AMD to (potentially) add 5000 Series support to X370/B350 boards

[rcmaehl]

Summary

After AMD forced board partners to shelve their newer chip compatibility for 300 series boards, new evidence points towards it coming back

 

Quotes

Quote

AMD... is... looking at options to allow the [5000 series] chips to be used with 300-series motherboards. "It's definitely something we're working through..., and we're trying to figure out how to make it happen," David McAfee, AMD's Corporate VP...told Tom's Hardware. The issue is... an old problem for AMD that began almost two years ago. The company promised to support... AM4 for five years, but motherboard limitations ultimately restricted its ability to continue supporting every chip on every AM4 platform. Those limitations eventually led to [the] decision to limit... 5000 processors to only... 500-series motherboards, igniting a firestorm of criticism. That spurred the company to... compromise by supporting 400-series motherboards. The company still left support for 300-series motherboards off the table, an issue that has now reared its head again. We broached the topic when we sat down with McAfee to talk about the company's CES announcements. 

"I'm not joking when I say that — I've literally had three conversations on this very topic today... I'm talking about internal conversations within our engineering teams and planning teams to understand what options we have and what we can do, and how can we deliver the right experience for a 300-series motherboard user who wants to upgrade to a 5000-series processor," McAfee responded. "...It's certainly something that we're not just leaving on the side and ignoring;... And we want to try to do the right thing. So we're still working through it."

Due to the incredible number of processors supported with... AM4,... AMD has battled with a 16MB SPI ROM limitation. Motherboard vendors have even resorted to de-featuring BIOS interfaces, discarding fanciful GUIs and moving to simple text-based menus to expand the number of supported chips. "The other thing is between many of... 300-series motherboards and later boards..., there have been some fairly significant changes to the... product, the current delivery capability of motherboards, etc. So you're going to drop it in there [Ryzen 5950X], and it's not going to deliver the performance the product is capable of. Enthusiasts have already found workarounds and hacked firmware that allows Ryzen 5000 chips to run on unsupported 300-series motherboards, but given that those aren't supported configurations, it voids the warranty.

 

My thoughts

This would be a major plus for AMD, I'm sure I'm not the only one who felt gypped by AMD after originally being told my high-end X370 board wouldn't support all AM4 chips. Honestly, my X370 board already has a leaked official 5000 series beta BIOS I have saved for if I do upgrade, but I would really like for this option to be publicly and easily available with backing from AMD. Additionally, this would help with component pricing when people need it most. Component prices are still significantly higher than normal and opening up this path for older hardware will help the market.

 

Sources

Tom's Hardware (Quote Source)

[thechinchinsong]

It's nice that AMD finally decided to allow support after all this time. Better late than never I guess.

[AbydosOne]

The madlads at ASRock have at least one board that supports every AM4 CPU to date, just in case anyone wanted to know if it was technically possible.

 

As for me... I'm rocking a B350 and have been casually browsing eBay for a reasonable 3600XT or 3800XT, but if this is true, I might just hold off for a 5600X.

[rcmaehl]

3 minutes ago, AbydosOne said:

The madlads at ASRock have at least one board that supports every AM4 CPU to date, just in case anyone wanted to know if it was technically possible.

Both the X370 Professional Gaming and the X370 Taichi have 6.62 beta bioses available which are the stable for 5000 series, and 14 more of their boards have less stable beta bioses with support

[Vishera]

22 minutes ago, AbydosOne said:

The madlads at ASRock have at least one board that supports every AM4 CPU to date, just in case anyone wanted to know if it was technically possible.

I think that it's misleading,

Because my motherboard,a GIGABYTE B450 Gaming X also lists all AM4 CPUs on the support page.

But i suspect that in newer BIOS updates support was dropped for certain processors but not GIGABYTE and nor ASRock disclosed this.

 

Also,GIGABYTE and ASUS already added support for 5000 CPUs on 300 series boards:

https://www.techpowerup.com/288911/asus-and-gigabyte-enable-amd-ryzen-5000-series-processor-support-on-a320-chipsets

 

Quote

Given the huge number of AM4 CPUs, not all of them can be supported. To get around this, manufacturers appear to have dropped support for Bristol Ridge processors. These are pre-Ryzen AM4 APUs so it’s unlikely that support for them will be missed.

https://www.pcgamer.com/ryzen-5000-cpu-support-added-to-asus-and-gigabyte-a320-motherboards/

[Quackers101]

but how many BIOS issues will this give?

[RONOTHAN##]

1 hour ago, AbydosOne said:

The madlads at ASRock have at least one board that supports every AM4 CPU to date, just in case anyone wanted to know if it was technically possible.

 

Pretty sure it's easier to count the B450/X470 motherboards that don't have support every single AM4 CPU. 

 

It's still nice of them to add support for older X370 boards though. It would be nice to be able throw a 5800X in my old Crosshair VI Hero.

[AbydosOne]

13 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Pretty sure it's easier to count the B450/X470 motherboards that don't have support every single AM4 CPU. 

Now that you mention it, that does make sense. TBF my one other point of reference for B450 was the AsRockRack workstation board I want(ed) to use, but it doesn't support my 1600X, so I can't migrate to it once I update.

[Herman Mcpootis]

Well this would have been nice to have a year ago... But at least they're going through with it now

[Rauten]

Oh lord, please, YES.

 

I'm currently running a 3600 on an X370 ASUS C6H and I would love to slap a 5000 series chip in it in the future.
Maybe one of those new 5800X3D? 

 

If this pans out, it would make it the best motherboard purchase I've ever made.

[RejZoR]

This is only great if you already have the board and you want to upgrade to Ryzen 5000. When I was building a new system it sucked really hard because I wanted Ryzen 5000 and some whatever board. But you need to first upgrade the BIOS to even do it. Which means you need to know someone who can borrow a Ryzen 2000/3000 CPU just so you update the BIOS and then install Ryzen 5000. Since I didn't have anyone I had to buy a ridiculously expensive ASUS Strix X570-E that has CPU-less BIOS update feature (BIOS Flashback).

 

So, if you want to buy cheap X370 and Ryzen 5000 and build a new system from scratch, good luck with that. You'll have same sucky experience as I had. Not sure how X370 boards stand with flashback and how many new you can even get...

[Doobeedoo]

Good to see.

 

[Mark Kaine]

17 hours ago, Vishera said:

Also,GIGABYTE and ASUS already added support for 5000 CPUs on 300 series boards:

https://www.techpowerup.com/288911/asus-and-gigabyte-enable-amd-ryzen-5000-series-processor-support-on-a320-chipsets

 

Quote

Given the huge number of AM4 CPUs, not all of them can be supported. To get around this, manufacturers appear to have dropped support for Bristol Ridge processors. These are pre-Ryzen AM4 APUs so it’s unlikely that support for them will be missed.

https://www.pcgamer.com/ryzen-5000-cpu-support-added-to-asus-and-gigabyte-a320-motherboards/

i wonder if this is why the newest BIOS for my msi b350m mortar didn't support my 3600... i had to install the previous "beta" BIOS... (using an older cpu, mind)

 

I mean i doubt it, but i couldn't find concrete info about whats actually supported... pretty sure my 3600 should have been supported (but wasn't) 

 

MSI BIOS/support is a mess!

[Vishera]

1 hour ago, Mark Kaine said:

i wonder if this is why the newest BIOS for my msi b350m mortar didn't support my 3600... i had to install the previous "beta" BIOS... (using an older cpu, mind)

 

I mean i doubt it, but i couldn't find concrete info about whats actually supported... pretty sure my 3600 should have been supported (but wasn't) 

 

MSI BIOS/support is a mess!

Now i just noticed that GIGABYTE lists the CPUs supported in the latest BIOS version in their support page.

But MSI's list is completely useless since it doesn't list some CPUs that it does support,but lists CPUs that it no longer supports (It's outdated)..

 

Anyway it's unlikely that support for the 3600 was removed,but you are correct that MSI leaves it's customers in the dark.

[SeriousDad69]

Well yeah. If they don't, anyone with an x370 or b350 board will probably just buy Alder Lake because it's better for most use cases.

[cj09beira]

guess my upgrade zen + to zen 3 is back in business, with some luck maybe even zen 3 3d.

[Quackers101]

it also seems like AMD has stated future support on the AM5 platform. Although I hope there is plans for motherboard requirements to support such plans, as having the future in mind, with less issues.

[Giganthrax]

Seeing as they couldn't even make my 3700x work properly on my X370 pro, I'm doubtful as to how well this is going to turn out. 

[Mark Kaine]

On 1/7/2022 at 7:29 PM, Vishera said:

Anyway it's unlikely that support for the 3600 was removed,but you are correct that MSI leaves it's customers in the dark.

Thats the thing... my 3600 did *not* work on then newest bios (half a year ago or so) but my 2200G did! Thats how i could "downgrade" to the previous "beta" version which "supports" the 3600. Hence its totally possible they added support for newer gen (additionally to original gen/2nd gen) , no way to know other than trying it out i guess since MSI literally doesn't tell you anything plus the little they tell you likely isnt accurate... they apparently just copy paste a bunch of words and hope nobody notices lol...

[Mark Kaine]

On 1/8/2022 at 2:16 AM, SeriousDad69 said:

Well yeah. If they don't, anyone with an x370 or b350 board will probably just buy Alder Lake because it's better for most use cases.

actually i couldn't care less if Alderlake is "better" its not surprising it is since its a newer gen, but ill probably go Alderlake anyways because i had it with AMD shenanigans... simply.

 

Of course if i could slap a Ryzen 5000 in my b350 board things would look differently,  but alas... 

[Vishera]

8 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

actually i couldn't care less if Alderlake is "better" its not surprising it is since its a newer gen, but ill probably go Alderlake anyways because i had it with AMD shenanigans... simply.

 

Of course if i could slap a Ryzen 5000 in my b350 board things would look differently,  but alas... 

Considering the the high cost of Intel motherboards compared to AMD boards with the same features and the cost of cooling down Alder Lake CPUs the proce to performance is pretty bad.

On AMD you can buy a B450 Tomahawk slap a 5600X and overclock the hell outta it even on a budget cooler like a Hyper 212 Black Edition.

On Intel you can only overclock on Z690 boards,and their prices are not even close to the B450 boards,and when you use a NH-D15 and the CPU is still warm - That's really bad,

And the power consumption is also way higher so there is that...