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| System Name | The Ryzening |
|---|---|
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| Motherboard | MSI X570 MAG TOMAHAWK |
| Cooling | Lian Li Galahad 360mm AIO |
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| Case | Lian Li O11DX Dynamic White |
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| Mouse | Cooler Master Masterkeys Lite L |
| Keyboard | Cooler Master Masterkeys Lite L |
| Software | Windows 10 x64 |
One of the most debated questions surrounding AMD's AM4 platform has been the lack of support for AMD's Ryzen 5000-series CPUs on the company's 300-series chipsets. Now, in an interview with Tom's Hardware, AMD's Corporate VP and GM of the Client Channel business, David McAfee, has thrown some cautious words into the hellish debate on platform fragmentation (some even say artificial segmentation). "It's definitely something we're working through," David said. "And it's not lost on us at all that this would be a good thing to do for the community, and we're trying to figure out how to make it happen." It's not a promise, but it seems that AMD is indeed contemplating solutions that would enable first-generation AM4 chipsets to support AMD's latest Ryzen 5000 series CPUs.
The problem has mostly to do with storage space: there are only so much available bits to be used in AM4 motherboards' 16 MB SPI ROM, the read-only memory bank that stores BIOS configurations and the necessary instructions for processor support. As AM4 is one of the longest-lived consumer platforms ever, the number of CPUs has ballooned, which has led to difficult decisions as to which CPUs to support. However, some more creative board partners have resorted to interesting techniques that allowed them to free up space in the SPI ROM that could be used to add support for otherwise incompatible CPUs, such as simplifying the BIOS GUI and falling back on more traditional text-based UIs. That and other practices resulted in a number of vendors adding support for AMD's Ryzen 5000 chips on the most entry-level A320 motherboards, which left consumers that had opted for the more technically accomplished X370 motherboards high and dry - barring a few lucky, ASRock-toting exceptions.
"I know that this has been a topic that, honestly, gets a lot of attention and a lot of discussion within AMD," David McAffee continued. "I'm not joking when I say that - I've literally had three conversations on this very topic today. And I'm not talking about with members of the press; 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."
That might be more complicated than expected, however, since power delivery requirements have also changed throughout generations. AMD has scaled its AM4 socket from eight Zen cores in a single CPU up to 16 with AMD's flagship Ryzen 9 5950X CPU, and you can be sure that power requirements are different between them. It's likely that any move in this area would require a per-motherboard validation, and again, AMD didn't promise anything: but there's at least a light at the end of the tunnel.
View at TechPowerUp Main Site
The problem has mostly to do with storage space: there are only so much available bits to be used in AM4 motherboards' 16 MB SPI ROM, the read-only memory bank that stores BIOS configurations and the necessary instructions for processor support. As AM4 is one of the longest-lived consumer platforms ever, the number of CPUs has ballooned, which has led to difficult decisions as to which CPUs to support. However, some more creative board partners have resorted to interesting techniques that allowed them to free up space in the SPI ROM that could be used to add support for otherwise incompatible CPUs, such as simplifying the BIOS GUI and falling back on more traditional text-based UIs. That and other practices resulted in a number of vendors adding support for AMD's Ryzen 5000 chips on the most entry-level A320 motherboards, which left consumers that had opted for the more technically accomplished X370 motherboards high and dry - barring a few lucky, ASRock-toting exceptions.
"I know that this has been a topic that, honestly, gets a lot of attention and a lot of discussion within AMD," David McAffee continued. "I'm not joking when I say that - I've literally had three conversations on this very topic today. And I'm not talking about with members of the press; 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."
That might be more complicated than expected, however, since power delivery requirements have also changed throughout generations. AMD has scaled its AM4 socket from eight Zen cores in a single CPU up to 16 with AMD's flagship Ryzen 9 5950X CPU, and you can be sure that power requirements are different between them. It's likely that any move in this area would require a per-motherboard validation, and again, AMD didn't promise anything: but there's at least a light at the end of the tunnel.
View at TechPowerUp Main Site
