AMD recently announced that for Zen 3, it wouldn't work on older motherboard chipsets but they've taken on feedback and found a way around it.
In a post on Reddit, an official AMD employee gave a detailed answer on their new plans and they said clearly that they will be working with motherboard vendors on this. Thankfully this means for the next generation Zen 3, AMD B450 and X470 motherboards will be supported.
Our experience has been that large-scale BIOS upgrades can be difficult and confusing especially as processors come on and off the support lists. As the community of Socket AM4 customers has grown over the past three years, our intention was to take a path forward that provides the safest upgrade experience for the largest number of users. However, we hear you loud and clear when you tell us you would like to see B450 or X470 boards extended to the next generation “Zen 3” products.
Before getting too excited and popping open a bottle of the good stuff, do keep in mind it's not going to be easy and there's plenty of caveats as they outlined. Including: it will be a one-way upgrade, it will disable support for other CPUs and they plan to only offer it to "verified customers" of 400 series motherboard who have purchased a Zen 3 processor when they become available. They said it's their plan to reduce people getting into a "no-boot situation".
Obviously they're also going to only recommend the latest AMD 500 Series motherboards "for the best performance and features with our new CPUs". There's a lot of details they're working on towards this and they've started the planning with a promise of more blog style posts when the time comes closer.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Arehandoro May 19, 2020
Last edited by Arehandoro on 19 May 2020 at 8:53 pm UTC
Last edited by lejimster on 19 May 2020 at 6:50 pm UTC
Anyone think AMD learned something this time?
Quoting: dpanterI laughed a little upon hearing the news. Then I sighed as I realized this will inevitably cause problems in the coming years. Oh well.What problems?
Anyone think AMD learned something this time?
Quoting: dpanterI laughed a little upon hearing the news. Then I sighed as I realized this will inevitably cause problems in the coming years. Oh well.
Anyone think AMD learned something this time?
Other than the used marked for B450 boards becoming a minefield I fail to see what problems this will cause.
soulsource May 20, 2020
Quoting: GuppyQuoting: dpanterI laughed a little upon hearing the news. Then I sighed as I realized this will inevitably cause problems in the coming years. Oh well.
Anyone think AMD learned something this time?
Other than the used marked for B450 boards becoming a minefield I fail to see what problems this will cause.
I have doubts about the average user's ability to understand the term "one-way upgrade".
QuoteI installed this one-way upgrade, and now my old CPU does no longer boot! I demand to speak to the manager!
I highly recommend grabbing Gamers Nexus (currently) 3 part Youtube series on this whole debacle. Even with their hard work and excellent investigating, there's plenty questions left unanswered at this time. Some of my thoughts below are addressed in these vids, at least partly, while some cannot currently be answered.
A couple quick thoughts...
What about the current stock of motherboards which can support Zen3 with a BIOS update, but won't support it out of the box, and cannot boot with a Zen3 CPU?
Will AMD once more eat the cost of shipping upgrade kits? Gamers Nexus mentioned that not all kits they shipped last time returned.
The used 400 series motherboard market is quite correctly heading for nightmare territory. You better hope the seller supplies correct information, or sells working mobo+CPU combo.
What happens if the an update fails mid-flash or there's a power outage, etc?
Good luck trying to troubleshoot a non-booting board with unknown BIOS version.
What will the RMA situation be like?
Will you void your warranty by doing, or even attempting the Zen3 upgrade?
How much risk is there of bricking your board?
Will downgrades be possible at all?
Can BIOS Flashback save the day?
If you download the non-Zen3 version later on and try flashing it on a Zen3 upgraded 400 board, what then? Error message, brick, or stuck with a board which can only boot with a pre-Zen3 CPU?
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