Ahead of AMD's Ryzen 3000 processors based on the Zen 2 microarchitecture, motherboard manufacturers are working hard to update the BIOS of older Socket AM4 products so that they can be compatible with future chips. However, supporting the full range of processors installed in the Socket AM4 socket at the same time is a rather difficult task, which not everyone and not always manages to solve in full. Therefore, some boards, acquiring support for Ryzen 3000, lose compatibility with processors of past generations.
As it became known, at least two MSI motherboards, when adding compatibility with Ryzen 3000, lost the ability to work with processors from the Bristol Ridge family, as stated in the accompanying commentary to the latest BIOS versions. We are talking about A320M PRO-VH PLUS and A320M PRO-VD/S motherboards based on the junior A320 chipset, which recently received firmware updates based on the AGESA ComboPI1.0.0.1 library.
The reason why boards lose compatibility with certain groups of processors is well understood. The problem is that simultaneous support for the entire zoo of Socket AM4 processors, which will soon include six heterogeneous families - Bristol Ridge (A-series APUs), Summit Ridge (Ryzen 1000), Pinnacle Ridge (Ryzen 2000), Matisse (Ryzen 3000), Raven Ridge (APU Ryzen 2000) and Picasso (APU Ryzen 3000) - requires a large archive of microcodes to be stored in the BIOS. However, inexpensive boards based on the A320 chipset were often equipped with 64-Mbit rather than 128-Mbit flash memory chips, into which the entire set of microcodes simply does not fit.
As practice shows, motherboard manufacturers are going to approach this problem in different ways. For example, MSI intends to add support for future Ryzen 320 processors to at least some of its A3000 boards, while limiting compatibility with A6-9500E, A6-9500, A6-9550, A8-9600, A10-9700E, A10-9700 processors , A12-9800E, A12-9800, as well as with Athlon X4 940, 950 and 970. Another manufacturer, ASUS, adheres to a different principle: the company decided to maintain compatibility with Bristol Ridge for its A320-based boards and is not going to add support for new processors Ryzen 3000.
But in any case, AMD's promise to provide end-to-end support for processors with all Socket AM4 motherboards until 2020 can be considered fulfilled. Despite all the obstacles, promising 7nm Ryzen 3000 chips will be able to work not only in new platforms, but also in most old motherboards, albeit with certain limitations regarding incomplete support for the PCI Express 4.0 bus. Situations of complete incompatibility of certain motherboards with some Socket AM4 processors concern only low-end platforms, and can be classified as special cases.
Source: 3dnews.ru