B550-A and a Ryzen 1600AF

[QckSilver]

Fellas, i have a question, and i'd like help from y'all

Last year, i bought a Rog Strix B550-A and a Ryzen 1600AF. Despite the Internet at the time saying they wouldn't work together, they married happily.
And so far, it's been alright. Some crashes here and there, but i assume that's normal due to heavy OC on the CPU.

Now, i noticed the BIOS is very old, it's still version 1004, and there's a much newer version out there for me to download, but, here's the catch: I don't know if updating the BIOS, i'll be able to keep using the CPU, idk, what if ASUS decided to drop support on my poor old guy?
Fellas can i safely update my BIOS and keep using my 1600AF?
Some of y'all might just say to buy a new one, and yeah man, my wish. Prices aren't exactly great in the country i live, and i just bought a 6800XT. I'm Broke!
But i'm already aiming for a 5800X3D whenever my wallet stop screaming.

So, did u guys had similar experience before? Is it safe? Can i just toss the latest BIOS without worrying or do i have to upgrade the BIOS one at a time till the last one?

 

[Dr. Dro]

1600 AF is Pinnacle Ridge (Zen+), you should be golden.

Newer BIOS versions only really dropped Bristol Ridge (Excavator, pre-Zen chips), it will work OK. You'll also get lots of bug fixes, and should be ready for any CPU upgrade up to Zen 3. Cheers

 

[xrror]

I don't know why anyone put the idea in your head that pinnacle ridge (ryzen 2000 series, of which 1600AF is part of) was being depreciated in new AM4 firmwares? I think the only models that were being dropped to make room for newer 3 and 5000 series were the old excavator based APUs?

edit ninjaed by Dr. Dro. Yea you should be fine to update!

 

[QckSilver]

I don't know why anyone put the idea in your head that pinnacle ridge (ryzen 2000 series, of which 1600AF is part of) was being depreciated in new AM4 firmwares? I think the only models that were being dropped to make room for newer 3 and 5000 series were the old excavator based APUs?

If i remember correctly, some tech youtubers said some MB models would not work, or were strongly against it, but we all know they do work now, thankfully.

I'll give it a shot tomorrow then!

About the BIOS update now, i never needed to do one in a very long time, so i don't know exactly the procedure. Can i just put the latest one outright, or do i have to update one by one until i reach the latest one?

 

[xrror]

You just go straight to the newest firmware. In the few times you have to be at a minimum version (i think AsRock calls it a bridge bios/firmware) they'll tell you that explicitly.

One thing you might want to do though, is updating firmware generally you will lose any custom settings you set in your firmware - including saved profiles. So you might want to write down any old custom settings you had if you want to keep those!

You'll probably need to set XMP and/or ram timings again at very least after the flash... or not, if you just run defaults.

 

[eidairaman1]

1600af is a rebadged 2600

 

[QckSilver]

You just go straight to the newest firmware. In the few times you have to be at a minimum version (i think AsRock calls it a bridge bios/firmware) they'll tell you that explicitly.

One thing you might want to do though, is updating firmware generally you will lose any custom settings you set in your firmware - including saved profiles. So you might want to write down any old custom settings you had if you want to keep those!

You'll probably need to set XMP and/or ram timings again at very least after the flash... or not, if you just run defaults.

That's pretty damn good to know, just saved me a potential headache.
I'll do it tomorrow and let you guys now here right after. Just in case someone out there has the same doubts as i do.
Thanks for the heads up!

 

[A Computer Guy]

Fellas, i have a question, and i'd like help from y'all

Last year, i bought a Rog Strix B550-A and a Ryzen 1600AF. Despite the Internet at the time saying they wouldn't work together, they married happily.
And so far, it's been alright. Some crashes here and there, but i assume that's normal due to heavy OC on the CPU.

It means your OC's is not quite stable.

Now, i noticed the BIOS is very old, it's still version 1004, and there's a much newer version out there for me to download, but, here's the catch: I don't know if updating the BIOS, i'll be able to keep using the CPU, idk, what if ASUS decided to drop support on my poor old guy?
Fellas can i safely update my BIOS and keep using my 1600AF?
Some of y'all might just say to buy a new one, and yeah man, my wish. Prices aren't exactly great in the country i live, and i just bought a 6800XT. I'm Broke!
But i'm already aiming for a 5800X3D whenever my wallet stop screaming.

So, did u guys had similar experience before? Is it safe? Can i just toss the latest BIOS without worrying or do i have to upgrade the BIOS one at a time till the last one?

For whatever it's worth this list exists. https://www.amd.com/en/chipsets/b550
Since your board has BIOS FlashBack I guess it won't hurt to try.

 

[Ruru]

Wait, what? B550 wasn't supposed to support older than Zen2, when they've added support for older Zens?

Wikipedia seems to agree that it's supported these days.

 

[R00kie]

Wait, what? B550 wasn't supposed to support older than Zen2, when they've added support for older Zens?

Wikipedia seems to agree that it's supported these days.

View attachment 274260

It is indeed:

 

[Chrispy_]

Since your board has BIOS FlashBack I guess it won't hurt to try.

100% this.

You have nothing to lose (apart from your time) by trying the latest BIOS. since you can just revert to your current BIOS via USB FlashBack.

Personally, I'd leave your current BIOS alone unless the patch notes for the Strix B550-A BIOS add anything you actually want or if you are aware of any bugs in your current BIOS. For your CPU none of the AGESA updates are going to be targeting your generation of CPU architecture, "improved memory support" is irrelevant as your current RAM is already clearly working. Most likely you'll waste a bunch of time re-doing your fan control curves, OC timings, ReBAR settings, and manual RAM sub-timings which can be a bit tedious if you do everything with manual timings - and that's about it.

As I said though, you have nothing to lose but time and if you're curious to see if there are any benefits then go for it.

 

[QckSilver]

Downloaded the latest available BIOS and tossed into the MB.
Restarted, everything works nicely. More than before, i had to cap the memory to 3400mhz otherwise it would crash basically all the time. Running 3600mhz now and it's just taking it, passed a 30 min cinebench R23 and no crash.

Might even try to crank the CPU a little further now!
I'm actually surprised, not to mention now i have access to Resizable BAR, which i didn't knew this CPU had support for (They advertise it for Ryzen 3000 and afterwards only.)

Thanks everyone for the encouragement, and i hope it helps anyone else with the same doubts!

 

[Dr. Dro]

Downloaded the latest available BIOS and tossed into the MB.
Restarted, everything works nicely. More than before, i had to cap the memory to 3400mhz otherwise it would crash basically all the time. Running 3600mhz now and it's just taking it, passed a 30 min cinebench R23 and no crash.

Might even try to crank the CPU a little further now!
I'm actually surprised, not to mention now i have access to Resizable BAR, which i didn't knew this CPU had support for (They advertise it for Ryzen 3000 and afterwards only.)

Thanks everyone for the encouragement, and i hope it helps anyone else with the same doubts!

Cheers!

 

[JrRacinFan]

i have access to Resizable BAR, which i didn't knew this CPU had support for

Latest AGESA added support for it in most am4 chipsets.

 

[Chrispy_]

Latest AGESA added support for it in most am4 chipsets

Oh wow, I thought all B550s had ReBAR because the B550 chipset was so late to the party (X570 and B450 were holding the torch for a loooonnnnng time) but yeah - on closer checking there was like a 4-month window in late 2020 between the B550 launch and the RX6000 series introducing SAM ReBAR.

 

[JrRacinFan]

@Chrispy_ even some of the the AM4 300 series motherboards that got bios updates with it, they got it added too. x370 + Intel Arc A750 could turn out beastly at a value for the budget gamer.

 

[Kodehawa]

It is indeed:
View attachment 274269

AFAIK some early ones did not have Zen/Zen+ support, but I'm not sure if all of them support it now. I've read some accounts of Zen 1/Zen 1+ CPUs not working on B550/X570.

 

[xrror]

More than before, i had to cap the memory to 3400mhz otherwise it would crash basically all the time. Running 3600mhz now and it's just taking it, passed a 30 min cinebench R23 and no crash.

Might even try to crank the CPU a little further now!

So I only have a sample size of 2 1600AF's, both I just realized on B350 boards but... I never was able to get over 3533 or whatever the mem speed really stable (CAS 16 anyway), i think i ended up just staying at 3466 on both. On the 2nd AF initially i was super excited cause it seemed like it was running 4050 core great, and in games and stuff, even an hour or so of prime95 it would not error but...

In the end, after enough Rosetta@Home fails and coming to the machine black screen hung randomly it ended up being back around 3725'ish which... was just like the first AF i had.

I guess my long roundabout way that your previous instabilities, might just be that 1600AF's unless you have a true golden one or just give no cares about voltage you run 24/7 load maybe unlike internet claims are "easy 4Ghz" maybe not if you actually run things that max it out like encoding or distributed computing.

I dunno, or I just never got the magic touch (which could be true) with these. I mean if i just gamed on it and did like .. i dunno normal things (LOL) i could totally see 4050 working fine for me, but i'm old school and want my overclocks to be where if you didn't know, you'd never know it was an OC cause "it just works, no matter what you throw at it."

(gets off old man chair, yells at lawn, shakes fist at sky for being blue)

 

[QckSilver]

So I only have a sample size of 2 1600AF's, both I just realized on B350 boards but... I never was able to get over 3533 or whatever the mem speed really stable (CAS 16 anyway), i think i ended up just staying at 3466 on both. On the 2nd AF initially i was super excited cause it seemed like it was running 4050 core great, and in games and stuff, even an hour or so of prime95 it would not error but...

In the end, after enough Rosetta@Home fails and coming to the machine black screen hung randomly it ended up being back around 3725'ish which... was just like the first AF i had.

I guess my long roundabout way that your previous instabilities, might just be that 1600AF's unless you have a true golden one or just give no cares about voltage you run 24/7 load maybe unlike internet claims are "easy 4Ghz" maybe not if you actually run things that max it out like encoding or distributed computing.

I dunno, or I just never got the magic touch (which could be true) with these. I mean if i just gamed on it and did like .. i dunno normal things (LOL) i could totally see 4050 working fine for me, but i'm old school and want my overclocks to be where if you didn't know, you'd never know it was an OC cause "it just works, no matter what you throw at it."

(gets off old man chair, yells at lawn, shakes fist at sky for being blue)

Hitting 4GHz on this CPU is really easy if you have a golden chip!
Can't get mine to pass 3950Mhz even trying dangerous voltages to check stability, it just lies down and say "nah fam leave me be"
Seeing some people claiming to put 4.2GHz on 1.2V is very infuriating since i need to push 1.37V to attain 3.95Ghz lmao

 

[Chrispy_]

The "easy 4GHz" are stable enough to game on, but not necessarily 100% load, 24/7 stable.

I had an R5 2600 that would run at 4GHz 1.3V on B350 but I didn't leave it like that because default boost kept it at 3.9GHz at stock settings in most workloads and was rock-stable. Despite Linkpack stability for over an hour, I'd keep coming back to it to find it locked up or restarted due to an OS crash. Given that stock speeds were 3.8-3.9 anyway, the inconvenience of that last 2-3% performance just didn't seem worth the hassle.

The 1600AF is a relabelled R5 2600, so you might just be able to modify XFR in your bios to up the max multiplier to 39x and not mess with all-core overclocking. My B550 can do that, and it's only a budget Gigabyte mATX model.

 

[damric]

I bought five of the 1600AFs in early 2020 for $85 on Amazon for work-at-home, school-from-home builds for family. Only one of them required a little more oomph to hit 4GHz with 1.35v. the rest were stable at about 1.2v. Two of them can 4.4GHz all day long with good cooling. Two of them could run DDR4-3600 without problems. One could do DDR-3800. Sample size of 5, but overall very happy with such cheap CPUs. I still have 1 of the good clocking ones, and one of the mediocre ones but that one is about to get replaced. I gave the very best one to my son but he ended up giving it away...

 

[xrror]

I gave the very best one to my son but he ended up giving it away...

haha ouch - the lesson is more of "I hope whatever you gave it away for is worth the beating I'm about to give you" lol - I joke of course but I can so relate to this ;p

 

[Redwoodz]

When you guys get so scared of a little voltage? My daily driver has been running like 1.48v since new. All core OC, Cool&Quiet enabled never hits 70c with a single fan air cooler
https://valid.x86.fr/aq1k4b

 

[A Computer Guy]

When you guys get so scared of a little voltage? My daily driver has been running like 1.48v since new. All core OC, Cool&Quiet enabled never hits 70c with a single fan air cooler
https://valid.x86.fr/aq1k4b

Isn't the scary part really if there is a significantly long running all core workload and high voltage?

 

[Redwoodz]

Isn't the scary part really if there is a significantly long running all core workload and high voltage?

Not as long as temps are fine. When you push them harder than your cooling allows is when most degradation happens from my experience.