AMD axes Zen 3 support on 400-series motherboards: Is AMD pulling an Intel?

[Jimster480]

I am always a big supporter of AMD but this is just pure garbage.
AMD has made many millions from Ryzen and they are going to only make more money with their new laptop chips and the upcoming Xbox and PS4.

They definitely "have the resources" to make it work. All they are doing is basically guaranteeing that the chip sales of Zen3 will be extremely low. Since we already know that Zen3 is unlikely to be "amazing" the way that Zen2 was and B550 is a terrible value and isn't even on the market yet.

The X570 platform has always been a poor value and this is why people like myself who have high end x370 boards didn't buy them.... Its not about "my money's worth" as I purchased a motherboard in 2009 and used that until 2015....

I had the 1700x, 2700x, and now 3900x; I will skip the 4XXX series and wait for 5XXX to see if it really offers something compelling enough to switch out my motherboard for.

AMD forgets that Windows is bound to your motherboard these days and upgrading the motherboard often requires purchasing windows again or going through a difficult (not always successful) process to move your license to new hardware. Even that can only be done a few times (if your license supports it).

 

[Polaris1983]

I guess AMD is finally learning to get single threaded performance like Nvidia needed to do for VRAM post PCSX2 era for modular scalable apu mobos in the future using pic-e 4.0 slots running at full speed 16x now giving everyone a ghetto data science desktop soon for ai work game movie devs or creative/gaming.

 

[harm9963]

Support those who supported you AMD!
Thank you AMD!
High and dry, if I knew this back in January , would have got the Asus x570 Prime, $30 dollars combo discount, got the Asus x470 Prime- $89 vs $120 ! have to just ride it out?

 

[kiwigraeme]

Because I was doing a major upgrade I got a mid quality X570 board - hopefully the X570 or B550 have nice cheap options later on if I wish to upgrade my 3700x and build a cheap PC around the 3700X.

This news also degrades the 3300x chip as an immediate step - ie buying a $120 chip for a $200 M/B at least for future upgrade .

So if you wish to buy a 3300x - either use an existing M/B .
Or buy a the cheapest you like now ( ie no point buying a MSI carbon or Tomahawk unless you have a big discount in your country )

Or wait for new 4600 chip for $200 and put it that $200 m/b

so 3300x now for $220 for good little PC + cheap memory and old PSU
or 4600 +Cheap x570 or B550 for $400 for a cracker of PC in 6 months

 

[wiyosaya]

I'm not attempting to exonerate AMD for those who are angry at them. However, from the article:

With the launch of the AM4 platform in 2016, we at AMD made a commitment to maintain and support socket AM4 through 2020.

Ryzen 4000 series presumably coming out in 2020 and with AM4 socket. So, its 2020 and AMD is still releasing a new processor family that uses socket AM4. I don't see any problems with the statement I quoted. It does not say "every chipset that we produce between 2016 and 2020 will support every AMD AM4 processor we produce from 2016 until 2020." Who knows AMD may yet allow support for the 4000 series on other chipsets. However, there may be issues that we do not know about preventing backward compatibility.

For any engineering effort, predicting what lies down the road after four or five years is something akin to prophecy. It is a very difficult thing to do.

For me, I did not listen to the "don't buy an X570 board if you don't need pci-e 4.0 now." To me, that was like saying strap yourself to today's technology because it won't be useful until the future. I do not place so much faith in reviews that I would follow such advice. Why? Staying at pci-e 3.0 now because there are not many 4.0 devices out would have invited spending a significant amount on an upgrade to pci-e 4.0 support when such devices are more widely available. To me, that just does not make sense.

A couple of months back, I did a build for my wife. I bought a Gigabyte Aorus Elite X570 MB, a Ryzen 7 3800X, and a pci-e 4.0 NVME drive to go with it. She does not game; she uses it mainly for Excel in an intensive fashion. The MB cost $200. I somewhat counted on future CPU compatibility as a potential upgrade for her in the future, however, I also knew that this MB was likely good for maybe one or two at most more generations of CPUs.

Even if I had done the build for myself, I likely would have chosen the same MB. Why not?

Honestly, my take is that if it does not cost all that much more relative to my budget, I'll pay the higher price. In this case, I did just that and I can reasonably expect that this MB will likely support the 4000 series.

Again from the statement that I quoted, we all knew in 2016 that 2020 was likely the final year for AM4. To me, AMD was completely honest about it.

 

[wizardB]

So you both can't use Zen 3 on B450 / X470 and earlier motherboards, and at the same time you also can't use Zen 1000 / 2000 series (inc 3200G / 3400G APU's that are barely 10 months old) on the new boards? So for someone who had say a 7700K Kaby Lake and skipped both Coffee Lake and Ryzen 1000 & 2000 (waiting for the higher IPC of the current 3000 series), buying a B450 / X470 for a Zen 3600 in 2020 = a one-generation lifespan board? Hmmm...

You bought a motherboard who's chipset was a generation old when you bought it.

 

[Irata]

Agree with the article. I specifically bought a B450 max board with the aim to be able to upgrade to the latest AM4 chip in the future. The purchase was only made about three months ago. X570 was really more than I needed but would have loved to get a B550 board. Since releasing that took (and still takes) forever, I did not have that option.

Now, I did get a 2700x, so I still have the option to go for a 3900x for a nice upgrade.

The problem that I see is that they may not go down in price as much since they - as far as we know now - represent the best possible upgrade for 3xx and 4xx board owners.

Ryzen 2000 can be had for such a great price since it competes with the 3000 series for the same buyers, so it has to be cheaper or customers will skip it for the 3000 series.

By cutting off Ryzen 3 support for older mainboards, that competition does not exist between the 3000 and 4000 series. Now it's the cost of a Ryzen 3000 CPU vs Ryzen 4000 + a new mainboard + the hassle of changing the mainboard.

Another question: How long will AMD continue to make the 3000 series after 4000 has been released ?

 

[Angga B]

What is rubbish reason? I could understand the disappointment but hey, they had committed to stay in a socket for so long and time has come when there is no more thing could be done to improve performance in that socket. It's time to move on and have progress with the new bar, isn't it?

The comparison to Intel is night and day, heaven and hell. Not even a proper comparison considering that Intel even make new socket for refreshed same products.

 

[Aus spot]

Kinda sitting pretty here. Everyone said go 470x you're wasting your money. 570x later and I've still got options in the future. 4950x here I come.

 

[HardReset]

AMD already advertises PCIe4.0 support on 3000 series processors that can be paired with 300 and 400 series chipsets, which have no PCIe 4.0 support. Your imagined scenario already exists and has been proven wrong. How many people have you seen complaining that they were mislead on PCIe4.0 support with their Ryzen 3000 series CPU on their older motherboard? I've never seen it. In addition, just because a chipset is older doesn't make it crappy. There is no technical reason why they could not add 4000 series CPU support, as mentioned in the article.

Because of that, AMD can only advertise Zen2 CPU and x570 chipset being PCIe 4.0. With Zen3 they can say whole Zen3 platform is PCIe 4.0 compatible which is miles easier. Scenario that does not exist now.

People who bought prebuilt system and expected it to support PCIe 4.0 because Zen2 supports?

What can you call chipset (B450) that has PCIe connectiovity as follows: 6*PCIe 2.0 lanes + 2*SATA Express (both either 2*SATA or 2*PCIe 3.0). Considering it's 2020, that IS crap. Comparing to x570 that has 16 PCIe 4.0 lanes, that is simply outdated design. To put it another way: total PCIe throughput (simplified formula: 2.0 = 500 MB/s, 3.0 = 1 GB/s, 4.0 = 2 GB/s) for B450 is 7 GB/s. For x570 that is 32 GB/s, over 4 times more. So yes, B450 is crap even compared to Intel solutions.

The problem is that AMD lead people to believe that their 400 series chipsets would support AMD CPUs through 2020. Whether or not a specific person cares or what Intel does is irrelevant. A company should live up to it's promises.

I really would like to know how. First, they never promised anything. Second, x570 was released right with Zen2 CPU's. Third, there are tons of AM4 motherboards that do not support even Zen+.

Those who bought B450 with Zen2 CPU didn't care about latest tech (PCIe 4.0). Now suddenly they care about future CPU tech. It's normal that you just cannot cherry pick latest tech. Either you take all the way latest or then accept that not-so-latest tech may have drawbacks.

 

[BSim500]

You bought a motherboard who's chipset was a generation old when you bought it.

The 3600 came out in July 2019 whilst the B550's are still nowhere to be seen in May 2020, so stop playing the role of intentionally dumb fanboy as to what the "bait & switch" issue is for the many millions who simply don't want or need double priced X class boards purely to avoid getting screwed over compatibility-wise.

The point is, for the many who skipped 1000 / 2000 Ryzen CPU's for having too slow 1T performance and jumped straight into a 3600 series on a B450 based specifically based on AMD's own "supported through to 2020" words = 1 board, then a 4000 series on a X570 = needing a 2nd board, but then if Zen 4 = DDR5 then a new motherboard is needed for that, ie, 3 boards for 3 generations. That actually makes even Intel's 2-step dance look good.

 

[Shadowboxer]

AMD have been worse than Intel really. With Intel no one expects multi socket support. So no one buys an Intel board an expects to put a new chip into it 2/3 years later or whatever. However as Steven points out in this article, AMDs marketing suggested this would be supported and Steven himself mentioned it would be in his articles. There are even people in the comments who state they saved $30 to get an older board under the impression it would work. Intel customers don’t hold these expectations, if they do it’s their problem as Intel simply don’t promise future compatibility.

But really, just a buy a new motherboard with every CPU! If you’re a tech enthusiast you should want to. I’ve been saying it from the beginning with Ryzen. It’s nice to be able to upgrade old sockets but look at the headache it causes - bios update issues where you might need to post off for a temp CPU to update & broken promises of future compatibility letting users down. Clearly AMD didn’t want to drop support and now a bunch of users have been burned.

And I’m willing to bet it’s a tiny percentage of people that are actually upgrading in the same socket. For me, well aside from the FX series from AMD I’ve not been on a CPU for less than 4/5 years. Who’s got the cash to upgrade frequently say every 1-3 years but not enough cash to afford a new motherboard each time?

Just buy a new motherboard everytime you buy a new CPU...

 

[HardReset]

The 3600 came out in July 2019 whilst the B550's are still nowhere to be seen in May 2020, so stop playing the role of intentionally dumb fanboy as to what the "bait & switch" issue is for the many millions who simply don't want or need double priced X class boards purely to avoid getting screwed over compatibility-wise.

B550 is made by ASMedia, not AMD. And before you say ASMedia sucks, Intel still has not PCIe 4.0 available.

The point is, for the many who skipped 1000 / 2000 Ryzen CPU's for having too slow 1T performance and jumped straight into a 3600 series on a B450 based specifically based on AMD's own "supported through to 2020" words = 1 board, then a 4000 series on a X570 = needing a 2nd board, but then if Zen 4 = DDR5 then a new motherboard is needed for that, ie, 3 boards for 3 generations. That actually makes even Intel's 2-step dance look good.

Point is that while B450 supported Zen2, it was really for Zen+. Expecting something outdated to support latest future offerings is never good idea. Also those who bought X570 will only need one board for two, or perhaps three, generations.

You also miss that AMD still offers 16 core CPU for B450. Best Intel offering right now is 8 cores. It will take years until Intel offers 16 cores for LGA1XXX.

AMD have been worse than Intel really. With Intel no one expects multi socket support. So no one buys an Intel board an expects to put a new chip into it 2/3 years later or whatever. However as Steven points out in this article, AMDs marketing suggested this would be supported and Steven himself mentioned it would be in his articles. There are even people in the comments who state they saved $30 to get an older board under the impression it would work. Intel customers don’t hold these expectations, if they do it’s their problem as Intel simply don’t promise future compatibility.

AMD didn't promise anything about future compatibility. Saving $30 for outdated motherboard and expecting it to receive same support that modern motherboard does, is never good idea.

Smartphones are similar example. Manufacturers do not get directly any revenue when updating old phones with latest Android versions or patches. It does cost them though. Same with AM4 boards: updating support for latest CPU's creates lot of work but no sales. So does anyone expect long term OS/security support for low end smartphone? Some people seem top expect long term support for outdated and cheap motherboard.

And I’m willing to bet it’s a tiny percentage of people that are actually upgrading in the same socket. For me, well aside from the FX series from AMD I’ve not been on a CPU for less than 4/5 years. Who’s got the cash to upgrade frequently say every 1-3 years but not enough cash to afford a new motherboard each time?

Just buy a new motherboard everytime you buy a new CPU...

Changing motherboard means so much hassle that it essentially means "buy totally new system". Comparing to that, changing just CPU is very easy job. Done that many times.

 

[Aryassen]

I'm also one agreeing with the basic message of the article. I am biased towards AMD since the 386DX40, and still, this move does not bring a broad smile to my face.
I don't feel robbed though, and I still have a viable upgrade path from my 3600, but I also feel that the explanation is untrue and weak, and that it would be so easy to cirumvent that "limitation". Technically, AMD did nothing wrong: AM4 will be supported through 2020 (e.g. you can buy it new and fill up with brand new processors ranging from 4 cores to 16)...yet, this somehow just doesn't feel right.
Overall, I just feel a little disappointed: I won't be "devastated" if the upgrade path ends with the 3950x, but sure as hell I would feel a lot better if the 4000 series were included for B450 (especially that B550 boards are still nowhere in sight).

 

[Shadowboxer]

B550 is made by ASMedia, not AMD. And before you say ASMedia sucks, Intel still has not PCIe 4.0 available.,

Point is that while B450 supported Zen2, it was really for Zen+. Expecting something outdated to support latest future offerings is never good idea. Also those who bought X570 will only need one board for two, or perhaps three, generations.

You also miss that AMD still offers 16 core CPU for B450. Best Intel offering right now is 8 cores. It will take years until Intel offers 16 cores for LGA1XXX.



AMD didn't promise anything about future compatibility. Saving $30 for outdated motherboard and expecting it to receive same support that modern motherboard does, is never good idea.

Smartphones are similar example. Manufacturers do not get directly any revenue when updating old phones with latest Android versions or patches. It does cost them though. Same with AM4 boards: updating support for latest CPU's creates lot of work but no sales. So does anyone expect long term OS/security support for low end smartphone? Some people seem top expect long term support for outdated and cheap motherboard.



Changing motherboard means so much hassle that it essentially means "buy totally new system". Comparing to that, changing just CPU is very easy job. Done that many times.

After reading your posts I’ve realised that the entire tech press including Steve who wrote this article, all the thousands of users on reddit and most of the commenters on here have absolutely no right to be angry or disappointed with AMD and that actually we should be gracious for even being allowed to purchase their products at all.

Thank god you were here to remind us!

Pipe down guys. If you bought a B450 board with a 3xxx chip then you’re stupid if you expected a new CPU to go in that. Duh.

All hail AMD.

 

[HardReset]

After reading your posts I’ve realised that the entire tech press including Steve who wrote this article, all the thousands of users on reddit and most of the commenters on here have absolutely no right to be angry or disappointed with AMD and that actually we should be gracious for even being allowed to purchase their products at all.

Thank god you were here to remind us!

Pipe down guys. If you bought a B450 board with a 3xxx chip then you’re stupid if you expected a new CPU to go in that. Duh.

All hail AMD.

Exactly. They were just expecting too much support when buying obsolete motherboard. Also they could still put 16-core CPU into that motherboard so there is really not much problem.

Also there is no actual proof that AMD is only one behind this. Considering how much crap motherboard makers got when making BIOS updates "too slowly" for Zen2 on older motherboards, it's no wonder if they just asked AMD not to support Zen3 to avoid all of that. Because in case AMD offers support, motherboard makers are expected to make Zen3 BIOS and no manufacturer wants to be worse than competitor. And then we have another Zen2 crapstorm in hands. Only AMD's lack of support can prevent that.

 

[BSim500]

Expecting something outdated to support latest future offerings is never good idea. Also those who bought X570 will only need one board for two, or perhaps three, generations.

Bold is literally the exact word for word sentence that Intel users were called "sheep" on these forums for uttering. "Times change" indeed... The majority of mainstream sales are B boards because most people don't need the X enthusiast features, and it's interesting how those who spent years lauding how popular & cheap the mainstream B350/B450's were in every single AMD vs Intel price comparison suddenly now flip 180 degrees on a dime and declare them "trash" and are now patronizingly telling people to either spend double on X570's they don't need, or that the "correct" Zen 2 chipset (B550) they "should" have bought is the one that didn't even exist for a whole year after the CPU it's "supposed" to be matched with launched...

No matter how you try and spin it, AMD should have had a proper B550 launch alongside the 3000's if they were going to cut B450 support artifically short, and not wait a whole year after then "bait & switch". That's still AMD's screw-up and mindless "AMD are never to blame for anything, ever" fanboyism is highly unconvincing.

You also miss that AMD still offers 16 core CPU for B450. Best Intel offering right now is 8 cores. It will take years until Intel offers 16 cores for LGA1XXX.

I don't "miss" that, I just understand that cores vs performance don't scale indefinitely in games whilst better IPC / architecural enhancements do (ie, for the bulk of gaming, I'd rather have a 6-8x core chip with faster cores than a 16-core with slower ones). See the 1600/2600 getting beaten by the 3300X by a good +20% as to what counts more in actual practise vs hoping that the Magical Thread Fairy will cause all games over the next 3 years to be perfectly hand-optimized for 16C/32T chips when we all know that reality = the next 8 years worth of the usual cross-platform AAA games will absolutely be designed around and written for the new-gen 8-core consoles and ported to PC's as the usual consolized afterthought (something that all the 64-core ThreadRippers in the world won't fix)...

 

[Tyr Antilles]

I'd rather prefer better performance, compatibility and features with the new chipset then scrapping those for the sake of backwards compatibility with older chipsets.

 

[Shadowboxer]

I'd rather prefer better performance, compatibility and features with the new chipset then scrapping those for the sake of backwards compatibility with older chipsets.

Just out of curiosity, what new features are coming that prevents backwards compatibility?

 

[Tyr Antilles]

This I do not know as 4000 series hasn't launched and reviewed yet, but as the author said, AMD must have a reason for axing support for 400 series chipsets on Zen3 CPU's. And that is probably not the size of BIOS, but something regarding either performance, compatibility and/or features on Zen3 CPU's.

 

[Shadowboxer]

This I do not know as 4000 series hasn't launched and reviewed yet, but as the author said, AMD must have a reason for axing support for 400 series chipsets on Zen3 CPU's. And that is probably not the size of BIOS, but something regarding either performance, compatibility and/or features on Zen3 CPU's.

The only feature difference I can see between a 5 series board and a 4 series board is PCIe 4.

I don’t see why you might need that to run a newer CPU. Especially as the 3xxx series works in boards with or without it. But maybe there’s something there, some kind of limitation.

But what I think this is is pressure from mobo manufacturers, we know the profit margins on their mobos are tiny so naturally they won’t be happy if a new CPU release and everyone just uses the same board. Also customer experience, updating bios is not fun, you need an older cpu, some know how a bit of time.

Ultimately I can see AMD going the same way as Intel, 2 CPUs per mobo. There will probably be a bit more leeway and overlap of compatibility from AMD - good for enthusiasts but confusing for general consumers.

And why not. They copied most other things, now instead of i3, i5, i7 etc it’s just R3, R5, R7. HT is called SMT. The chip prices are actually a lot higher than most of the Intel 2xxx, 3xxx, 4xxx stuff but much better value as they aren’t just all quad cores. The logo is red and not blue. And like Intel before Ryzen, AMD’s chips are cooler and more power efficient than the competition. Just wait, soon we’ll get a refresh called Devils Highway or something!

 

[veLa]

Main problem here is PCI Express 4.0 support. When Intel decided to go with LGA1200, they will support PCIe 4.0 when next CPU's arrive. So Intel can advertise "we support PCIe 4.0". Can AMD do this with Zen3 IF they allow crappy 2017 year chipsets (everything below 500 series, x470 and B450 are 100% same as x370 and B350 respectively) work with Zen3? No. Customer buys Zen3 system with no PCIe 4.0 support and guess who is to blame? AMD of course.

Also, what Really is problem here?

Those who own at most 8-core Zen2, can upgrade to 16-core Zen2.

Those who own better than 8-core Zen2, that is 12-core or 16-core Zen2, are unlike to upgrade into 16-core Zen3.

Comparing to Intel.

Those who own LGA1151 v1 motherboard can upgrade to 6-core Skylake ?

Those who own LGA1151 v2 motherboard can upgrade to 8-core Skylake ?

So what's the Problem here?

The problem here is that AMD marketing has over-promised and changed their tune. It's been highly implied that socket support through 2020 also meant chipset support through 2020. So people like myself with X470 motherboards paired with something like a 2700X considered the possibility of upgrading to a 4000 series processor after skipping out on the 3000 series processor.

The problem is that AMD lead people to believe that their 400 series chipsets would support AMD CPUs through 2020. Whether or not a specific person cares or what Intel does is irrelevant. A company should live up to it's promises.

Exactly. Whether it's a B450 or X470, you figured you could run this motherboard to the end of the platform's lifespan.

The only feature difference I can see between a 5 series board and a 4 series board is PCIe 4.

I don’t see why you might need that to run a newer CPU. Especially as the 3xxx series works in boards with or without it. But maybe there’s something there, some kind of limitation.

But what I think this is is pressure from mobo manufacturers, we know the profit margins on their mobos are tiny so naturally they won’t be happy if a new CPU release and everyone just uses the same board. Also customer experience, updating bios is not fun, you need an older cpu, some know how a bit of time.

I think you hit the nail on the head here.

 

[NightAntilli]

I myself got a top end X470 board with a gen 1 Ryzen CPU with the plan to upgrade to a Zen 3 CPU. Now I can still upgrade to a Zen 2 CPU for a significant performance boost, but I'm not sure that I actually want to anymore. I simply cannot support these practices, and upgrading to a Zen 2 CPU makes me feel like I'm supporting their decision.
These corporations need to learn not to ditch their customers.

 

[Invictus Red]

Not being an AMD apologist, but does no one remember last year and the issues with BIOS for Zen 2 on older boards? It was a nightmare situation for them to get 300/400 series boards compatible with new CPUs with boot kits, sending AGESA to OEMs to flash them at the factory before sale, and all sorts of logistical messes (My friend bought an X570 cause he didn't want to mess with finding which board was compatible from the start), so I get it from that standpoint they don't want to go through with the headache all over again.

I've only seen a couple of comments on this thread pointing that out, and for a bunch of tech enthusiasts, the lack of short term memory is concerning to me. My friend was a first time builder, and as I was trying to help him navigate the parts to get within his budget it was daunting researching all the requirements getting Zen2 to work with 300/400 boards.

He didn't have an older CPU and being in a different state I couldn't just bring over my 2700X for him. AMD had the CPU loan program which was a nice gesture even if the older CPU had to be returned. I can't recall if Microcenter had something similar but even if they did, there are only but so many in the country anyway and not everyone lives near one.

Not only that but at launch there were tons of issues going on with BIOS updates for 300/400 boards. Even experienced builders couldn't get their system to boot because of the malfunctioning AGESA, so I didn't want to burden my friend or taint his first time putting a PC together.

In the end, we just went with the X570, as we knew his CPU build would work out of the box with no issues.

So it's easy to see why AMD would want to avoid that situation again. Honestly, during this process of researching BIOS updates and hearing horror stories of how some weren't working, I was very close to saying screw it, and going with Intel (ALMOST. the 8700k would be the bare minimum and after seeing it was still over $400, I calmed down and decided on x570 + 3600 for him for the time, knowing that we could get him the 3700X if need be later on).

This is all being said based on the initial week of information. It's very possible that not supporting it is their official stance, and when they release the code to the wild, some manufacturers are going to release Beta software with all sorts of disclaimers and warranty voiding warranties.

I stick with the fact that AMD had bad messaging on this announcement, evidenced by everyone playing semantics between what "AM4 support through 2020" means and linking to various different announcements to prove or disprove a point. They'd been much better off saying "hey guys, last year was a **** show so this is what we're doing."

Everyone is pointing to the 16 MB BIOS storage that x570 boards and b450 boards have as indication that it's possible to include support for new chips on older boards, yet not a single person who chimed in (myself included) is someone who compiles AGESA.

 

[Derael]

Now let's see: you bought 2019 CPU and were expecting to upgrade it to 2020 CPU. In 2020 you also want to use PCI Express tech from 2012 ?

So on one way want new tech and another way you want to stick with something obsolete. No surprise this kind of combinations won't always work.

Yeah, it's not like anyone is using USB 2.0 anymore.