Crazy it took Asus until 12/2018 to get it on my X370!!!
Yeaah they caught a lot of flack for that. For whatever reason they couldn't keep up with it. Lots of people talking on their forums, but not a lot coming back. No time frames or anything. Most of the boards they released were solid, but the lack of timely BIOS updates was gimping a lot of otherwise decent mid/upper-mid range boards. Some had it a lot worse than others, especially in the RAM department. And it sucked because you would look at the board's designs and components and some of them were just okay, but most, like our board was actually all-around solid. In terms of quality of components and design it's probably one of the best in its class. Doesn't have all of the top features but for the money you get something that's built to perform and last. But, like... that BIOS man! WHY? I guess it works well enough but it's been perpetually lost to time.
That, to me, has been Ryzen's biggest achille's heel from the jump... ...motherboards. From weak VRM's, to crummy BIOSes, poor compatibility, messy feature implementation and adaptation. It's getting a lot better now, but I'm sure that's been a big deterrent for a lot of people. Made it hard to recommend to anyone who wanted something that would just work, though the more patient of us saw signs of things to come. Boards are finally getting to a point where very few of them will really hold back performance in any meaningful way. I guess the upside to sticking to a platform across generations is that even old boards continue to improve over time. I think it's just that nobody expected their AMD boards to be so important this time around. Nobody in the market was ready for Ryzen to take off like it did, so the mobos didn't get the same treatment that would be standard with Intel counterparts. It was only after they caught on that they realized there was actually potential and ramped up the effort/resources. Everything has happened so fast. It was a matter of just months before things really came together.
I'm just happy to see them actually making some progress with my board, man.
So far nothing has changed for me since the swap, which is good, because I haven't changed anything
I'm holding off until after Christmas. Drop a 970 Evo in there, do a little refresh and start playing with RAM again. I've been wanting to try for 3333/14 fully stable again and see what kind of manual CPU OC will work with that. I know I can do 3466/16 all day. I want to see if the BIOS update really helps much with getting the stability with tighter timings. Sometimes it feels like I hit some walls where I shouldn't. Like certain combinations just don't work no matter what I do, even having gotten more technically demanding, if not under-performing ones to float just fine. That could really be anything. Might even just be hardware limitations. Just feels like the RAM has a little more in it, and it wants to.
Either way, I gotta say I don't find myself tempted to tinker much with this build these days. I have the time, but I feel like I've hit a good point with it and I've already put in so much time. It's been fun, but any gains at this point are personal brownie points. Save for a few quirks I've been continually impressed as I've gone along. Ryzen+ has been a fun and rewarding line to tinker with, for sure. I've done a handful now and it's always been an interesting learning experience. They haven't let anybody down yet, either. All of my personal builds throughout history have been AMD, but in a lot of ways it's been a different beast for me. Most of my builds have been done for other people, and it's almost always been Intel, if not by request, then recommendation. Not much seems to change as far as setting those up goes, and I've had many more chances to learn about them. I feel like I could go right back into it pretty quickly. You always know what you're getting and how/where. I fact I had initially planned to make my reentry into the hobby with an Intel build, but right then Ryzen came into the picture and I was intrigued. Suddenly it makes real sense to go with them again. It gave me some new little challenges to sink my teeth into. Slightly different parameters and a little character. They're kinda feisty. I felt completely out of my element starting off. It was great. A lot of things were easier than they've ever been, but there's still a lot you kinda gotta just know, and a lot of potential was yet unseen and locked away. 'Something kind of satisfying about taking 'underdog' stuff and making it into something surprisingly good. It's more personal, that way.
I guess in that way AMD really kind of carries the enthusiast torch now. For me, anyway. Maybe Intel still sort of holds the top-tier performance crown, but AMD's offerings this year cater more to the tinkerer's mindset imo. There's just so many more little things you gotta learn and experiment with to get to the pulp of a Ryzen system. It takes a little more effort and forethought to get things working juuust right. But you're rewarded with that hard-earned performance-per-dollar. There's something endearing about picking up their hardware and getting surprising performance out of it after putting in some time and love. It's a bit like a puzzle game, and I mean that in a really endearing way. There's a point of pride to having one that doesn't revolve around how much money you spent or whether it tops everything else. Your average user may not see the point in picking up the "lesser of the two" but someone who enjoys the whole process sees the potential. In this market, these chips are comparatively priced like toys, but beneath that is some pretty legit hardware. Affordable enough to take a chance on for kicks, but capable enough to put to serious use. They tapped into something that speaks to enthusiasts in a way that is not always obvious, and it's something I think a lot of companies in this business tend to miss. Something you can justifiably pick up for the sake of doing a new build... ...for discovery and experimentation. But also something you can rely on just the same. Or maybe you love building PC's but don't love spending ridiculous money for an upgrade you don't fully need lol.
It's like... do we really want "buy this and have the best build evarrrr!!!" We all want to buy good hardware, sure. But is that why we build PC's?
And then there's always that shared experience of everyone sort of discovering new stuff together. Not as much of that to be had with Intel. Every new iteration has become sort of the same routine, while Ryzen is new for everyone.
I kinda think of it like this... ...I would be so stoked to have a top-shelf, maxed-out Intel system, but I would much rather play with a brand-new AMD one... see what tricks it has.
I feel like it's a pretty exciting time to be into building PC's thanks to AMD's new direction. More than likely do it all over again next year, heh. I have problems.
