Monday, July 8th 2019
BIOS ROM Size Limitations Almost Derail AMD's Zen2 Backwards Compatibility Promise
AMD succeeded in delivering on its backwards-compatibility promise for the 3rd generation Ryzen processors on motherboards based on AMD 300-series and 400-series chipsets. This promise was very close to being derailed suggests a community thread on MSI forums. According to MSI representatives active on the forum, the capacity of the SPI flash EEPROM chip that stores the motherboard UEFI firmware is woefully limited to cram in the AGESA ComboAM4 1.0.0.3a microcode on many of its motherboards.
The company had to make several changes to its UEFI BIOS package that's currently being circulated as a "beta," to accommodate support for 3rd generation Ryzen processors along with AGESA ComboAM4 1.0.0.3a. First, it had to kick out support for A-series and Athlon processors based on the 28 nm "Bristol Ridge" silicon. Second, it had to [and this is a big one], kick the RAID module, breaking SATA RAID on many of its motherboards. Third, it had to replace its feature-rich Click BIOS 5 setup program with a barebones "GSE Lite" Click BIOS program, which lacks many of the features of the original program, and comes with a dull, low-resolution UI. This program still includes some essential MSI-exclusive features such as A-XMP (which translates Intel XMP profiles to AMD-compatible settings), Smart Fan, and M-Flash.
The scary part? Many other motherboard brands appear to be using 16-megabyte EEPROMs on their older socket AM4 motherboards. These companies are bound to run into similar ROM capacity issues unless they keep their UEFI setup programs lightweight. Motherboards based on the latest X570 chipset feature 32-megabyte EEPROMs. The AMD X570 chipset lacks support for not just "Bristol Ridge," but also first-generation Ryzen "Summit Ridge" and "Raven Ridge" processors.
We recommend that unless you literally possess a 3rd generation Ryzen processor, do not update the BIOS of your older socket AM4 motherboard. You may risk losing features and break your RAID volumes. Find out the latest version of BIOS that has the classic AGESA PinnaclePI 1.0.0.6 microcode, and use that instead.
Source:
MSI
The company had to make several changes to its UEFI BIOS package that's currently being circulated as a "beta," to accommodate support for 3rd generation Ryzen processors along with AGESA ComboAM4 1.0.0.3a. First, it had to kick out support for A-series and Athlon processors based on the 28 nm "Bristol Ridge" silicon. Second, it had to [and this is a big one], kick the RAID module, breaking SATA RAID on many of its motherboards. Third, it had to replace its feature-rich Click BIOS 5 setup program with a barebones "GSE Lite" Click BIOS program, which lacks many of the features of the original program, and comes with a dull, low-resolution UI. This program still includes some essential MSI-exclusive features such as A-XMP (which translates Intel XMP profiles to AMD-compatible settings), Smart Fan, and M-Flash.
We recommend that unless you literally possess a 3rd generation Ryzen processor, do not update the BIOS of your older socket AM4 motherboard. You may risk losing features and break your RAID volumes. Find out the latest version of BIOS that has the classic AGESA PinnaclePI 1.0.0.6 microcode, and use that instead.
88 Comments on BIOS ROM Size Limitations Almost Derail AMD's Zen2 Backwards Compatibility Promise
1. UEFI is bloated huge crap.
2. Motherboards manufacturers cheap on bios modules and use 16MB instead of 32MB.
I'm lucky and my x470 motherboard has 256Mb module which is 32MB, i just checked it right after reading this news. I've never been a fan of fancy GUIs in UEFI and i would assume these take a lot of space. I totally would prefer classic look with added mouse support for these who do not know how to use keyboard to navigate in bios.
I guess the real question is, how much will the microcode make a difference? It's something that would be nice to see tested thoroughly. I mean, my X370 Taichi has support for Ryzen 3000 series and they straight up tell you on the specs on their site that the UEFI chip is 16MB.
To hell with RAID.
One of the first things I turn off is the splash screen so I can see what's going on during POST.
www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-AX370-Gaming-K3-rev-10#support-dl-bios
see bios version F30
"Note : Due to BIOS ROM size limited, no Bristol Ridge APU support."
www.msi.com/blog/the-latest-bios-for-amd-300-400-series-motherboard
Now i feel like i have to apologize anyone to who i recommended MSI x470 motherboards (as i recommended only x470 chipset boards in every case) because every time i recommended am4 motherboard i said this socket will offer compatibility with cpus released up to year 2020.
Not the least bit surprising
I have an A320 MSI MB and I engaged into several conversations over the past months on these pages where I was told it was 'normal' to expect that such a cheap motherboard was not supported because of <put a reason here>. Someone also suggested that the mobo was not up to the electrical requirements for the Zen2 procs and that I shouldn't have saved those $10 and should have gone for a better model in the first place.
Now that MSI have released a BIOS for their A320s that support ALL Ryzen 3000 - and it's the same BIOS showing the same limitations that 'better and more expensive' motherboards have available - I think I'll do a bit of a Nelson and send those users a big
AH-HA!
:)
Problem is not isolated to just msi as for example, EatingDirt, here said his x370 taichi, which is high end motherboard also has 16MB module so Asrock will have to do something about it.
If you are going to use your a320 motherboard with ryzen cpus and msi somehow will add support for 3xxx and 4xxx series ryzen cpus do not expect them to work at their full capabilities anyway. They will be limited by limited bios and chipset features and also they will not have proper amounts of power delivered so for example if you will decide to use 3950x in that motherboard msi will optimize bios to deliver less power to it just to be able to make it work.
Now, what about the CPUs coming in the next two-three years?
At any rate, *I* don't know how to de-encapsulate AGESA. But manufacturers may have tools I lack. I certainly hope so.I had trouble believing it then but aparently, it's real. 'dat UEFI bloat.... I seriously want to take apart AGESA now and see what I can find.
I hope I do not sound too harsh but some users did sound a bit harsh on me in the past on this very subject.Exactly my thought. Considering the massive workaround to have this working, I have a feeling AMD may have imposed this to the manufacturer, probably from the beginning. Then I don't understand why they now have to use those weird workarounds.
I have a feeling that something went wrong on AMD's side - maybe they were not expecting such a large code for the new CPU's.