Monday, April 15th 2019
MSI Betrays AMD's Socket AM4 Longevity Promise: No Zen2 for 300-series?
Greedy motherboard vendors such as MSI want you to buy a new motherboard every two generations of processor for no sound reason at all. MSI is reportedly blocking support for 3rd generation Ryzen "Matisse" processors on its AMD 300-series chipset motherboards, including those based on high-end AMD X370 and OC-capable B350 chipsets. This would also put those who own $300 motherboards such as the X370 XPower out of luck. To recap, AMD announced on numerous occasions that it doesn't want to be a greedy clique like its competitor, by forcing motherboard upgrades and promised that socket AM4 motherboards will be backwards and forwards compatible with at least four generations of Ryzen processors, running all the way up to 2020.
This normally should mean that any 300-series motherboard must support 4th generation Ryzen processors with a simple BIOS update. Most 300-series motherboards, including from MSI, even ship with USB BIOS Flashback feature to help with forwards compatibility. Unfortunately, motherboard companies such as MSI care more about their bottom-lines than the consumer. In a support e-mail to an X370 XPower Titanium owner, MSI confirmed that it will not extend Zen 2 support to AMD 300-series. Other motherboard vendors could follow MSI's suit as a representative of another motherboard vendor, on condition of anonymity, told TechPowerUp that "Zen 2" processors have steeper electrical requirements that 300-series motherboards don't meet. This is an excuse similar to the one Intel gave for the planned obsolescence of its 100-series and 200-series chipsets, even as it was repeatedly proven that those motherboards can run and overclock 9th generation processors with custom firmware just fine. Would MSI care to explain whether a B450M PRO-M2 has a stronger VRM than an X370 XPower Titanium to warrant "Zen 2" support? Will all "Zen 2" processor SKUs have steep electrical requirements? Will there not be any SKUs with double-digit-Watt TDP ratings?
Update (16/04): MSI posted a clarification on this issue.
Source:
master3553 (Reddit)
This normally should mean that any 300-series motherboard must support 4th generation Ryzen processors with a simple BIOS update. Most 300-series motherboards, including from MSI, even ship with USB BIOS Flashback feature to help with forwards compatibility. Unfortunately, motherboard companies such as MSI care more about their bottom-lines than the consumer. In a support e-mail to an X370 XPower Titanium owner, MSI confirmed that it will not extend Zen 2 support to AMD 300-series. Other motherboard vendors could follow MSI's suit as a representative of another motherboard vendor, on condition of anonymity, told TechPowerUp that "Zen 2" processors have steeper electrical requirements that 300-series motherboards don't meet. This is an excuse similar to the one Intel gave for the planned obsolescence of its 100-series and 200-series chipsets, even as it was repeatedly proven that those motherboards can run and overclock 9th generation processors with custom firmware just fine. Would MSI care to explain whether a B450M PRO-M2 has a stronger VRM than an X370 XPower Titanium to warrant "Zen 2" support? Will all "Zen 2" processor SKUs have steep electrical requirements? Will there not be any SKUs with double-digit-Watt TDP ratings?
335 Comments on MSI Betrays AMD's Socket AM4 Longevity Promise: No Zen2 for 300-series?
www.tomshardware.com/news/motherboard-bios-update-amd-ryzen-3000-cpus,38872.html
My B350 has been updated to agesa 0072, therefore supports Zen2, also states on the link, the bios is 2MB larger. My bios went from 8MB to 10.xMB
Hurting own AMD mainboard sales might be part of the grand plan.
If they use the same physical element but rewire it, does that mean it's still supported? :-)
I mean: even the most dedicated AMD fan should at admit "socket supported until" really doesn't mean anything.
Was there ever a presentation slide or an interview where they simply said you'll be able to use any AM4 processor with any AM4 motherboard?
I'm not reading all of them. I might have missed it.To be honest, I don't really care. :-)
What matters for me is whether I'll be able to buy a replacement CPU for around 5 years after I buy a CPU (so ~7 years after a socket is launched). And that's usually true, isn't it? Both Intel and AMD keep making a limited choice of old CPUs to support their clients.
Today you can easily buy something for LGA1055 (which was replaced by 1050 in 2013).
"AGESA (AMD Generic Encapsulated Software Architecture) microcode version 0.0.7.x is allegedly designed to support the AMD Zen 2 processor microarchitecture and Ryzen 3000-series processors."
Weak.Can you point the exact part of file description which says "Zen 2"?
So isn't this whole "supports Zen 2" is built around interpretations and hopes?
For AMD as well it'd be bad PR, so they must do what they can to make sure MSI allows Zen2 compatibility wherever possible.
I do believe this is all built on hopes. And I'm asking for an official confirmation, which no one here can provide.But you're one of members of this forum who criticize OEMs for not investing more into AM4 platform. Do you still think AMD is a stable and safe partner for these companies? :-)
Hype, hopes, ideal world, should, maybe...
And BTW: what about other chipsets? Why are why only talking about X370?
Ryzen is a SoC - I'm sure many people bought the cheaper chipset assuming it won't compromise functionality or compatibility (and possibly also because "AMD experts" on this forum said that :-) ).
I've checked a few ASUS mobos and both B350 and A320 got the AGESA 0072 as well. Yet, they're never mentioned in "news". Maybe they won't support as many "upcoming CPUs" as X370 despite getting the same update?
My truly bad experience from MSI was from a nForce 650i SLI board almost a decade ago, it just died suddenly without any warnings.
So here we have some rational explanations to your comment :
1) You have some crazy leaks to share about AMD supporting Intel Comet Lake on their 300 series .
2) Zen 3 is coming sooner than what we thought .
3 ) You are blatantly trolling for some unkown reason .
Yeah doesn't take a phd to figure out there's only 1 rational explanation !
It's a very important piece of information, but I haven't seen an official confirmation. It seems you have. I'm simply asking for a source.
Isn't this what forums were invented for? Talking?
You can't read through people's mind, its impossible over internet and that's the fun sarcasm was made to confuse the stupid.
PS: not calling you stupid, just incase you didn't get the sarcasm again ;)
Board released 2012, most recent public BIOS released 2017, I am running a beta BIOS that was released last year with the Spectre patches (ask Gigabyte customer support and they will provide). 6 years of BIOS updates and counting.
I think I will do ASRock X570 Taichi mobo and 3700x, and retire for a solid 4-7 years.
"1.Support new Athlon 2xxGE series APU.
2.Update AMD AGESA to 0.0.7.2"
www.asrock.com/MB/AMD/X470%20Taichi/index.asp#BIOS
Don't know who would put an Athlon cpu on this motherboard, but you can now I guess. It all seems odd to go through a full firmware update just for the little Athlon cpus... all seems pretty hush-hush...
The author "black_zion" is not an AMD employee, right?
community.amd.com/thread/238039
Is this the only source that connects those AGESA and Zen 2? That's pretty weak.
If I posted a thread that this AGESA provides Zen 3 compatibility, would someone from AMD come to correct it? :-)