One of the questions surrounding the release of AMD’s latest Ryzen processors relates to older motherboard support. Some manufacturers have provided updated BIOSes for various 400 Series motherboards, and more are on the way in 2021. While 300 Series owners have largely (but not entirely) been left out of the mix, someone has managed to get a Ryzen 5 5600X CPU running on their ASRock X370 Taichi motherboard.
Tom’s Hardware (via JZelectronics) reported on this unexpected pairing. It was achieved by using an unofficial, customized BIOS for the older motherboard, which is not recommended and should only be done by someone who’s willing to sacrifice their equipment if things go sideways. (Tom’s reached out to AMD for comment about this and was told that “AMD has no plans to enable or support AMD Ryzen 5000 series on AMD 300 series chipsets.“)
For some, this is what it truly means to be a PC enthusiast: taking an older flagship and matching it to newer technology not necessarily intended for it. You get to use a modern 6C/12T processor that can compete favorably with an Intel Core i9-10900K for nothing more than the cost of the processor. If your only concern is potential CPU bottlenecks or you want a lower TDP, it could provide a path. You wouldn’t be able to use its more advanced features such as PCIe 4.0 or Smart Access Memory, however. In any case, kudos to them for their achievement.