be made an example of every now and then, lol. This forum could use a refresher on how to cite sources (and what to do when ultimately proven wrong) and you beat me at that game. Unlike AMD, I intend to let those words stand so that others might learn from my mistake.

 

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

It's worth pointing out that I am sure I have seen other posts from AMD which said "through 2020" but it's hard to find. As I said before, AMD have since deleted those posts so they are probably on the waybackmachine somewhere, but it's hard to find.

But I don't even think this matters because AM4 think they have supported AM4 in 2020. They have "just" dropped support for some chipsets.  To users that's the same thing but to AMD there is a difference.

I think that difference is exactly what will save AMD from any FTC interference should anything occur. They would argue that AM4 is not a chipset or specific motherboard, but rather the socket itself, and that the socket itself is still supported to this day. The fact that they have two different marketing managers providing conflicting information to consumers would be grounds for an investigation in and of itself but I doubt we'd see anything come of it.

[Athan Immortal]

On 5/7/2021 at 1:54 PM, MageTank said:

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

 

 

Find me one quote from AMD where they themselves promised support through 2020.

Happily. https://community.amd.com/community/gaming/blog/2019/05/27/socket-am4-platform-longevity-getting-ryzen-3000-ready

 

"With the launch of the AM4 platform in 2016, we at AMD made a commitment to maintain and support socket AM4 through 2020. During that time, we have continued to evolve the platform to offer new features, more performance, and greater functionality. With a single socket ranging from entry level to enthusiast class motherboards, consumers have the flexibility to start with the hardware that meets their needs today, and upgrade to their growing performance demands tomorrow.  "

 

Oh sorry. Did you try to click that link and AMD has removed it because it contains a narrative they want to bury? No problem. https://archive.is/uMFkA

[MageTank]

14 minutes ago, Athan Immortal said:

Happily. https://community.amd.com/community/gaming/blog/2019/05/27/socket-am4-platform-longevity-getting-ryzen-3000-ready

 

"With the launch of the AM4 platform in 2016, we at AMD made a commitment to maintain and support socket AM4 through 2020. During that time, we have continued to evolve the platform to offer new features, more performance, and greater functionality. With a single socket ranging from entry level to enthusiast class motherboards, consumers have the flexibility to start with the hardware that meets their needs today, and upgrade to their growing performance demands tomorrow.  "

 

Oh sorry. Did you try to click that link and AMD has removed it because it contains a narrative they want to bury? No problem. https://archive.is/uMFkA

You're a day late and a dollar short my good friend. @LAwLzbeat you to it and then some:

On 5/7/2021 at 5:55 PM, 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:

 

On 5/10/2021 at 11:08 AM, LAwLz said:

Edit:

Found another time AMD claimed "through 2020".

At 19:50 in this interview with Overclockers UK, James Prior says:

Quote

 

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:

 

He also talks about not needing to replace your motherboard during the interview, which implies that new CPUs released in 2020 will be supported on your (at the time) current motherboard, which was the 300 series chipsets.

If you are looking to catch up with where we are at (and my thoughts on the subject), my post is here:

 

[Athan Immortal]

4 minutes ago, MageTank said:

You're a day late and a dollar short my good friend. @LAwLzbeat you to it and then some:

If you are looking to catch up with where we are at (and my thoughts on the subject), my post is here:

 

Sorry bud, dinner was in the oven and I had just seen the notifications. Was only looking to give that link as I'd saved it from before when a similar argument had gone on on Reddit.

 

All best, have a good day.