Ryzen 3000 support for AMD 300-series motherboards is questionable [Updated]

Some motherboard manufacturers like MSI seem to want you to buy a new motherboard every two generations of processors for no good reason. According to the resource TechPowerUp, MSI does not appear to have plans to add support for 3rd generation Ryzen processors to its AMD 300-series chipset motherboards, including high-end AMD X370 and B350 chipsets. This will also potentially affect owners of $300 motherboards such as the X370 XPower. This is indicated by the answer of German MSI support to the question of the owner of the X370 XPower Titanium motherboard about support for Ryzen 3000 processors. MSI responds to the user that such support is not planned and offers to purchase motherboards based on X470 or B450 chipsets.

Recall that AMD has repeatedly stated that, unlike its main competitor, it has no plans to force motherboard upgrades without good reason, and promised that Socket AM4 motherboards will be backward and forward compatible with at least four generations of processors. Ryzen, which the company will release until 2020.

So this means that any 300 series motherboard should support 4th generation Ryzen processors with a simple BIOS update. Most motherboards, including those from MSI, come with a USB BIOS Flashback feature that allows you to update the BIOS from a USB flash drive even without a processor installed in the socket and running, potentially making updating them for Zen 2 even easier. IN email MSI Support has confirmed to an X370 XPower Titanium owner that it will not be adding Zen 2 support to the AMD 300 series of boards.

Other motherboard manufacturers can also force the owners of their products to buy a new motherboard: a representative of another company, on condition of anonymity, told the portal TechPowerUpthat Zen 2 processors have more stringent power requirements that 300-series motherboards don't. This is a similar excuse to the one Intel gave for the planned obsolescence of its 100-series and 200-series chipsets, even though it's been repeatedly shown that these motherboards can run and overclock 9th gen CPUs normally with custom firmware.

It is believed that a sign of support for future Ryzen 3000 is the presence of BIOS versions compiled based on the AGESA 0.0.7.2 libraries. At the moment, only ASUS and ASRock offer the corresponding firmware updates for boards based on the X370 and B350 chipsets. Moreover, if ASUS has new versions for almost all boards based on 370 series chipsets, then only individual boards received updates from ASRock. For example, among the boards for which the new BIOS has not been released is the flagship ASRock X350 Taichi, while for the cheap MicroATX board ASRock AB4M-Pro0.0.7.2, the BIOS version based on AGESA XNUMX is available.

To clarify the picture, it remains to wait for the manufacturer's official comments, because, perhaps, the MSI technical support employee had incomplete information about the company's future plans.

Updated. MSI released Official statement, in which she said that her support team made a mistake and "misinformed an MSI customer" about the ability to run next-generation AMD processors on an MSI X370 XPower Gaming Titanium motherboard. The company also considered it necessary to clarify the current situation:

“Currently, we continue extensive testing of existing 4-series and 300-series AM400 motherboards to test potential compatibility with next generation AMD Ryzen processors. More specifically, we strive to ensure compatibility for as many MSI products as possible. Along with the release of next-generation AMD processors, we will publish a list of compatible MSI motherboards with socket AM4.”

Source: 3dnews.ru