Update 19/05: AMD later clarified some new plans but they come with plenty of caveats.
If you're keeping an eye on the latest AMD processors coming, you might want to sit down and take a look at a recent post from AMD detailing their support plans for socket AM4 and Zen 3 compatibility.
Writing in a post on their community forum, AMD developer Robert Hallock announced their plans. Going over a little history, how in 2016 they said they would support socket AM4 until 2020 and since then processors have expanded a lot across the Excavator / Zen / Zen+ and Zen 2 architectures.
Starting off with the big question answered: the upcoming Zen 3 will be compatible with the X570 (2019) and B550 (2020) motherboards through a BIOS update. While they also mentioned "no plans" to have Zen 3 support older chipsets so if you were waiting on it you're likely going to need to spend more.
They've also provided a picture of their support status and plan:
For the full details, see here.
Curious about their upcoming Zen 3? AMD stated recently that it and their next-generation GPU architecture with RDNA 2 are on target for this year.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Really disappointed about lack of B450 support for Zen 3 but this only means I won't get myself another AMD CPU as an upgrade in another 5 years till I completely switch the platform (CPU/RAM/PCIExpress version). Until then the R3600 should suffice.
Last edited by Alm888 on 8 May 2020 at 11:52 am UTC
Quoting: GuestIf i am not mistaken there are a few people using ryzen 3000 processors on 300 series chipsets with updated BIOSes. Only some motherboards allow that. If confirmed some users of 400 series chipsets may have a good surprise. AMD users seem to enjoy cheaper upgrades on more durable mainboards and could protest if it is not the case.
At least it is what i gather from forum posts i have read elsewhere.
I'm not really angry at AMD, they've offered upgrades way beyond what Intel have in recent years, but I guess I wanted to see how far I could wait until I upgrade the CPU on my B350 mobo. I'm quite happy with my 1700, but when I first built my PC I was expecting AMD to be already hitting around ~5Ghz by now, Zen2 is a good upgrade, but wasn't significant enough for me to warrant the cost.
If I can't upgrade and need to buy a new mobo, does it make sense to invest in a new mobo with no upgrade potential? I'm not sure of AMD's plans for Zen 4>, but I wouldn't be surprised if they choose to go with a new socket when DDR5 is launched.
Let's see what mobo manufacturers do.
I prepared this configuration yesterday before read this entry, what do you think about it?
May not have mattered all that much tbh, because I tend to keep whatever hardware I buy for 5+ years and not upgrade a CPU for example, but it's nice to have the option, and to be more future proof.
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