AMD will give Ryzen APU customers a free processor to help flash their firmware

[hahahanoobs]

?

And who said I love AMD? I roll with whatever, have had A10 6800k, FX-6300, Ryzen 1600, 2130, 2310, 2500, 2500k, 2600k, 3470, 3570k, 3770, 3770k, 4130T, 4360, 4670k, 4770k, G4560, havent dabled in anything above Haswell as the price/performance isnt there for me IMO. I build a PC from craigslist deals everytime I turn around.

I agree they had launch high speed memory support issues yes. But your complaing about AMD trying to help moronic people?? Go away

Like I said.....

 

[ZackL04]

What did you say again?

You said amd sucks because of this “issue” which is actually them going out of their way to help uninformed buyers and u said 1st gen am4 apu should be compatible with 1st gen am4 motherboard and it does, this is second gen....

 

[Shanedog]

Anyone know how long AMD will buy the "processor is in the mail" excuse while waiting for you to send it back to them?

 

[Shadowboxer]

Hilarious reading the comments defending AMD on this one. This is a massive ****up from AMD. No matter how you slice it, products should work on release and you shouldn’t have consumers waiting for upgrade packs to arrive at an unspecified time after they pay for brand new hardware. Especially considering that AMD release APUs all the time, this is hardly new territory for them, sure it’s new architecture but as far as I’m aware previous APUs worked on release.

For me his doesn’t bode well for the future, with AMD promising to support the AM4 socket through till 2020 and three generations of products at least. Expect more motherboard issues. This is exactly why Intel change the socket up every year or two. Can anyone say for certain that every AM4 motherboard will be ready for Ryzen plus let alone Ryzen 2?

Bricks are forecast to be appearing on many AM4 owners desks over the coming months.

 

[mbrowne5061]

Or wait for it... they could have worked with mobo vendors and had a BIOS ready in time! Imagine that! But hey, after the Ryzen memory compatibility crap, what consumer wouldn't mind bringing a system home only to find out later they they have to request hardware be mailed to them before they can do anything with it.

Hey cool, Intel does/did this too. I see that brought up. Well guess what? When AMD was bragging about how you didn't need a new motherboard to support their new chips, they also didn't tell you the chipset supporting those chips were rebrands so a new mothboard wouldn't even make sense. A LOT of people don't think about that. It's really really sad to be honest.

Most consumers buy prebuilt, and Intel has a far better reputation than AMD, so compatibility isn't such an issue compared to a company that is struggling as hard as AMD is with Ryzen CPU's and APU's. Think about it. No. THINK!

They DO have one ready in time. You're fundamentally misunderstanding the problem:

You can't update motherboard BIOS without a compatible CPU. You can't run the new CPU on the old motherboard without the new BIOS. So, in order to install the new BIOS on the old motherboard to use your new CPU, you need to find a compatible processor that came out before the current BIOS on your motherboard were released, but was released recently enough to be compatible with the new BIOS you're trying to install, and use that to install the new BIOS. For most users, this means trolling ebay for a processor they are only going to use for a day at the outside, and hoping they get one that works. By lending their users a suitable processor, AMD is saving their customers money and doing them a favor.

If you continue to argue about irrelevant things, like incompatibilities between new processors and old motherboards without a software update, I'm just going to assume you're either un-teachable or just a troll.

 

[hahahanoobs]

They DO have one ready in time. You're fundamentally misunderstanding the problem:

You can't update motherboard BIOS without a compatible CPU. You can't run the new CPU on the old motherboard without the new BIOS. So, in order to install the new BIOS on the old motherboard to use your new CPU, you need to find a compatible processor that came out before the current BIOS on your motherboard were released, but was released recently enough to be compatible with the new BIOS you're trying to install, and use that to install the new BIOS. For most users, this means trolling ebay for a processor they are only going to use for a day at the outside, and hoping they get one that works. By lending their users a suitable processor, AMD is saving their customers money and doing them a favor.

If you continue to argue about irrelevant things, like incompatibilities between new processors and old motherboards without a software update, I'm just going to assume you're either un-teachable or just a troll.

"You can't update motherboard BIOS without a compatible CPU."
Wrong. Gigabyte has Q-Flash Plus, and ASUS has BIOS Flashback. Not all boards have it, but it could have been an option if the feature was standard.

The rest of what you said is why AMD is using the A9 as a band-aid to hide the fact that AMD didn't get all their ducks in a row this time following the desktop Ryzen memory compatibility problems, which is THE problem with their Ryzen AM4 APU launch.

As a techie in the know, it probably doesn't bother you that you have to wait for a chip in the mail that you have to send back sans HS/F, but for someone that doesn't is going to get too that step and return the items. The alternative to that for them would be to wait for motherboard vendors to start flashing the BIOS from the FACTORY. AMD's band-aid isn't helping them. At a time when AMD needs a smooth launch more than ever, AMD is screwing up. Oh, and just because they are struggling as a company is NOT an excuse. My money dgaf!

It's common sense consumers want to pay for a product that works out of the box.

That is all. Thanks for playing!

 

[Cooe14]

They knew that this was going to happen. I have built hundreds of pcs and have never encountered this.

The later part of this sentence makes the former impossible and vice versa. AKA I'm calling total BS. EVERY new chip released for existing boards is like this. What do you expect, for chip companies to wait until every board with an older BIOS sitting on store shelves is sold before they can release new chips??? You don't happen to have the disqus name of "Bill Ofrights" do you? Because someone was being just as mindblowingly dumb about the exact same thing and said it in nearly the same fashion on PC Gamer's review of these chips, and I can't possibly fathom how more than one person could POSSIBLY be this thickheaded.

 

[ZackL04]

"You can't update motherboard BIOS without a compatible CPU."
Wrong. Gigabyte has Q-Flash Plus, and ASUS has BIOS Flashback. Not all boards have it, but it could have been an option if the feature was standard.

The rest of what you said is why AMD is using the A9 as a band-aid to hide the fact that AMD didn't get all their ducks in a row this time following the desktop Ryzen memory compatibility problems, which is THE problem with their Ryzen AM4 APU launch.

As a techie in the know, it probably doesn't bother you that you have to wait for a chip in the mail that you have to send back sans HS/F, but for someone that doesn't is going to get too that step and return the items. The alternative to that for them would be to wait for motherboard vendors to start flashing the BIOS from the FACTORY. AMD's band-aid isn't helping them. At a time when AMD needs a smooth launch more than ever, AMD is screwing up. Oh, and just because they are struggling as a company is NOT an excuse. My money dgaf!

It's common sense consumers want to pay for a product that works out of the box.

That is all. Thanks for playing!

So what did 3770k buyers do when they also bought an older z68 board off the shelf at micro center? Wait..... let me guess, use a 2xxx series chip?? This is the EXACT same instance.

Where are you cryin about the fact you STILL cant buy a non Z board for Coffee lake CPU’s??

And the memory issues with Ryzen have been exaggerated cause everyone is buying the cheapest junk ram available becuase of pricing. Not all mobo manufacturers support full speed of every stick in the world. Stick with top popular brands and models like Corsair, Crucial and GSkill and u will get the speeds advertised.

 

[hahahanoobs]

So what did 3770k buyers do when they also bought an older z68 board off the shelf at micro center? Wait..... let me guess, use a 2xxx series chip?? This is the EXACT same instance.

Where are you cryin about the fact you STILL cant buy a non Z board for Coffee lake CPU’s??

And the memory issues with Ryzen have been exaggerated cause everyone is buying the cheapest junk ram available becuase of pricing. Not all mobo manufacturers support full speed of every stick in the world. Stick with top popular brands and models like Corsair, Crucial and GSkill and u will get the speeds advertised.

You're funny. So nothing about how quickly I produced motherboards with BIOS you can flash without a CPU? Okay, moving on then.

If you've been paying attention, AMD isn't exactly in the clear here after 5 years being out of the game are they? Ryzen memory problems are not going to attract customers they desperately need. Intel doesn't have that problem. AMD has problems with every product launch and this one is no different.

I'm just being the elephant in the room you want to ignore and think AMD is fine when they are NOT. AMD needs to get their act together and the excuses are annoying.

Customers will recommend a product that works out of the box over one that doesn't, but keep cheering and defending them.
It's fun to read!

 

[Cooe14]

They DO have one ready in time. You're fundamentally misunderstanding the problem:

You can't update motherboard BIOS without a compatible CPU. You can't run the new CPU on the old motherboard without the new BIOS. So, in order to install the new BIOS on the old motherboard to use your new CPU, you need to find a compatible processor that came out before the current BIOS on your motherboard were released, but was released recently enough to be compatible with the new BIOS you're trying to install, and use that to install the new BIOS. For most users, this means trolling ebay for a processor they are only going to use for a day at the outside, and hoping they get one that works. By lending their users a suitable processor, AMD is saving their customers money and doing them a favor.

If you continue to argue about irrelevant things, like incompatibilities between new processors and old motherboards without a software update, I'm just going to assume you're either un-teachable or just a troll.

"You can't update motherboard BIOS without a compatible CPU."
Wrong. Gigabyte has Q-Flash Plus, and ASUS has BIOS Flashback. Not all boards have it, but it could have been an option if the feature was standard.

The rest of what you said is why AMD is using the A9 as a band-aid to hide the fact that AMD didn't get all their ducks in a row this time following the desktop Ryzen memory compatibility problems, which is THE problem with their Ryzen AM4 APU launch.

As a techie in the know, it probably doesn't bother you that you have to wait for a chip in the mail that you have to send back sans HS/F, but for someone that doesn't is going to get too that step and return the items. The alternative to that for them would be to wait for motherboard vendors to start flashing the BIOS from the FACTORY. AMD's band-aid isn't helping them. At a time when AMD needs a smooth launch more than ever, AMD is screwing up. Oh, and just because they are struggling as a company is NOT an excuse. My money dgaf!

It's common sense consumers want to pay for a product that works out of the box.

That is all. Thanks for playing!

The two contradict each other, it's literally a physical imposibility for either AMD or Intel to give you what you want. If they want to release chips with major architectural changes (like including graphics) for existing boards, it's going to require a BIOS update, FACT (and they couldn't have included this code in the BIOS from the start, as the chips didn't physically exist yet even if they were well aware they were coming down the pipe. Can't code in support for something that they don't have). Therefore boards already on store shelves right at that second will not have support immediately out of the box, and there is absolutely nothing AMD or anyone else can do about that fact but simply wait until all of the pre-new chip boards have been sold. AMD even gave the board manufacturers the RR compatibility update as soon as it was ready, which was like a month and a half before launch to help combat just this fact! (Try and get some compatible boards on the shelves before the chips dropped) To say nothing of sending you a free chip to update with! You know what Intel says in this situation? (I would know, my friend had this same thing happen once with a cheap board w/o any CPU-less update features & before "existing socket compatibility" became a totally foreign concept to the company). They straight up told him to go buy an older Pentium....

The only other option is to do what Intel does, and just force people to buy a whole new motherboard every single time they drop new chips, I'm guessing you'd prefer that instead??? You guys LOOOOVE cutting Intel all the freaking slack in the world, and then throw a fit when AMD does the same thing, yet is totally up front about it, and even goes the extra mile to lessen any negative effects. The mental gymnastics being accomplished are abosolutely awe-inspiring. I'm talking like an AMD fanboy somehow forgetting Bulldozer ever happened levels of gymnastics here.

And yeah, the OG Zen launch was a clusterfark. If you were expecting anything else from a simultaneous launch of a completely new & totally unlike anything prior arch/chips & socket/boards launch by a tiny (for the industry), near broke company, that board makers thought would be a failure until receiving engineering samples just months prior to launch (leaving them unable to ramp board production in time, or do critical BIOS work) and whom only received AMD's AGESA code just prior to launch with little time to integrate as AMD had rushed the launch as chip makers are want to do (exacerbated greatly by all the other work board makers were scrambling to get caught up on after discovering Zen was in fact the real deal) I'm legitimately shocked and amazed. And if you think Intel hasn't had their own fare share of total clusterfark launches, even with their vastly greater resources, as well as in cases with far lower stakes; you are legitimately delusional and I'd have to recommend you seek medical help for severe memory problems.
Have you seriously already forgotten the disaster that was Skylake's launch? It's massive laundry list of critical problems essentially killed it's exclusive launch halo product, the Surface Pro 4, and took even longer for Intel to get sorted with a 2nd stepping in new production chips (with those early 1st stepping chips in early SP4's pretty much staying totally broken till this day) as it did for AMD to get Zen's memory issues fixed (AGESA 1.0.0.6 in June, aka 3 months late. Who couldn't afford to emergency rush a new chip stepping & write off all those chips they'd already made ala Intel; even if they could have fixed things that way). It would be many, many months post SP4 before any other manufacturer thought it worth the risk of putting a SL chip in their products, and those who did continued to be plagued with a variety of minor to major issues for a good while more. Totally new architectures pretty much never have smooth landings, and expecting so is just asking for hurt, regardless of the company. If sitting on mountains of cash Intel can't pull it off, what made you expect AMD to, in an even more difficult situation?

 

[Cooe14]

Lol 1st gen AM4 APU’s are Ax 9xxx series, nice try fanboy.

Hate AMD all you want, but this thread should be all applause, they are borrowing chips for free to support socket carry over. They could be like Intel and just change the socket every two years. Maybe they will, but for now they are going out of their way to help people like you.

Hahahaha every 2 years? While that's "technically" still the case (as it makes the most financial sense to minimize the need to design a new socket as much as possible), they've stopped maintaining compatibility even if it doesn't change. For example Z170/270 = socket LGA-1151, and yet the incompatible Coffee Lake requires Z370 which uses.... yes you guessed it, socket LGA-1151. But one of you might stammer out "That doesn't mean anything! Even if the pin count/layout is the same, things could be dramatically different on an electrical level!" to which I point you to the lead engineer at ASUS' ROG division who's gone on the official record saying that IS NOT the case, and that Z170/270 could support CL with nothing more than a BIOS update..... (Google if any of you somehow cannot believe Intel would ever do such a thing).

 

[ZackL04]

Hahahaha every 2 years? While that's "technically" still the case (as it makes the most financial sense to minimize the need to design a new socket as much as possible), they've stopped maintaining compatibility even if it doesn't change. For example Z170/270 = socket LGA-1151, and yet the incompatible Coffee Lake requires Z370 which uses.... yes you guessed it, socket LGA-1151. But one of you might stammer out "That doesn't mean anything! Even if the pin count/layout is the same, things could be dramatically different on an electrical level!" to which I point you to the lead engineer at ASUS' ROG division who's gone on the official record saying that IS NOT the case, and that Z170/270 could support CL with nothing more than a BIOS update..... (Google if any of you somehow cannot believe Intel would ever do such a thing).

Oh I hear that. I know its still a 1151 platform for Intel and I wouldnt put it past Intel for a second what you said about Coffee lake should be compatible, what Im arguing, with the ever dense ..hanoobs, is that at least AMD is not milking us and in turn helping uninformed customers who want to drop a Vega chip into an 350/370 motherboard. I suggested they be applauded

 

[Cooe14]

Oh I hear that. I know its still a 1151 platform for Intel and I wouldnt put it past Intel for a second what you said about Coffee lake should be compatible, what Im arguing, with the ever dense ..hanoobs, is that at least AMD is not milking us and in turn helping uninformed customers who want to drop a Vega chip into an 350/370 motherboard. I suggested they be applauded

Hahaha I know that, and agree with you 110%. See my big post above the one you replied to . (Same crap happens when Intel releases chips for existing boards, but they'll help you with boot problems as far only as telling you to buy another CPU from them, just to update and afterwards try and sell it [told my buddy just that trying to use a KL CPU in a Z170 board he'd gotten a steal on used, namely buy a Pentium, then try and sell it to someone, or sell the board and buy a Z270], and that Intel's had plenty of hot mess launches just like Zen, with as recently as their last new major arch, aka Skylake being a huge disaster).

 

[TheBigFatClown]

How does somebody get into this situation to begin with? No one goes out and buys just an AM4 motherboard, hangs onto it for awhile, and then tries to buy a new CPU that is incompatible with it, do they?

Blaming AMD for this screwup? I think that's a stretch. Maybe the 3rd party resellers aren't being responsible like they should be?

That's the only way I can see a person falling into this trap.

 

[Cooe14]

How does somebody get into this situation to begin with? No one goes out and buys just an AM4 motherboard, hangs onto it for awhile, and then tries to buy a new CPU that is incompatible with it, do they?

Blaming AMD for this screwup? I think that's a stretch. Maybe the 3rd party resellers aren't being responsible like they should be?

That's the only way I can see a person falling into this trap.

Any and all motherboards currently on shelves, or in warehouses as we speak that are more than a month-ish old (when AMD released the AGESA ver. w/ RR support, and thus board makers BIOS updates w/ it) will have pre-RR supporting BIOS' preinstalled (which is a whole lot of them right now). In a month or two, that should mostly stop being an issue. This is a problem at first with every launch that works with existing boards, as recently as Kaby Lake & Z170 (Z270 wasn't yet widespread, not to mention more expensive, and Z170 boards for sale were not yet up to date, BIOS-wise).

 

[TheBigFatClown]

Lol 1st gen AM4 APU’s are Ax 9xxx series, nice try fanboy.

Hate AMD all you want, but this thread should be all applause, they are borrowing chips for free to support socket carry over. They could be like Intel and just change the socket every two years. Maybe they will, but for now they are going out of their way to help people like you.

Hahahaha every 2 years? While that's "technically" still the case (as it makes the most financial sense to minimize the need to design a new socket as much as possible), they've stopped maintaining compatibility even if it doesn't change. For example Z170/270 = socket LGA-1151, and yet the incompatible Coffee Lake requires Z370 which uses.... yes you guessed it, socket LGA-1151. But one of you might stammer out "That doesn't mean anything! Even if the pin count/layout is the same, things could be dramatically different on an electrical level!" to which I point you to the lead engineer at ASUS' ROG division who's gone on the official record saying that IS NOT the case, and that Z170/270 could support CL with nothing more than a BIOS update..... (Google if any of you somehow cannot believe Intel would ever do such a thing).

Very interesting. I did a quick Google search with some keywords but I couldn't find anything. Can you post a link for verification to that information about what that engineer said? I'd really like to read that.

I've already ordered a new AMD 220G/motherboard combo after having grown tired of waiting for Intels cheaper Coffee Lake chipset/motherboard releases. Pride cometh before the fall they say. Is the Titanic really sinking? Probably not, but they are being humbled a bit I think.

 

[Cooe14]

Very interesting. I did a quick Google search with some keywords but I couldn't find anything. Can you post a link for verification to that information about what that engineer said? I'd really like to read that.

I've already ordered a new AMD 220G/motherboard combo after having grown tired of waiting for Intels cheaper Coffee Lake chipset/motherboard releases. Pride cometh before the fall they say. Is the Titanic really sinking? Probably not, but they are being humbled a bit I think.

No problemo my man! Here's the whole interview in fact! (And hahaha I highly doubt Intel was very happy with him for this; wouldn't be surprised if this interview got him in a bit of hot water).
https://www.bit-tech.net/features/tech/motherboards/asus-interview-andrew-wu-rog-motherboard-pm/1/

 

[TheBigFatClown]

Any and all motherboards currently on shelves, or in warehouses as we speak that are more than a month-ish old (when AMD released the AGESA ver. w/ RR support, and thus board makers BIOS updates w/ it) will have pre-RR supporting BIOS' preinstalled (which is a whole lot of them right now). In a month or two, that should mostly stop being an issue. This is a problem at first with every launch that works with existing boards, as recently as Kaby Lake & Z170 (Z270 wasn't yet widespread, not to mention more expensive, and Z170 boards for sale were not yet up to date, BIOS-wise).

I can see what your saying but that's why I blame the 3rd party resellers. If they know this is an issue why don't they flash these motherboards in house for the consumer FFS? I asked a NewEgg chat specialist (hehehe, specialist) if the motherboard I bought recently that was described as being "Ryzen 2000 Ready" was because they flashed it themselves in house or it came from ASRock that way. He said didn't know for sure but guesses that they came that way from ASRock. Okay, I can guess all day too but it doesn't mean it's a fact.

No respectable 3rd party reseller would sell an outdated motherboard that they could easily flash in house, would they? What a mess. I'll chalk it up to laziness until I can come up with a better theory.

 

[Cooe14]

I can see what your saying but that's why I blame the 3rd party resellers. If they know this is an issue why don't they flash these motherboards in house for the consumer FFS? I asked a NewEgg chat specialist (hehehe, specialist) if the motherboard I bought recently that was described as being "Ryzen 2000 Ready" was because they did in house or it came from ASRock that way. He said didn't know for sure but guesses that they came that way from ASRock. Okay, I can guess all day too but it doesn't mean it's a fact.

No respectable 3rd party reseller would sell an outdated motherboard that they could easily flash in house, would they?

.... I would think that'd be self explanatory? Who would be happy/comfortable buying a new product and having it come opened and obviously used? Pretty much no one, and none of them would ever dare take that massive risk of course either. Should the big PC focused resellers offer it as an optional service when these kinds of launches do happen? You betcha! Will they? No. Especially not when Intel has the weight to not give a ****, and AMD will do things like this themselves.

And you definitely made the right choice! Not only will you be able to sell your CPU whenever dGPU prices come back down to Earth, but you'll be able to swap it not only for April's 12nm Zen+ based Ryzen 2000 series, but next years 7nm Zen 2 3000 series as well! The rumor through the grapevine is the Z370 is yet another dead-end chipset, with the upcoming Z390 being required for the 8-core/16-thread Coffee Lake chips that come with it, despite yet again using the same LGA 1151 socket.... They got away with it once already, so now why should they think they won't be able to again?... -__-

 

[Cooe14]

No problemo my man! Here's the whole interview in fact! (And hahaha I highly doubt Intel was very happy with him for this; wouldn't be surprised if this interview got him in a bit of hot water).
https://www.bit-tech.net/features/tech/motherboards/asus-interview-andrew-wu-rog-motherboard-pm/1/

And for anyone too lazy to read the interview, but still wanna know what all the fuss is aboot -

• bit-tech: Can you go into more technical detail about why the new CPUs are not backwards-compatible with Z270 motherboards?
• Andrew: Actually, it depends on Intel’s decision.
• bit-tech: So it’s not a physical limitation? Intel said it was to do with power delivery.
• Andrew: Not really. It [the power delivery] makes a little bit of difference, but not much.
• bit-tech: So what are they referring to – the 20 or so unused pins from before?
• Andrew: Yes.
• bit-tech: So if you wanted and Intel let you, you could make Z270 compatible?
• Andrew: Yes, but you also require an upgrade from the ME [Management Engine] and a BIOS update. Intel somehow has locked the compatibility.

Keep those words in mind the next time any of you plan to buy into an Intel platform (especially Z370, as the current rumors are not looking good for it), so at the very least you're aware up front what you are getting into as far as longevity is concerned.

 

[TheBigFatClown]

.... I would think that'd be self explanatory? Who would be happy/comfortable buying a new product and having it come opened and obviously used? Pretty much no one, and none of them would ever dare take that massive risk of course either. Should the big PC focused resellers offer it as an optional service when these kinds of launches do happen? You betcha! Will they? No. Especially not when Intel has the weight to not give a ****, and AMD will do things like this themselves.

And you definitely made the right choice! Not only will you be able to sell your CPU whenever dGPU prices come back down to Earth, but you'll be able to swap it not only for April's 12nm Zen+ based Ryzen 2000 series, but next years 7nm Zen 2 3000 series as well! The rumor through the grapevine is the Z370 is yet another dead-end chipset, with the upcoming Z390 being required for the 8-core/16-thread Coffee Lake chips that come with it, despite yet again using the same LGA 1151 socket.... They got away with it once already, so now why should they think they won't be able to again?... -__-

I guess your right. Although, I thought these 3rd party resellers did more stuff like 72-hour burn-in tests and things of that nature. Maybe, that's companies like Dell and HP that I'm thinking of.

Any 3rd party reseller knowingly selling an AM4 motherboard with an outdated BIOS and a 2nd generation AMD Ryzen chip should at least let people know they're incompatible. I bought a combo through NewEgg that says the motherboard is "Ryzen 2000 Ready" so I won't have to go through any of the hassle.

 

[Cooe14]

I guess your right. Although, I thought these 3rd party resellers did more stuff like 72-hour burn-in tests and things of that nature. Maybe, that's companies like Dell and HP that I'm thinking of.

Any 3rd party reseller knowingly selling an outdated BIOS with a 2nd generation AMD Ryzen chip should at least let people know they're incompatible. I bought a combo through NewEgg that says the motherboard is "Ryzen 2000 Ready" so I won't have to go through any of the hassle.

Those are exactly the company's you are thinking of, and they do do stuff, just like that. Any prebuilt, or ala-carte hardware bought directly from a OEM will have been extensively tested (but only in configs matching those they sell), for obvious reasons for the former, and because they assume the latter purchases are replacement parts for prior purchased systems (which is almost always the case with things like boards, because no one buys a custom designed for a specific prebulit mobo (like all of HP's/Dell's are), to do a custom rig. Hahaha at least any sane person doesn't.)
Hardware sold directly to consumers explicitly for personal building otoh, is extensively tested in the factory before boxing and that's it. Retailers would never, EVER remotely consider opening it up when they then receive it, unless to be used in a house-brand pre-built or the like where'd need to be opened anyways.

 

[TheBigFatClown]

Those are exactly the company's you are thinking of, and they do do stuff, just like that. Any prebuilt, or ala-carte hardware bought directly from a OEM will have been extensively tested (but only in configs matching those they sell), for obvious reasons for the former, and because they assume the latter purchases are replacement parts for prior purchased systems (which is almost always the case with things like boards, because no one buys a custom designed for a specific prebulit mobo (like all of HP's/Dell's are), to do a custom rig. Hahaha at least any sane person doesn't.)
Hardware sold directly to consumers explicitly for personal building otoh, is extensively tested in the factory before boxing and that's it. Retailers would never, EVER remotely consider opening it up when they then receive it, unless to be used in a house-brand pre-built or the like where'd need to be opened anyways.

Makes me feel all that much better about my purchase. So, NeweEgg more than likely did not flash it, which means it came from ASRock flashed for battle. LoL. Bad joke? *sigh*, well at least I try. Sad, the NewEgg specialist doesn't have this kind of knowledge about the company he works for. They need more training.

 

[Cooe14]

Makes me feel all that much better about my purchase. So, NeweEgg more than likely did not flash it, which means it came from ASRock flashed for battle. LoL. Bad joke? *sigh*, well at least I try. Sad, the NewEgg specialist doesn't have this kind of knowledge about the company he works for. They need more training.

Only if it's from a new board shipment. If Newegg has had that particular board in it's warehouse for more than a month-ish otoh, it most likely won't. Right now? I'd say your odds are 70/30, safe/screwed; depending on how popular that particular board is. Sadly ASRock is like the only board company WITHOUT a CPU-less BIOS flashing feature on their mid-range & high end boards -_- (their equivalent "flash from BIOS" feature, "Instant Flash" is the only one that requires a compatible CPU in the socket). They'll mail you out a pre-flashed BIOS chip instead (BIOS chips are easily removeable/replacable with just a set of small plyers/big tweezers (or a legit chip puller, but no one has one of dem around hahaha), but at that point might as well get the CPU from AMD for the free AM4 heatsink hahaha.

 

[hahahanoobs]

The two contradict each other, it's literally a physical imposibility for either AMD or Intel to give you what you want. If they want to release chips with major architectural changes (like including graphics) for existing boards, it's going to require a BIOS update, FACT (and they couldn't have included this code in the BIOS from the start, as the chips didn't physically exist yet even if they were well aware they were coming down the pipe. Can't code in support for something that they don't have). Therefore boards already on store shelves right at that second will not have support immediately out of the box, and there is absolutely nothing AMD or anyone else can do about that fact but simply wait until all of the pre-new chip boards have been sold. AMD even gave the board manufacturers the RR compatibility update as soon as it was ready, which was like a month and a half before launch to help combat just this fact! (Try and get some compatible boards on the shelves before the chips dropped) To say nothing of sending you a free chip to update with! You know what Intel says in this situation? (I would know, my friend had this same thing happen once with a cheap board w/o any CPU-less update features & before "existing socket compatibility" became a totally foreign concept to the company). They straight up told him to go buy an older Pentium....

The only other option is to do what Intel does, and just force people to buy a whole new motherboard every single time they drop new chips, I'm guessing you'd prefer that instead??? You guys LOOOOVE cutting Intel all the freaking slack in the world, and then throw a fit when AMD does the same thing, yet is totally up front about it, and even goes the extra mile to lessen any negative effects. The mental gymnastics being accomplished are abosolutely awe-inspiring. I'm talking like an AMD fanboy somehow forgetting Bulldozer ever happened levels of gymnastics here.

And yeah, the OG Zen launch was a clusterfark. If you were expecting anything else from a simultaneous launch of a completely new & totally unlike anything prior arch/chips & socket/boards launch by a tiny (for the industry), near broke company, that board makers thought would be a failure until receiving engineering samples just months prior to launch (leaving them unable to ramp board production in time, or do critical BIOS work) and whom only received AMD's AGESA code just prior to launch with little time to integrate as AMD had rushed the launch as chip makers are want to do (exacerbated greatly by all the other work board makers were scrambling to get caught up on after discovering Zen was in fact the real deal) I'm legitimately shocked and amazed. And if you think Intel hasn't had their own fare share of total clusterfark launches, even with their vastly greater resources, as well as in cases with far lower stakes; you are legitimately delusional and I'd have to recommend you seek medical help for severe memory problems.
Have you seriously already forgotten the disaster that was Skylake's launch? It's massive laundry list of critical problems essentially killed it's exclusive launch halo product, the Surface Pro 4, and took even longer for Intel to get sorted with a 2nd stepping in new production chips (with those early 1st stepping chips in early SP4's pretty much staying totally broken till this day) as it did for AMD to get Zen's memory issues fixed (AGESA 1.0.0.6 in June, aka 3 months late. Who couldn't afford to emergency rush a new chip stepping & write off all those chips they'd already made ala Intel; even if they could have fixed things that way). It would be many, many months post SP4 before any other manufacturer thought it worth the risk of putting a SL chip in their products, and those who did continued to be plagued with a variety of minor to major issues for a good while more. Totally new architectures pretty much never have smooth landings, and expecting so is just asking for hurt, regardless of the company. If sitting on mountains of cash Intel can't pull it off, what made you expect AMD to, in an even more difficult situation?

Consumers will recommend a product that works out of the box over one that doesn't. This situation is not helping AMD. Period.