Last week, AMD’s Robert Hallock revealed that his company had no intention of introducing Zen 3 architecture support to older chipsets, which include the older but still-popular X470 and B450 platforms. That hasn’t turned out well.
Over the past few days, Ryzen users on “legacy” hardware have flocked to r/AMD and other social media channels to express their disappointment at the decision (there’s even a petition). One recurring claim is that AMD had allegedly promised, if not at least hinted at, extended support for all AM4 processors on older chipsets. In fact, MSI appears to advertise this on a blog post regarding its lineup of B450 motherboards.
“Our MAX motherboards variants come equipped with a 32 MB BIOS chip (instead of a 16 MB chip on older B450 motherboards) that allows for support for all AM4 processors supported by the chipset and support for the familiar, full-featured MSI UEFI BIOS (Click BIOS 5),” the company wrote. “You want a value-oriented motherboard that’ll support not only the latest AMD releases but will also have you covered for all future AM4 product releases.”
While these statements came from MSI and not AMD, users are still blaming the latter for not communicating with its partners better. The company “effectively let false promises about compatibility spread free,” said one poster.
Another concern is the potential shortage or overpricing of X570 and B550 motherboards when Zen 3 launches, since those are the only chipsets that support AMD’s new architecture. Nobody can predict what will actually happen in the future, but according to some posters, prices for X570 boards are already rising.
Hallock’s opening paragraph would suggest that AMD did live up to its initial promises, however. “In 2016, we made a pretty bold commitment to you: we would continue to support AMD Socket AM4 until 2020,” he wrote. Well, it is 2020 – but perhaps AMD will give in and release a Zen 3 BIOS to appease disgruntled owners of more recent boards, such as X470 and B450.