Question B550 chipset, so AMD joins the dark side after all.

[Shivansps]

I just read the article...

So let me get this straight, this chipset is coming out like a year later, they did not even bother to add CPU PCI-E 4.0 uplink support or to increase the number of sata ports that is ALREADY a problem on every 6 sata B450 motherboard (NVME x4 disables the 2 SOC Sata, thus 6 sata B450 mbs losses 2 sata if NVME is used), and they even dare to futher reduce backguard compatibility?

I was not expecting for the PCI-E lanes FROM the chipset to be 4.0, but only USB 3.2 G2, no more satas, CPU link still 3.0 and the PCI-E lanes 3.0 is beyond disappointing.

 

[dacostafilipe]

I guess, what would be the point? You would be buying a more expensive motherboard to run an older CPU/APU that can't make use of any of the updated IO that makes it more expensive. B450 boards aren't EOL as far as I know so there should be plenty of supply if you want to go with a Zen/Zen+ processor.

Well, that's exactly what I wanted to do : Buy new motherboard, case, custom loop and wait for Zen3 and Big Navi. Until then, I wanted to use the 1800X and 1080ti. Not going to happen, sadly

In the end, it's really not a big deal, but it's a shame as I like new, shiny hardware

 

[Insert_Nickname]

At this point, I think SATA should be killed. You can now get a single cable for USB 3.1 that connects to USB. Just throw a few USB 3.2 gen 2 ports INSIDE. 😉

I am being serious. We have reached a point where USB has outclassed SATA. We have cables to convert SATA to USB (with power delivery!), lets ditch the SATA ports!

You wouldn't even have to get rid of the legacy SATA interface on the drive itself. Just a USB-to-SATA adaptor which could be used internally would do fine. It could look something like this:

https://www.startech.com/eu/HDD/Adapters/USB-3-SATA-adapter-cable-with-UASP~USB3S2SAT3CB

Only issue would be how to get 12V at enough wattage to power a 3.5" HDD.

Just getting a unified single cable connector would be nice, so you don't have to rout both data and power cables. Come to think of it, is there anything stopping us from using such an adaptor internally? I mean you could easily use an adaptor which makes a standard type A socket from the internal 19-pin USB3 or the new Type E sockets.

We already have UASP, so USB performance is very close to SATA with HDDs.

This is actually cheap enough that I might try it out just on a lark...

 

[VirtualLarry]

Come to think of it, is there anything stopping us from using such an adaptor internally?

1) Windows OS won't boot from USB, only "Windows 'to go', which is an Enterprise-only product", and
2) BER over a USB cable / USB Mass Storage Device is BAD. You would get errors, if constantly in use.
3) Even with UASP, USB still isn't as good as AHCI SATA with NCQ, for outstanding Random I/Os in-flight.
4) USB ports are shared bandwidth, not dedicated like SATA ports are. (Talking about the actual ports, if you drill-down device manager, even the back USB3.0 ports will show up under a "USB Root Hub". Not talking about further upstream, where the CPU talks to the chipset either through PCI-E x4 on AM4, or DMI 3.0 on Intel.)

 

[ArisVer]

1) Windows OS won't boot from USB, only "Windows 'to go', which is an Enterprise-only product", and

I would bet that you knew of WinToUSB.

 

[chrisjames61]

Dude give it a rest. Those aren’t 3 gens and you know it, nor did I say AMD promised anything. It’s best if you sit a few rounds out and let the adults talk amongst themselves.

How is it not 3 generations?

 

[Insert_Nickname]

1) Windows OS won't boot from USB, only "Windows 'to go', which is an Enterprise-only product", and

Since we're mostly using HDDs for bulk storage today, these would be secondary drives only. I don't know anyone (privately, businesses still certainly do) who still runs a desktop of a HDD.

SATA SSDs would be a problem, but since they're being phased out, I doubt that'd really be an issue. Everyone and their dog is going M.2 NVMe these days. Even craptops are finally shaking off HDDs (eMMC is still better then a 5400RPM HDD).

2) BER over a USB cable / USB Mass Storage Device is BAD. You would get errors, if constantly in use.

For OS use certainly. For bulk storage? External USB3 HDDs are fairly reliable with a good cable.

3) Even with UASP, USB still isn't as good as AHCI SATA with NCQ, for outstanding Random I/Os in-flight.

No question. Does it matter when using a HDD? Probably not, and even the cheapest SSD will still wipe the floor with any HDD even with those limitations.

4) USB ports are shared bandwidth, not dedicated like SATA ports are. (Talking about the actual ports, if you drill-down device manager, even the back USB3.0 ports will show up under a "USB Root Hub". Not talking about further upstream, where the CPU talks to the chipset either through PCI-E x4 on AM4, or DMI 3.0 on Intel.)

Yup. Not currently suitable for multi-drive RAID. However, I wonder just how much this matters. HDDs still aren't speed demons in the first place. But you'd definitely want a dedicated USB controller.

Again, for a single 2.5" HDD or two for bulk storage, I think it could work. Its worth trying out at least.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I would bet that you knew of WinToUSB.

"WinToUSB" is an officially Microsoft-sanctioned solution? Not a third-party OS hack/crack/patch? Can be deployed in security-conscious corporations?

 

[coercitiv]

According to the 1st slide, Ryzen 3xxx will not work on X370, B350 and A320 boards. Is this true?

Hardware Unboxed reached for clarifications from AMD: as it stands now AMD will not be supporting Zen3 on 300 and 400 series boards, so OEMs ill not be able to provide BIOS updates like they did with some B350 boards for example.

 

[maddie]

Hardware Unboxed reached for clarifications from AMD: as it stands now AMD will not be supporting Zen3 on 300 and 400 series boards, so OEMs ill not be able to provide BIOS updates like they did with some B350 boards for example.

B550 appears to only support Zen3. Well that's troubling. A one generation board?

Edit:
Guess I wrote too quickly.
"AMD B550 motherboards arrive soon and we wanted you to rest easy knowing that an investment in this platform gives you a clear upgrade path tomorrow."

Obvious questions here.
Will there be a Zen 3+ on AM4?
Is AM5 farther out than we assumed?
Is Zen4 farther out than we assumed?
Or is Zen4 both AM4 & AM5 compatible?

 

[Gideon]

Hardware Unboxed states (citing AMD directly) that there will be no zen 3 support on any 400 series motherboards (including B450 MAX boards with large BIOS chips, etc):

They say, this will not be like the B3xx series case (I'm happily running a 3700X on B350 Tomahawk with beta bios btw) and not even boards with large BIOS chips will work (e.g. Tomahawk B450 MAX).

I really hope they will change their mind on this.

1. This would have been understandable had they mentioned it when x570 series motherboards first became available (or at least few months after)
2. This would have been understandable had they released B550 earlier. IMO even end of 2019 or January would have been ok-ish
3. I could even understand if they would only make an (unofficial) exception to the boards with larger BIOS chips.

But no support flat-out and no communication of the fact for 8 months after Zen 2 release?
IMO the current handling of affairs absolutely sucks by AMD and could have been done miles better.

If you make this kind of decision at least communicate it to your clients ASAP. Especially with all the "socket-longetivity" marketing you've done.

Even now, there is still no way to buy a good forward-compatible motherboard for mid-range CPU (say R5 3600) that wouldn't cost more than the CPU itself. Even just a few weeks ago I recommended a friend to go with Tomahawk B450 MAX as it has excellent VRMs (no cheap x570 really compares) and a large BIOS chip. As this board was released months after Zen 2 CPUs, it seemed logical to assume it would at least (beta) support the next CPUs, Zen 3.

As it stands right now:

If you refused to fork out e.g. 200€ for a MOBO and only went with say a 120€ board (which is by no means an el-cheapo board) 8 months after the Zen 2 CPU release.
This is so, even if you bought a more premium-midrange board with larger BIOS chips (boards released after Zen 2).

At least where I live, there are no decent X570 boards with good VRMs south of 200€. The cheapest crappy ones (Gigabyte X570 UD) are over 150€.

 

[eek2121]

four lanes, but two of them are shared with the two sata ports coming from the CPU. You can have a x2 NVME and 2 extra satas, but as soon as you use a x4 NVME you loose the two Satas connected to the CPU. Any B350/B450 right now with 6 satas losses two if a x4 NVME is used.


I dont think that is related to the interface used to transfer data.

Indeed, sounds like he has issues with a specific device.

You wouldn't even have to get rid of the legacy SATA interface on the drive itself. Just a USB-to-SATA adaptor which could be used internally would do fine. It could look something like this:

https://www.startech.com/eu/HDD/Adapters/USB-3-SATA-adapter-cable-with-UASP~USB3S2SAT3CB

Only issue would be how to get 12V at enough wattage to power a 3.5" HDD.

Just getting a unified single cable connector would be nice, so you don't have to rout both data and power cables. Come to think of it, is there anything stopping us from using such an adaptor internally? I mean you could easily use an adaptor which makes a standard type A socket from the internal 19-pin USB3 or the new Type E sockets.

We already have UASP, so USB performance is very close to SATA with HDDs.

This is actually cheap enough that I might try it out just on a lark...

I have a USB 3.0 cable, costed under 10 bucks and it powers a 7200rpm hard drive. Granted it’s not for every workload, but for most desktop systems it is more than sufficient. I haven’t tried installing Windows (I am a Linux guy these days), however I have used it to successfully set up RAID via software with no issues.

You can get a 500gb m.2 SSD these days for $50-$75 or a smaller one for less. Users should not be booting off a hard drive anymore IMO.

B550 appears to only support Zen3. Well that's troubling. A one generation board?

Edit:
Guess I wrote too quickly.
"AMD B550 motherboards arrive soon and we wanted you to rest easy knowing that an investment in this platform gives you a clear upgrade path tomorrow."

Obvious questions here.
Will there be a Zen 3+ on AM4?
Is AM5 farther out than we assumed?
Is Zen4 farther out than we assumed?
Or is Zen4 both AM4 & AM5 compatible?

It is an issue of microcode size. Most people don’t understand this.

EDIT: what should really intrigue you is why the Zen 3 microcode is so much bigger than Zen 1 + Zen 2. 😉

 

[Gideon]

B550 appears to only support Zen3. Well that's troubling. A one generation board?

Edit:
Guess I wrote too quickly.
"AMD B550 motherboards arrive soon and we wanted you to rest easy knowing that an investment in this platform gives you a clear upgrade path tomorrow."

Obvious questions here.
Will there be a Zen 3+ on AM4?
Is AM5 farther out than we assumed?
Is Zen4 farther out than we assumed?
Or is Zen4 both AM4 & AM5 compatible?

It will obviously support Zen 2, both Matisse and Renoir and also Zen 3 and whatever APU comes later with Zen 3

 

[Shivansps]

Hardware Unboxed states (citing AMD directly) that there will be no zen 3 support on any 400 series motherboards (including B450 MAX boards with large BIOS chips, etc):

They say, this will not be like the B3xx series case (I'm happily running a 3700X on B350 Tomahawk with beta bios btw) and not even boards with large BIOS chips will work (e.g. Tomahawk B450 MAX).

I really hope they will change their mind on this.

1. This would have been understandable had they mentioned it when 5xx series motherboards became available (or at least few months alter)
2. This would have been understandable had they had B550 available earlier than it is (e.g 3-4 months after x570)
3. I could even understand if they would only make an (unofficial) exception to the boards with larger BIOS chips.

But the current handling of affairs IMO absolutely sucks by AMD and could have been done miles better.
If you make this kind of decision at least communicate it to your clients (especially with all the socket-longetivity marketing they've done).

As it stands right now there is still no way to buy a good forward-compatible motherboard (even now) for say a R5 3600 that wouldn't cost more than the CPU. Even just a few weeks ago I recommended a friend to go with Tomahawk B450 MAX as it has excellent VRMs (no cheap x570 really compares) and a large BIOS chip. As this board was released months after Zen 2 CPUs, it seemed logical to assume it would at least (beta) support the next CPUs, Zen 3.

As it stands right now:

If you refused to fork out e.g. 200€ for a MOBO and only went with say a 120€ board (which is by no means an el-cheapo board) 8 months after the Zen 2 CPU release.
This is so, even if you bought a more premium-midrange board with larger BIOS chips (boards released after Zen 2).

At least where I live, there are no decent X570 boards with good VRMs south of 200€. The cheapest crappy ones (Gigabyte X570 UD) are over 150€.

Is not that unexpected when you think about it, what it really weird is the sudden cut of retrocompatibility even more compared to x570, that makes no sence at all.

AMD B550 page says up to 8 SATA. If 6 isn't possible on the PCH that math doesn't work. https://www.amd.com/en/chipsets/b550

I'm pretty sure that 10 x 3.0 lanes can be connected to the PCH while sharing bandwith over the x4 uplink. This is exactly how x570 works only with 12 x 4.0 lanes instead of 10 x 3.0. I have a second NVME and an x4 network card connected to the PCH of my x570 and the motherboard doesn't disable any of it's 8 SATA ports when these expansion slots are populated. Why would gigabyte make a b550 board with 3 M.2 slots and 6 SATA ports if the I/0 was as limited as you suggest?

https://hexus.net/media/uploaded/2019/6/84149e21-86a0-4150-95c7-7bbc48f99b05.png

The x570 slide is laid out the same as the b550 slide.

If thats ends up to be true, it is actually very nice.

 

[Gideon]

Is not that unexpected when you think about it, what it really weird is the sudden cut of retrocompatibility even more compared to x570, that makes no sence at all.

Yes, it probably isn't that surprising all-things considered, but if they had this planned from the beginning:

a) They should have gotten the B550 out sooner.
b) They should have mentioned it way earlier (many people would have bought x570 or postponed buying stuff)

IMO announcing this 9 months after Zen 2 release and maybe only 4-5 months before z>n 3 launch is not a very nice move. Especially with B550 still at least a month or two away.

 

[Rigg]

I really hope they will change their mind on this.

I wouldn't be surprised if they get brow beat into letting the AIB's support at least the 400 series boards. I personally don't think its that big of a deal for a few reasons.

1. b550 should be affordable enough not to matter. If Zen 3 is good enough to justify an upgrade than buy a new motherboard and sell your old motherboard with the old CPU. This is an inconvenience at worst. If you can't afford to take a small monetary hit on a motherboard upgrade you probably shouldn't upgrade your CPU.

2. There are already excellent Zen 2 CPU's as upgrade options. More Zen 2 CPU's are have already been added to the launch lineup. They could release more. Zen 2 won't become obsolete the second that Zen 3 drops and is likely to be the better value proposition when it does get released. Upgrade to a better Zen 2 or wait it out for Zen 4 and AM5 when an upgrade would make more sense anyway.

1. This would have been understandable had they mentioned it when x570 series motherboards first became available (or at least few months after)
2. This would have been understandable had they released B550 earlier. IMO even end of 2019 or January would have been ok-ish
3. I could even understand if they would only make an (unofficial) exception to the boards with larger BIOS chips.

But no support flat-out and no communication of the fact for 8 months after Zen 2 release?
IMO the current handling of affairs absolutely sucks by AMD and could have been done miles better.

If you make this kind of decision at least communicate it to your clients ASAP. Especially with all the "socket-longetivity" marketing you've done.

People have been making too many assumptions about AM4 generational support for too long. I saw this coming after zen 2 launched and b550 was delayed. In fact I predicted it in a post here just yesterday. It was a good run for the 300 and 400 series boards. It's time to move on. As far as I'm concerned AMD has kept their word. It's 2020 and they're still supporting AM4. I don't recall them making any other commitments.

As it stands right now there is still no way to buy a good forward-compatible motherboard (even now) for say a R5 3600 that wouldn't cost more than the CPU. Even just a few weeks ago I recommended a friend to go with Tomahawk B450 MAX as it has excellent VRMs (no cheap x570 really compares) and a large BIOS chip. As this board was released months after Zen 2 CPUs, it seemed logical to assume it would at least (beta) support the next CPUs, Zen 3.

You can't hardly buy any AMD motherboards right now. They are nearly all out of stock due to the pandemic. The B450 Tomahawk has a good VRM for it's price and category. There are a bunch of other MSI b450 and x470 boards with with the same vrm design. It actually has the same number and type of mosfets as the MPG X570 Gaming Edge WiFi /MPG X570 Gaming Plus /MPG X570 Gaming Pro Carbon WiFi /X570-A Pro which are universally panned as being the absolute worst VRM designs on x570. Every other x570 board has an objectively better VRM design than all of the aforementioned MSI motherboards. The b450 Tomahawk is a good b450 board for the money. In the grand scheme of AM4 it's a mediocre board. The new x570 tomahawk is pretty amazing though.

 

[PingSpike]

I use all the SATA ports on my x470 board. Its in my unraid NAS. Apparently Ryzen boards aren't intended to be used in a NAS and I should just be using a pile of SATA to USB dongles instead? LOL, Because we all know those are of the highest reliability!

x570 has SATA performance regressions from the asmedia x470 chipsets so I was kind of hoping this chipset would sidestep that.

The lack of a pci-e 4.0 uplink is probably the lamest part. I didn't expect 4.0 coming from the chipset but kind of figured the connection to the cpu would support it!

I think I see why no support is coming for Zen3 on 400 series...there wouldn't be much reason to buy these boards otherwise!

But maybe proper ACS separation of chipset devices will be available on these boards, unlike x470. Its kind of a long shot though since its still asmedia but who knows?

 

[Shivansps]

Obviously not you. You want to blame AMD for everyone else's problems. See post by @tamz_msc above. It was AMD that let us use older chipsets with Matisse, period. You are impossible to please.

Who cares? B550 (and A520) should have launched along X570 or close to it. Is not someone else problem. The unusual delay happened, like it not. PERIOD.
You are putting too much focus on something that is the least of the problems here.

You are slamming a company over and over again that is doing its best within reason to accommodate customers. You're doing so on a public forum. It comes across as entitled whining.

Then buy their products.

Im still expecting for you to prove me wrong in anything i said, look @Rigg did point me out i was wrong about SATAs, what did you aside from attacking me?

Thanks for accusing me of doing what you are doing. I'm trying to tell you that the vast majority of the market no longer cares how many SATA ports there are on a motherboard. Times are changing.

I said there are right now B450 boards with 6 Satas that losses two if a x4 NVME is used due to chipset limitations, thats a problem. Thats not my perpective, thats a fact, then i pointed out that if you do need them or not thats personal". Then you come out saying no one needs SATAs because YOU dont need more satas, who is proyecting his perpective here?

There is nothing better about having more SATA ports when most customers do not need more SATA ports. Especially not if things wind up being more-expensive or less-useful as a consequence.

SATA is no longer relevant to a growing number of PC users.

The irresistible rise of NVMe means SATA SSD days are numbered – Blocks and Files

SATA interfaces for SSDS are on their way out and the NVMe SSD interface will take over in 2020, according to Eyal Shani, Western Digital’s director, technical product marketing. Speaking at the A3 TechLive conference in London last week, he presented a chart showing price trends for 15K, 10K...

blocksandfiles.com

Satas is part of the problem here, i did pointed out several things. At any rate, and it seems i was wrong about SATAS after all.

That is a lie. You can't even begin to prove that AMD "blocked" anything. Again look at @tamz_msc 's post. Were it up to the OEMs, Matisse never would have worked on those old boards. No PCIe 4.0 for you pal. The OEMs don't want to redo old PCBs with more layers and more-expensive routing for PCIe signals and then try and sell those boards to the public at the same price as the old ones. You are living in a fantasy world.

AMD tried their best to make PCIe 4.0 work on old boards. It was quasi-functional, it didn't cover NVMe storage, and in the end it was not PCI SIG-compliant which meant that AMD couldn't encourage anyone to claim PCIe 4.0 compatibility. The OEMs were NOT going to redo their own boards. And yet you blame AMD?



Let's hope you're never on a jury.



OEMS WERE NOT GOING TO DO THAT. ASMedia is irrelevant to THAT discussion, as well. If you want to know why B550 wasn't out last year, you CAN blame ASMedia's incompetence for that. They had enormous trouble getting PCIe 4.0 routing right on their NEW chipset. What makes you think OEMs were doing to do a better job with an older ASMedia chipset?



It has never been done "forever"! Nobody revised old motherboards to make them PCIe 4.0 compliant. Nobody! PCIe 4.0 requires different routing than any previous version of the standard.

AMD's Latest AGESA Update Removes PCIe 4.0 Support from Pre-X570 Motherboards

AMD's latest AGESA update, which is being seeded to motherboard manufacturers, culls efforts to implement support for PCIe 4.0 in boards not carrying the latest X570 chipset. Some motherboard manufacturers had enabled support for the new standard on existing B450 and X470 motherboards - some...

www.techpowerup.com

It is not a lie, AMD did force block all non x570 from using PCI-E 4.0 by AGESA, i could accept you the arguments about blocking it on old motherboards because old motherboard are not certified. But due that the limitation was per chipset, this includes new motherboards as well.
Is not true that OEM could not have launched new motherboards versions with PCI-E 4.0 and B450 chipsets, you are just making stuff up here. it would had been actually good idea to do it considering how long it took to get B550 out. But as i said, it was blocked by AGESA so, there were never even a chance.

BTW, whatever happened in the past is irrelevant here because this scenario never hapenned before, except maybe for SB->IVY thing.

 

[Gideon]

It is an issue of microcode size. Most people don’t understand this.

EDIT: what should really intrigue you is why the Zen 3 microcode is so much bigger than Zen 1 + Zen 2. 😉

This can't be the only explanation:

1. According to the graph X570 will support Zen+, Zen2 and Zen3. Including Zen+ and Zen 2 APUs.
2. X570 has a 32-megabyte EEPROM.
3. B450 MAX boards have the same 32-megabyte EEPROM.
4. Most other 4xx series boards have 16-megabyte EEPROM.

If they support X570 they could certainly support large BIOS-chip 4xx series boards. They could also probably support the older 4xx boards by cutting support to most older CPUs. I guess a lot of people would still be very happy even when their 4xx board got a new unsupported beta BIOS that only boots with Zen 3 (yes not even with the older CPU they flash it with). I know I would.

Realistically dropping APUs and Zen+ (just allowing Matisse and Vermeer) would be enough. But AMD doesn't even want to make it an option by refusing to release any AGESA for older boards.

 

[rbk123]

He proved he was right, and linked it. You can't read ?

Oklee doklee.

 

[Gideon]

You can't hardly buy any AMD motherboards right now. They are nearly all out of stock due to the pandemic. The B450 Tomahawk has a good VRM for it's price and category. There are a bunch of other MSI b450 and x470 boards with with the same vrm design. It actually has the same number and type of mosfets as the MPG X570 Gaming Edge WiFi /MPG X570 Gaming Plus /MPG X570 Gaming Pro Carbon WiFi /X570-A Pro which are universally panned as being the absolute worst VRM designs on x570. Every other x570 board has an objectively better VRM design than all of the aforementioned MSI motherboards. The b450 Tomahawk is a good b450 board for the money. In the grand scheme of AM4 it's a mediocre board. The new x570 tomahawk is pretty amazing though.

I agree that the VRMs are bad in the context of x570 boards. They are quite good in the context of B450 though as they are enough for a stock 3950x in heavy extended MT benchmarks which isn't the case for many other B450 boards.

My point was that with 200€ or even 150€+ mobos clearly out of the budget, Tomahawk MAX looked like an endicing board for future proofing in the mid-range. Turns out it clearly wasn't and it would not have been that hard for AMD to mention it (as they surely must have known it for months).

 

[Shivansps]

Yes, it probably isn't that surprising all-things considered, but if they had this planned from the beginning:

a) They should have gotten the B550 out sooner.
b) They should have mentioned it way earlier (many people would have bought x570 or postponed buying stuff)

IMO announcing this 9 months after Zen 2 release and maybe only 4-5 months before z>n 3 launch is not a very nice move. Especially with B550 still at least a month or two away.

Yeah this issue is mostly caused by the delay, but B450 has been a really nice and long lived platform so i kinda expected this to happen... Renoir may be supported trough.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Speaking of USB.

Everything that is not designed for quick power removal (exFat) is a no-go in my book. Much prefer the old eSATA over USB, but vendors dropped support ages ago. 2) Supplying the right voltage is key and that's difficult for non-standard enclosures, plus every device is different in supplying those volts to ports. Long story short, it isn't reliable enough for hassle free operation in the wild; it's preferred to stick to larger thumbsticks instead whenever possible. I didn't even mention access times for those smaller files. For backups it's totally fine, though.

 

[piokos]

Exactly. Its all NVME drives, and if I need a CD or DVD, I use an external drive. Only my one main PC has a optical drive, and that is to burn ISO's of linux for the most part. I could probably learn to to do it with a USB stick...

A lot of people keep few TB of data. Keeping that on NVMe would force them to buy large, expensive drives.
So while 4 SATA ports should be enough for almost everyone, it's hard to agree with suggestions that "It's all NVMe".

This is exactly what I was expecting, not sure why you were expecting more. If you want the additional features, pay for the x570 chipset. . .

I don't understand why B550 only supports Ryzen 3000 (so Zen2) and Zen3.
Why not support the earlier AM4 CPUs?

Why does X570 support Zen+ and B550 doesn't? Male-only organ move (if true).

Also, Zen2 APUs are not mentioned on this slide at all...

 

[Hitman928]

This can't be the only explanation:

1. According to the graph X570 will support Zen+, Zen2 and Zen3. Including Zen+ and Zen 2 APUs.
2. X570 has a 32-megabyte EEPROM.
3. B450 MAX boards have the same 32-megabyte EEPROM.
4. Most other 4xx series boards have 16-megabyte EEPROM.

If they support X570 they could certainly support large BIOS-chip 4xx series boards. They could also probably support the older 4xx boards by cutting support to most older CPUs. I guess a lot of people would still be very happy even when their 4xx board got a new unsupported beta BIOS that only boots with Zen 3 (yes not even with the older CPU they flash it with). I know I would.

Realistically dropping APUs and Zen+ (just allowing Matisse and Vermeer) would be enough. But AMD doesn't even want to make it an option by refusing to release any AGESA for older boards.

Again, technically you could support every CPU with every board on AM4 if you got creative enough. The logistics of this, though, would be a huge headache for AMD/board partners and cause many more customer support issues that I'm sure they don't want to have to deal with. You could easily hurt your reputation more by trying to do this than drawing the line in the sand at this point and moving forward from here. Again, these things were never promised and if someone bought B450 assuming it would support Zen3 then that sucks, but it was never a given and you can't expect support for future products when support was never promised.

 

[jpiniero]

Again, technically you could support every CPU with every board on AM4 if you got creative enough. The logistics of this, though, would be a huge headache for AMD/board partners and cause many more customer support issues that I'm sure they don't want to have to deal with. You could easily hurt your reputation more by trying to do this than drawing the line in the sand at this point and moving forward from here. Again, these things were never promised and if someone bought B450 assuming it would support Zen3 then that sucks, but it was never a given and you can't expect support for future products when support was never promised.

People definately took what AMD said to mean that all AM4 boards would support all AM4 processors.