Question zen3 on B350 yes or no?

Rannar

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Aug 12, 2015
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i have r5 1600 af oc 3850mhz with OC/UV Vega 56 and 16GB of 3000mhz ram on gigabte GA-AB350N-gaming WIFI board.


Most demanding usecase is PC gaming and i only play single player games. am usualy ok playing at around 60fps. mostly play through steam app streaming to my 4k TV (CPU encoding at 1080p or 1440p balanced depending on game. vega56 GPU encoding is really bad and limited to max 1080p) but sometimes also on my 144Hz freesync monitor and have also an oculus rift s VR headset.

while in general it feels quite balanced system there are quite a lot of CPU hitches/stutters specialy streaming through steam app to TV and in VRR games like Half Life Alyx.

was thinking about waiting for ZEN4 AM5 and then making mainboard-ram-cpu upgrade but now b350 started to support zen 3. i could just jump to 5600 or 5700x save myself motherboard+ ram upgrade.

is it worth it? some "specialists" say already zen2 is too risky on b350 era boards as they were not really designed for those and you loose a lot of features like pcie4 and such. zen3 would be even bigger gap.

i dont really need crazy amount of cores but cores with significantly higher IPC+ clockspeed would help a lot against stuttering.

was also thinking about 12400f +b660 DDR4 board but that would be a bit more expensive option right now.
 

Shmee

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I would definitely recommend it. Zen3 has a pretty huge performance gain over Zen(+). I think the 5700X would be the ideal upgrade for you, and it should be good for some time to come. I don't think it would be risky at all, as long as you aren't OCing the CPU way past 200W or something. And then once a decent GPU upgrade is available for not too much, you could even replace your current Vega56 down the road if desired.
 

VirtualLarry

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I think that I would go for Zen3 in your position, too.

You might not get PCI-E 4.0, which could be desirable, but there's nothing stopping you from upgrading your motherboard in the future, either.

I have a friend with a Ryzen 3 1200 (yeah, the lowest-end Ryzen CPU *ever*). I gave it to him to start his rig off with, as a more-or-less "placeholder CPU" to get the rig running, and then he could replace it in the future with something better, like an R5 3600 or R7 3700X or something. It's a Gigabyte Gaming or Gaming 3 mobo. I have to ask him which, because the Gaming 3 has a BIOS for Vermeer, but the plain Gaming doesn't have that upgrade yet, if it's ever going to get it.
 
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tomatosummit

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Mar 21, 2019
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I'd check your manufacturer's websites or even send them an email asking if the board will get the update bios.

I'm in a similar position but my two b350 motherboards are from original revisions and don't see any real support anymore so I don't think they're going to get zen3 updates, I think I'm just going to wait for a future hopeful cheap 3900x at this rate instead of a 5000 series.

asrock b350pro4m and ab350n fatality in my case are no longer searchable on their website for example and have to find the pages from google.
 

Shivansps

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Dont buy anything just yet, Gigabyte updated the cpu support tables on B350/X370 before the new bios came out. So right now, Vermeer dosent work. Wait for Agesa 1.2.0.7. We need to confirm firm that it will work, AMD said that they will allow A320 and X370, and never mentioned B350 and its missing on all tables.
 

Thunder 57

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Make sure you check your board compatibility if you go for it. Asus for some stupid reason added support for A320/X370, but not B350. Pretty crappy thing to do as I bet that was the most popular version.
 
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Shmee

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Dont buy anything just yet, Gigabyte updated the cpu support tables on B350/X370 before the new bios came out. So right now, Vermeer dosent work. Wait for Agesa 1.2.0.7. We need to confirm firm that it will work, AMD said that they will allow A320 and X370, and never mentioned B350 and its missing on all tables.
Are you sure about this? Gigabyte support page says otherwise. https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-AB350M-Gaming-3-rev-1x/support#support-cpu
Also, the T51c BIOS explicitly says it supports Vermeer.
 
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Shivansps

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Are you sure about this? Gigabyte support page says otherwise. https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-AB350M-Gaming-3-rev-1x/support#support-cpu
Also, the T51c BIOS explicitly says it supports Vermeer.

Im sure that Vermeer is blocked on B350/X370 in 1.2.0.5 Agesas. There is a chance with 1.2.0.6b, but 1.2.0.5 is nono. They probably did a mistake because the microcode is in the bios, but booting is blocked. And i already saw the comment of someone that tried and say it didnt worked.
 

Shmee

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Hmm, well T51c lists 1.2.0.3.b for AGESA. Maybe they are using that so it is not blocked?
 

Shmee

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Im sure that Vermeer is blocked on B350/X370 in 1.2.0.5 Agesas. There is a chance with 1.2.0.6b, but 1.2.0.5 is nono. They probably did a mistake because the microcode is in the bios, but booting is blocked. And i already saw the comment of someone that tried and say it didnt worked.
Do you have evidence of the comment where the supporting BIOS does not work?
 

Timorous

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In terms of risky 3950's work fine stock in the lowest end A320 motherboards so other 105W parts should also work when running stock. The issue will come if you try to overclock and increase the power use.

The good news though is that manual overclocking is pretty pointless so some curve optimiser and an offset can actually lower power draw and increase clocks giving you best of both.

I have a B350M Mortar and intend to grab a 5800X3D. Should last me for a very long time.
 

VirtualLarry

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In terms of risky 3950's work fine stock in the lowest end A320 motherboards so other 105W parts should also work when running stock. The issue will come if you try to overclock and increase the power use.

The good news though is that manual overclocking is pretty pointless so some curve optimiser and an offset can actually lower power draw and increase clocks giving you best of both.

I have a B350M Mortar and intend to grab a 5800X3D. Should last me for a very long time.
But will Curve Optimizer work with the 5800X3D? I thought that CO required PBO to be enabled in BIOS to work, but that BIOS "overclocking" tools would all be disabled for the 5800X3D, as per AMD's request.
 
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But will Curve Optimizer work with the 5800X3D? I thought that CO required PBO to be enabled in BIOS to work, but that BIOS "overclocking" tools would all be disabled for the 5800X3D, as per AMD's request.
What if someone uses a previous version of Ryzen Master?

EDIT: Ah never mind. Without PBO, Ryzen Master won't work. Though I AM interested what happens on a really old BIOS version that supports 5800X and detects the 5800X3D as one?
 

Rannar

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Rannar, the above post was my board, but here is your board: https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-AB350N-Gaming-WIFI-rev-10/support#support-dl-bios
As you can see, the T51c BIOS for your board also supports Vermeer.
i know. that's why im considering upgrade. was before waiting for zen4- am5- DDR5 because it seemed B350 won't support Zen3 and Zen2 was too small upgrade for me in single thread uplift. but as now support is opened up and same time prices coing down so it seems much more budget friendly to go Zen3 and geep current DDR4+ AM4 board.
 

Timorous

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But will Curve Optimizer work with the 5800X3D? I thought that CO required PBO to be enabled in BIOS to work, but that BIOS "overclocking" tools would all be disabled for the 5800X3D, as per AMD's request.

No idea but OP was talking about getting a 5700X where it would work fine.
 

Hans Gruber

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Me again, yeah. That guy who bought a Ryzen test system back on 2017 when everybody including myself was on Intel. I have a B350 board that houses a R3 1200 @3.8ghz with B-die memory and a 240mm AIO. With a 3600 the B-die will do 14-14-14 but with the R3 1200 on a B350 it will only do 14-15-15 @ 3200mhz. It does look as if the sweet spot CPU will be the 5700x. I don't think you will want or need to under volt it like the 5800x.

Enough of my rant. It looks as if MSI in my case will release a bios that can run Zen 3 CPU's. The question is will it fix the 3600mhz memory limit that exists on B35-/x370 motherboards. B450 and up can do 3800mhz with no problems on most boards. I think you need Zen 2 or newer for Windows 11. Someone with Zen+ can chime in if they can put Windows 11 on a Zen+ chip.
 

Hans Gruber

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Nothing stopping you from installing Windows 11 using a Rufus created USB with TPM check disabled.
1st generation Zen CPU's are not supported. The board is supported and configured correctly. Once I put in my 3600 it's eligible to be upgraded to Windows 11 automatically. I am in no hurry on that PC. I have to get a Zen 3 CPU for this B450 machine. Then I can put in the 3600 in the B350. When I had the 3600 in the B350 it was eligible for Windows 11.
 

Shmee

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1st generation Zen CPU's are not supported. The board is supported and configured correctly. Once I put in my 3600 it's eligible to be upgraded to Windows 11 automatically. I am in no hurry on that PC. I have to get a Zen 3 CPU for this B450 machine. Then I can put in the 3600 in the B350. When I had the 3600 in the B350 it was eligible for Windows 11.
They are not officially supported, but they will work, there are many workarounds out there for getting Windows 11 working on older systems.
 

Hans Gruber

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But why tho? Who wants Windows 11 anyway?
On my signature build. Love this Be Quiet Case by the way. Great airflow. I bought the Asus b450-F for $90 last year. Divided my system into two systems with old parts or recycled parts and a new AIO. Still running Windows 10. Updated the Asus bios to the latest 3/22/22 and it's stable. Then I am going to update it to Windows 11 later today. Windows 10 is rock stable, that is the only thing that is good about it. Windows 7 appearance/interface was much better. The only reason I didn't upgrade to Windows 11 sooner, the AMD Win11 bug. I think it's fixed now.

I am hoping that AMD will do their fire sale Zen 3 and motherboard bundles like they did during Zen+ when Zen 2 was released. That way I could get a good VRM board that would support a 5900x or 5950x depending on how they price them. Otherwise, the 5700x looks like my best option for this board.

To stay on topic, my MSI B350 Gaming Pro Carbon board has been excellent. When the new (Zen3 support) bios arrives. I will quickly find out if they fixed the memory issue beyond 3600mhz. When I bought all the components. The Samsung B-die memory chips were not sold for a premium. They have the thickest heaviest metal heatsinks that I have ever seen on a memory stick. I put new MSI fans on my GTX 970 and that old card runs like it's new.

Besides, AMD owes us. I have AMD CPU's going back to the Athlon XP 1800+ and 5 or 6 CPU's after that up to dual cores. I still have a Radeon 9700pro and 9800pro from that era. 10 years of pain and embarrassment from AMD's absence from being relevant. There were 5 great years of AMD CPU's and then 10 years of garbage until Ryzen.