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Why no one has the right to be angry at AMD with regards to AM4

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The question is if it couldn't have been done differently though.

No, they really couldn't have.

Regardless, people have accepted Intel's way of doing things, but AMD is get a boat load of crap, even though they've offered better support than Intel has done since socket 775. I don't think that's fair and I don't think your excuse in behalf of Intel is quite good enough.

And socket 775 was a cluster f*ck of compatibility that lead to more backlash and confusion from customers.
 
No, they really couldn't have.

And socket 775 was a cluster f*ck of compatibility that lead to more backlash and confusion from customers.
Sorry, but your statement is clearly not true. If AMD could go from a monolithic CPU design to two chiplets and an I/O controller and retain compatibility with the same socket, I'm sure Intel could've done the same. That's unless you're saying that Intel is either incompetent or simply do this as planned obsolesce. But please, go on, defend Intel's business decisions, as I'm sure they have benefited you somehow.

Yet I don't remember Intel users back then sending threats to Intel employees...
Maybe those were just more civilised times before social media took over...
 
I mostly feel bad for the people who picked up max motherboards. To me they have the most legitimate reason to be upset.
Well they can still update to Ryzen 9 3950X on that board.
 
Maybe those were just more civilised times before social media took over...
Yes. I've always said that social media, especially the likes of Facebook and Twitter, is responsible for bringing out the worst in people.
 
Sorry, but your statement is clearly not true. If AMD could go from a monolithic CPU design to two chiplets and an I/O controller and retain compatibility with the same socket, I'm sure Intel could've done the same. That's unless you're saying that Intel is either incompetent or simply do this as planned obsolesce. But please, go on, defend Intel's business decisions, as I'm sure they have benefited you somehow.

Yet I don't remember Intel users back then sending threats to Intel employees...
Maybe those were just more civilised times before social media took over...

You can't rewire an entire socket to move pads around so motherboard traces are optimized without changing the socket. Sorry, it just can't be done.

AMD's change to a chiplet design just requires adapting communication of that to the socket that already exists, and that's the job of the CPU substrate. Intel has physically changed and improved the sockets, that requires a new socket.
 
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You can't rewire an entire socket to move pads around so motherboard traces are optimized without changing the socket. Sorry, it just can't be done.
While you can't, what you could do is use the multi layered PCB interposer Every CPU chip is mounted into in packaging to route to the required pin out, exactly like they have to anyway.

That's a mythical reason with little weight.
 
While you can't, what you could do is use the multi layered PCB interposer Every CPU chip is mounted into in packaging to route to the required pin out, exactly like they have to anyway.

That's a mythical reason with little weight.

There is only so much you can do with that. If you are moving pins to completely opposite sides of the socket, you can't realistically use the substrate PCB to route those traces. There just isn't the room to do it, the layers required to prevent crosstalk makes it not feasible. Especially in an LGA socket where the PCB can only be so thick.

AMD was able to do it with the chiplet design because, even though they are breaking the CPU cores away from the I/O controller, they are physically still located pretty close to where they were on the old CPUs. They are flipping everything around.

But I'm not going to continue to argue this. If you think you know how to do it, I suggest you apply for a job at Intel, because you know better than any other engineer in the world. You should be making millions.
 
There is only so much you can do with that. If you are moving pins to completely opposite sides of the socket, you can't realistically use the substrate PCB to route those traces. There just isn't the room to do it, the layers required to prevent crosstalk makes it not feasible. Especially in an LGA socket where the PCB can only be so thick.

AMD was able to do it with the chiplet design because, even though they are breaking the CPU cores away from the I/O controller, they are physically still located pretty close to where they were on the old CPUs. They are flipping everything around.
Yet as indi Chinese Dev's manufacturers prove with sub circuit interposer, much more than most imagine given enough layer's.

I heartily disagree ,these are market driven design's.
 
Yet as indi Chinese Dev's manufacturers prove with sub circuit interposer, much more than most imagine given enough layer's.

I heartily disagree ,these are market driven design's.

It's just not feasible. They're moving pins to the completely opposite side of the socket. The phsyical socket was updated to make it better. You can't adapt to that with an interposer. There's more problems involved. You're losing support for older processors that don't have the interpose, defeating the entire support. We're talking about making boards support more newer CPUs here, remember. The socket change on the motherboards to improve the socket, doesn't align with that. Changing the socket makes the old processor incompatible.

You're losing sight of the whole point. The fact is the sockets were updated, there was reasons behind these updates, no matter how minor some of them were the sockets were updates. This is different than what AMD has done where the socket is remaining unchanged and they are just software locking out new processors on old boards.

An interposer is not going to fix the problem going from 1155 to 1150. The pins were physically moved around to make traces on the motherboards easier to router. This isn't something that can be done with a CPU interposer. Please, explain to me how you do that with a CPU interposer. How do you do that, maintain compatibility with old processors that were designed and produced years before the changes to the socket were made and also completely change the layout of pins in the socket. Explain how a CPU interposer solves that problem.
 
It's just not feasible. They're moving pins to the completely opposite side of the socket. The phsyical socket was updated to make it better. You can't adapt to that with an interposer. There's more problems involved. You're losing support for older processors that don't have the interpose, defeating the entire support. We're talking about making boards support more newer CPUs here, remember. The socket change on the motherboards to improve the socket, doesn't align with that. Changing the socket makes the old processor incompatible.

You're losing sight of the whole point. The fact is the sockets were updated, there was reasons behind these updates, no matter how minor some of them were the sockets were updates. This is different than what AMD has done where the socket is remaining unchanged and they are just software locking out new processors on old boards.

An interposer is not going to fix the problem going from 1155 to 1150. The pins were physically moved around to make traces on the motherboards easier to router. This isn't something that can be done with a CPU interposer. Please, explain to me how you do that with a CPU interposer. How do you do that, maintain compatibility with old processors that were designed and produced years before the changes to the socket were made and also completely change the layout of pins in the socket. Explain how a CPU interposer solves that problem.
Hang on, are you saying Intel is incompetent here?
I mean, they happily present a three, four, five year roadmap of what they have coming in terms of CPUs, so they must know well ahead of time what they need to do when they're designing these things, no?

As this is exactly what AMD is being accused of here.

So if AMD knows, Intel knows, no?

As such, you'd think they would have planned ahead and made sure their sockets can cope with future changes. I mean, Intel didn't change the LGA-2066 socket for years and it got more than two generations of CPUs. So why is it possible for Intel to do this on a high-end platform, but not on a consumer platform? I mean, they even managed to shoehorn in some "crappy" quad core CPUs into the platform with dual channel memory support and limited PCIe support, just because why not. Except they were a total disaster and a lot of boards don't even support those CPUs any more, but hey, it was all part of the master plan no?

Sure, it might not have been possible to go from 1155 to 1150, but what about onwards from there, did we really need three variations on the same socket, or was it possible for Intel to solve this more elegantly?

My issues is that Intel always have their two CPUs per socket tick/tock crap defended, whereas AMD is now getting stick for screwing up their PR with regards to socket compatibility, without us knowing squat about the Ryzen 4000 series CPUs will bring. In reality, why aren't people angry with Intel when they clearly force people to upgrade their motherboards, based on technicalities sometimes.

I'm not saying socket changes don't need to happen from time to time, as obviously it does once you run out of pins for various interfaces, or the socket design is no longer suitable for new high-speed interfaces. However, I believe there's also no need for a two year cycle, with some forward thinking.
 
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It's just not feasible. They're moving pins to the completely opposite side of the socket. The phsyical socket was updated to make it better. You can't adapt to that with an interposer. There's more problems involved. You're losing support for older processors that don't have the interpose, defeating the entire support. We're talking about making boards support more newer CPUs here, remember. The socket change on the motherboards to improve the socket, doesn't align with that. Changing the socket makes the old processor incompatible.

You're losing sight of the whole point. The fact is the sockets were updated, there was reasons behind these updates, no matter how minor some of them were the sockets were updates. This is different than what AMD has done where the socket is remaining unchanged and they are just software locking out new processors on old boards.

An interposer is not going to fix the problem going from 1155 to 1150. The pins were physically moved around to make traces on the motherboards easier to router. This isn't something that can be done with a CPU interposer. Please, explain to me how you do that with a CPU interposer. How do you do that, maintain compatibility with old processors that were designed and produced years before the changes to the socket were made and also completely change the layout of pins in the socket. Explain how a CPU interposer solves that problem.
Well, with no idea at this point what Ryzen 4000 is going to Actually bring I think your points are slightly moot, if the simple bios argument is it then sure , I will argue that's shit but.
I still heartily disagree on a interposer, we will set that asside I have worked with OEM systems that retained socket's with differing intel cores.

Since they're not fully disclosing Ryzen 4### specs ,I'll check for now, maybe go all in on the argument ,maybe fold later.
 
Hang on, are you saying Intel is incompetent here?
I mean, they happily present a three, four, five year roadmap of what they have coming in terms of CPUs, so they must know well ahead of time what they need to do when they're designing these things, no?

As this is exactly what AMD is being accused of here.

So if AMD knows, Intel knows, no?

As such, you'd think they would have planned ahead and made sure their sockets can cope with future changes. I mean, Intel didn't change the LGA-2066 socket for years and it got more than two generations of CPUs. So why is it possible for Intel to do this on a high-end platform, but not on a consumer platform? I mean, they even managed to shoehorn in some "crappy" quad core CPUs into the platform with dual channel memory support and limited PCIe support, just because why not. Except they were a total disaster and a lot of boards don't even support those CPUs any more, but hey, it was all part of the master plan no?

Sure, it might not have been possible to go from 1155 to 1150, but what about onwards from there, did we really need three variations on the same socket, or was it possible for Intel to solve this more elegantly?

My issues is that Intel always have their two CPUs per socket tick/tock crap defended, whereas AMD is now getting stick for screwing up their PR with regards to socket compatibility, without us knowing squat about the Ryzen 4000 series CPUs will bring. In reality, why aren't people angry with Intel when they clearly force people to upgrade their motherboards, based on technicalities sometimes.

I'm not saying socket changes don't need to happen from time to time, as obviously it does once you run out of pins for various interfaces, or the socket design is no longer suitable for new high-speed interfaces. However, I believe there's also no need for a two year cycle, with some forward thinking.
Some of it may be that with 2066 pins they had some future planning on the socket. The Intel Z170, 270, 370 'Lake era had a lot of complaints about not carrying forward compatibility when it was probably possible to do so. No one excused Intel for doing this, it was panned. However it was somewhat expected because Intel has done this before. The Z170 AsRock OC Formula was one of the best boards of that period, and with modification, achieved some of the most impressive 8700K overclocks. The difference with AMD was the marketing about promised future compatibility.
 
The difference with AMD was the marketing about promised future compatibility.
Sure and I'm not excusing them for that. However, something has clearly gone wrong in some people's heads, when they send threats to staff of a company based on a PR screw-up. Not saying anyone here did that, but some people did.
This has never happened to Intel afaik.

At the same time, AMD wasn't that specific about what that future compatibility meant. As I've stated elsewhere, AMD seems to have screwed up their message to their partners with their message to consumers, which is poor management, but clearly doesn't deserve the kind of reaction it has had.
 
Wow I can't believe this thread was posted on Friday. I ag ree with most of what the author postulates. Unfortunately (it may have already been said) the biggest no no for me was the non release of B550 boards. The X470 and B450 boards launched the same day and it was the same for the 3 series too. From what I have seen of B550 boards they seem to be more interesting than X570 with the way that PCIe has been implemented on some boards.
 
Hang on, are you saying Intel is incompetent here?
I mean, they happily present a three, four, five year roadmap of what they have coming in terms of CPUs, so they must know well ahead of time what they need to do when they're designing these things, no?
Roadmaps have nothing to do with sockets, or for that matter even what is really coming. They get changed and updated all the time. I mean, if roadmaps actually were true, we'd have Intel 10nm on the deakop market by now. And roadmaps are a guide to what processor features we expect to see, but nothing to do with the sockets. The design teams are updating the sockets as they go along with the designs of the new CPUs. But there comes a point when you have to stop refining and get the product to market. Then you keep improving and eventually release a new iteration. It's how things work.

As this is exactly what AMD is being accused of here.

No, it is entirely different from what AMD is being accused of. There is no technical reason an X470 board, with the exact same socket with the exact same pinout shouldn't work with a 4000 series CPU. We know this because the 4000 CPUs will work with an X570 board with the same AM4 socket that is on the X470 motherboards. What AMD doing is 100% a software lockout. Intel has never done this.

So if AMD knows, Intel knows, no?

As such, you'd think they would have planned ahead and made sure their sockets can cope with future changes. I mean, Intel didn't change the LGA-2066 socket for years and it got more than two generations of CPUs. So why is it possible for Intel to do this on a high-end platform, but not on a consumer platform? I mean, they even managed to shoehorn in some "crappy" quad core CPUs into the platform with dual channel memory support and limited PCIe support, just because why not. Except they were a total disaster and a lot of boards don't even support those CPUs any more, but hey, it was all part of the master plan no?

There are some things you can't predict. You can't predict that you need to add an additional display output beyond the 3 you have now later on down the road, a display output that at the time wasn't really even popular and they weren't sure if it was going to take off. At the time they redesigned 1155 to 1150 displayport wasn't a popular connector, some dedicated cards still didn't even have it, so I doubt they were thinking about adding it to the iGPUs at the time.

Sure, it might not have been possible to go from 1155 to 1150, but what about onwards from there, did we really need three variations on the same socket, or was it possible for Intel to solve this more elegantly?

The 1150 to 1151 transition, maybe. An external Displayport connector fed off one of the other display outputs might have worked, but also been more expensive and complex for the board manufacturers. So if they wanted it in the prococessor directly, the signal for the displayport had to be added to the socket, and you can't just put video signal pins anywhere. You can't just have them right next to a power pin, crosstalk becomes an issue.

And the 1151 to 1151(300) transition was not possible to do any other way and maintain long lasting reliability. The number of power pins had to be increased to handle the new processors long term reliably. There is no doing this on the old socket pin-out. If they could have gotten 10nm going and increase the core counts without the 25-50% increases in power consumption, then they might have been able to do it with the old socket, but 10nm didn't happen.

My issues is that Intel always have their two CPUs per socket tick/tock crap defended, whereas AMD is now getting stick for screwing up their PR with regards to socket compatibility, without us knowing squat about the Ryzen 4000 series CPUs will bring. In reality, why aren't people angry with Intel when they clearly force people to upgrade their motherboards, based on technicalities sometimes.

Intel never pretends like their platforms have increased longevity compared to the competition. They never market that. Hell, they've been upfront about the tick/tock system since Nehalem. AMD on the other hand did market their platforms as having longer longevity than Intel. Their longterm compatibility with future processors was a selling point that they made.

There have also always been reasons for the new socket. Regardless of how minor you think they are, the reasons are facts. On the other hand, we know for a fact that AMD isn't using a new socket, and the 4000 CPUs should work with the older motherboards. The fact that they will work with X570 boards tells use that there is no reason they shouldn't work with X470 boards, they both use the same sockets, there was no changed between the two platforms other than the addition of PCI-E 4.0. Which even the 4000 CPUs are required to be backwards compatible with 3.0, so that isn't an issue.

At the end of the day, that is the point. Intel has been upfront about their strategy and it seems AMD now has lied about theirs. And that's why people are angry with AMD.

Well, with no idea at this point what Ryzen 4000 is going to Actually bring I think your points are slightly moot, if the simple bios argument is it then sure , I will argue that's shit but.

The fact is, it doesn't matter what the 4000 processors bring. We know they aren't using a new socket, and so there should be no technical reason they can't run on older boards. If it will run on X570 I see no reason it wouldn't run on X470. Can you come up with any reasons?

i still heartily disagree on a interposer, we will set that asside I have worked with OEM systems that retained socket's with differing intel cores.

I've seen mobile processors put in desktop motherboards with custom interposers. However, that doesn't help in the discussion.

We are talking about redesigns of the socket to aid in motherboard trace routing. There is no way you can solve that problem with an interposer in a consumer friendly marketable way. You're talking about, what, selling processors with interchangeable interposers that you expect the consumer to change depending on what motherboard they are putting the processor in? And also selling those interposers separately so people that want to put an older processor in a new board can buy one? Because that's the only solution we are talking about here where an interposer would work. The socket needed to be redesigned, there is no argument about that. You can't optimize pin layout in the socket to improve motherboard trace routing without redesigning the socket pinout.

So now we are talking about an interposer solution to having two different sockets supporting 4 generations of processors. So how do you expect that to work? If a consumer wants to put their 1150 CPU in an older 1155 motherboard, they'd need a super thick interposer to go between the 1150 CPU and the 1155 socket. Then that means the already designed stock cooling isn't going to work, because that whole mess would be too tall. But what about if someone wants to use an 1155 CPU in an 1150 motherboard, you need another super thick interposer that can be bought separately. The whole interposer solution just isn't feasible even if it would technically work. To be clear, I'm not saying it wouldn't technically work, I'm saying it isn't feasible to bring to market.

Sure and I'm not excusing them for that.

But you are. You're entire argument is "Intel does it so AMD can to." You're missing the point, AMD was the chosen one, they were "supposed" to be better than Intel, and now it turns out they're worse.

However, something has clearly gone wrong in some people's heads, when they send threats to staff of a company based on a PR screw-up. Not saying anyone here did that, but some people did.

Obviously that's an extreme that should never happen, but you're argument that people don't have a right to be angry that AMD lied to them isn't valid either.

And Intel gets plenty of hate by the way. People got their pitchforks and torches out when Intel said CoffeeLake was going to need new motherboards, even when there is a perfectly valid reason for it. Hell, people are still bitching about that shit.

Anyway, this is my last post on the subject. I think I've said enough.
 
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Checked my X370-a cpu support list there are 12 obsolete 28nm cpus that could be removed, very few use these A6-A12 and X4 cpus these days.
 
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Hopefully this will help clarify things with the socket as in the possibilites.
Do remember how they did sockets AM2, AM2+, AM3 and AM3+ and how each chip gen interchanged with what socket.

You can also see if you look closely at each corner, the "MIssing" pin holes in the socket cover vs what's down inside the socket itself that could be used later if they wanted to.
And also note the little oval shaped/rectangular pieces covering where pin holes could have been in the socket cover - Those can be moved to a different position if they wanted to.
This particular socket is from some work I had been doing on one of my x570 boards.

Socket AM4.jpg
 
Roadmaps have nothing to do with sockets, or for that matter even what is really coming. They get changed and updated all the time. I mean, if roadmaps actually were true, we'd have Intel 10nm on the deakop market by now. And roadmaps are a guide to what processor features we expect to see, but nothing to do with the sockets. The design teams are updating the sockets as they go along with the designs of the new CPUs. But there comes a point when you have to stop refining and get the product to market. Then you keep improving and eventually release a new iteration. It's how things work.



No, it is entirely different from what AMD is being accused of. There is no technical reason an X470 board, with the exact same socket with the exact same pinout shouldn't work with a 4000 series CPU. We know this because the 4000 CPUs will work with an X570 board with the same AM4 socket that is on the X470 motherboards. What AMD doing is 100% a software lockout. Intel has never done this.



There are some things you can't predict. You can't predict that you need to add an additional display output beyond the 3 you have now later on down the road, a display output that at the time wasn't really even popular and they weren't sure if it was going to take off. At the time they redesigned 1155 to 1150 displayport wasn't a popular connector, some dedicated cards still didn't even have it, so I doubt they were thinking about adding it to the iGPUs at the time.



The 1150 to 1151 transition, maybe. An external Displayport connector fed off one of the other display outputs might have worked, but also been more expensive and complex for the board manufacturers. So if they wanted it in the prococessor directly, the signal for the displayport had to be added to the socket, and you can't just put video signal pins anywhere. You can't just have them right next to a power pin, crosstalk becomes an issue.

And the 1151 to 1151(300) transition was not possible to do any other way and maintain long lasting reliability. The number of power pins had to be increased to handle the new processors long term reliably. There is no doing this on the old socket pin-out. If they could have gotten 10nm going and increase the core counts without the 25-50% increases in power consumption, then they might have been able to do it with the old socket, but 10nm didn't happen.



Intel never pretends like their platforms have increased longevity compared to the competition. They never market that. Hell, they've been upfront about the tick/tock system since Nehalem. AMD on the other hand did market their platforms as having longer longevity than Intel. Their longterm compatibility with future processors was a selling point that they made.

There have also always been reasons for the new socket. Regardless of how minor you think they are, the reasons are facts. On the other hand, we know for a fact that AMD isn't using a new socket, and the 4000 CPUs should work with the older motherboards. The fact that they will work with X570 boards tells use that there is no reason they shouldn't work with X470 boards, they both use the same sockets, there was no changed between the two platforms other than the addition of PCI-E 4.0. Which even the 4000 CPUs are required to be backwards compatible with 3.0, so that isn't an issue.

At the end of the day, that is the point. Intel has been upfront about their strategy and it seems AMD now has lied about theirs. And that's why people are angry with AMD.



The fact is, it doesn't matter what the 4000 processors bring. We know they aren't using a new socket, and so there should be no technical reason they can't run on older boards. If it will run on X570 I see no reason it wouldn't run on X470. Can you come up with any reasons?



I've seen mobile processors put in desktop motherboards with custom interposers. However, that doesn't help in the discussion.

We are talking about redesigns of the socket to aid in motherboard trace routing. There is no way you can solve that problem with an interposer in a consumer friendly marketable way. You're talking about, what, selling processors with interchangeable interposers that you expect the consumer to change depending on what motherboard they are putting the processor in? And also selling those interposers separately so people that want to put an older processor in a new board can buy one? Because that's the only solution we are talking about here where an interposer would work. The socket needed to be redesigned, there is no argument about that. You can't optimize pin layout in the socket to improve motherboard trace routing without redesigning the socket pinout.

So now we are talking about an interposer solution to having two different sockets supporting 4 generations of processors. So how do you expect that to work? If a consumer wants to put their 1150 CPU in an older 1155 motherboard, they'd need a super thick interposer to go between the 1150 CPU and the 1155 socket. Then that means the already designed stock cooling isn't going to work, because that whole mess would be too tall. But what about if someone wants to use an 1155 CPU in an 1150 motherboard, you need another super thick interposer that can be bought separately. The whole interposer solution just isn't feasible even if it would technically work. To be clear, I'm not saying it wouldn't technically work, I'm saying it isn't feasible to bring to market.



But you are. You're entire argument is "Intel does it so AMD can to." You're missing the point, AMD was the chosen one, they were "supposed" to be better than Intel, and now it turns out they're worse.



Obviously that's an extreme that should never happen, but you're argument that people don't have a right to be angry that AMD lied to them isn't valid either.

And Intel gets plenty of hate by the way. People got their pitchforks and torches out when Intel said CoffeeLake was going to need new motherboards, even when there is a perfectly valid reason for it. Hell, people are still bitching about that shit.

Anyway, this is my last post on the subject. I think I've said enough.
You said too much, I still heartily disagree , luckily I have STILL set it asside.
 
The only "solution" that I can see for all this would be that board manufactures would just send upon request a BIOS with specific CPUs removed or maybe every CPU removed except the ones you need. This ensures that people wont just brick their systems updating to a new official BIOS where their CPUs are removed and that the ones who really want to run a new 4000 series CPU can do it.

No, it is entirely different from what AMD is being accused of. There is no technical reason an X470 board, with the exact same socket with the exact same pinout shouldn't work with a 4000 series CPU. We know this because the 4000 CPUs will work with an X570 board with the same AM4 socket that is on the X470 motherboards. What AMD doing is 100% a software lockout. Intel has never done this.

The fact is, it doesn't matter what the 4000 processors bring. We know they aren't using a new socket, and so there should be no technical reason they can't run on older boards. If it will run on X570 I see no reason it wouldn't run on X470. Can you come up with any reasons?

Just stop, it's already being made very clear it's an issue of ROM space. It's not a software lockout, it's not a socket limitation.
 
I think this thread is getting too far OT.

I also think it absurd to suggest Intel changes sockets just to force consumers to buy all new platforms. It is also absurd to expect a company to cater to small niche markets - and for sure, the number of users who upgrade their CPUs is but a tiny fraction of all users. And those wanting to upgrade their CPU to a different family of CPUs is an even smaller niche market.
Yes, it costs money to design a whole new socket, but to modify existing sockets to accommodate new CPUs is costly too, and may force compromises.
If you are moving pins to completely opposite sides of the socket, you can't realistically use the substrate PCB to route those traces. There just isn't the room to do it, the layers required to prevent crosstalk makes it not feasible.
It is not just about room, but distance too. There are also add resistance, RFI/EMI, latency and wait-state issues to consider when distances between Point A and Point B are dramatically (microscopically speaking) increased too.
 
The only "solution" that I can see for all this would be that board manufactures would just send upon request a BIOS with specific CPUs removed or maybe every CPU removed except the ones you need. This ensures that people wont just brick their systems updating to a new official BIOS where their CPUs are removed and that the ones who really want to run a new 4000 series CPU can do it.
Can you imagine the headaches to support this type of solution? You would have had to make CPUless BIOS update a requirement since day1 before even attempting something like this.
 
Can you imagine the headaches to support this type of solution? You would have had to make CPUless BIOS update a requirement since day1 before even attempting something like this.

You don't have to make CPUless BIOS updates a requirement, that makes no sense. Why would that even be a thing ? You simply send an email to ASUS/MSI/Asrock/etc and ask them to send you the latest revison with X CPUs/series removed and Y CPU/series added, it's by far the best solution with the least amount of headache (no wide spread RMA issues)

Of course that would require a non zero amount of extra effort from manufactures but it's totally feasible to make let's say 4 versions of each new BIOS revision where each has one of the 1000/2000/300 CPU series support removed and support for the 4000 series added. It just would't be complicated at all for them. I can't think of anything simpler than this, the only thing they'd have to test is the 4000 series support, that's it.

And it's not like these older boards will get a heap load of new BIOS revisions in the future, realistically you would need to do this just once.
 
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Of course that would require a non zero amount of extra effort from manufactures but it totally feasible to make let's say 4 versions of each new BIOS revision each with one of the CPU series support removed. It just would't be complicated at all for them.
4 versions multiplied by every motherboard model with the AM4 socket, plus testing/validation sounds like a real nightmare.
 
4 versions multiplied by every motherboard model with the AM4 socket, plus testing/validation sounds like a real nightmare.

It's not, you'd just have to test support for 4000 series because you already know the rest of the CPU support list is fine. After that it's as simple as removing unwanted CPUs from the support list. And like I said these older boards wont really get new BIOSes in the future, so you would need to do this once for each board. They've already done this with some APUs and obscure CPUs and it seems like that wasn't a nighmare.
 
4 versions multiplied by every motherboard model with the AM4 socket, plus testing/validation sounds like a real nightmare.

And on top of all that, from what Steve from GN found out, there is at most 2 guys in any given company that are legit BIOS programmers. Sometimes only one.
 
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