Crosshair VII (X470) Ryzen 4000 BIOS support?

[blueskies]

Hi,

what's the position of ASUS regarding Ryzen 4000 series support on the Crosshair VII? According to AMD, the reason for not supporting Ryzen 4000 on X470 is lack of BIOS ROM space. This is obviously a non-issue on the Crosshair, as it has 32MB ROM. Is ASUS committed to providing BIOS upgrades for Ryzen 4000 series CPUs? Has ASUS contacted AMD about this problem? As a customer who purchased a Crosshair VII a few months ago (and paid extra for the 32MB BIOS ROM), I would expect the ability to eventually upgrade to Ryzen 4000 if at all technically possible.

Thanks!

[TheMajekalBum]

Hate to be that guy but it doesn't look like it will work...at least officially.

https://wccftech.com/amd-confirms-ryzen-4000-zen-3-cpu-compatibility-x570-b550-chipset-motherboards/

[blueskies]

Thanks!

I am aware of AMD's announcement that there won't be official support for 3/4-series chipsets, because most of those boards only have 16MB of BIOS flash which won't fit support for all AM4 CPUs. AMD wants to end the practice of 'beta' BIOSes that remove old-gen CPU support to gain new-gen CPU support. I can see why that's a reasonable business strategy to reduce support costs for people that brick their board by flashing the wrong BIOS, and then asking AMD to ship flash kits. It's clearly unsustainable.

However, high end boards like the CH7 have 32MB BIOS flash and flashback support for exactly this reason. These features are premium features that make the board support newer CPUs much more easily. As far as I know the new Zen3 CPUs have identical electrical pinout and identical VRM requirements, the only problem is AMD apparently restricting the required AGESA code to 5 series boards. Apart from PCIe 4.0 (chipset IO bandwidth), X470 and X570 chipsets are essentially the same.

ASUS needs to put pressure on AMD to release the required AGESA code so these boards can support Zen3/Ryzen 4000 series CPUs eventually, even if there won't be support on launch day.

TheMajekalBum wrote:
Hate to be that guy but it doesn't look like it will work...at least officially.

https://wccftech.com/amd-confirms-ryzen-4000-zen-3-cpu-compatibility-x570-b550-chipset-motherboards/

[omerorge]

blueskies wrote:
Thanks!

I am aware of AMD's announcement that there won't be official support for 3/4-series chipsets, because most of those boards only have 16MB of BIOS flash which won't fit support for all AM4 CPUs. AMD wants to end the practice of 'beta' BIOSes that remove old-gen CPU support to gain new-gen CPU support. I can see why that's a reasonable business strategy to reduce support costs for people that brick their board by flashing the wrong BIOS, and then asking AMD to ship flash kits. It's clearly unsustainable.

However, high end boards like the CH7 have 32MB BIOS flash and flashback support for exactly this reason. These features are premium features that make the board support newer CPUs much more easily. As far as I know the new Zen3 CPUs have identical electrical pinout and identical VRM requirements, the only problem is AMD apparently restricting the required AGESA code to 5 series boards. Apart from PCIe 4.0 (chipset IO bandwidth), X470 and X570 chipsets are essentially the same.

ASUS needs to put pressure on AMD to release the required AGESA code so these boards can support Zen3/Ryzen 4000 series CPUs eventually, even if there won't be support on launch day.

I agree. Support can be provided later. There is no rush in 3 or 4 months. I really want this. Because technically there is no obstacle. It really deserves CH7 mother board Zen 3 support.


A nice article that might interest you;
https://www.techspot.com/news/85180-amd-axes-zen-3-support-400-series-motherboards.html

der8auer video

[Baio73]

blueskies wrote:
Thanks!

I am aware of AMD's announcement that there won't be official support for 3/4-series chipsets, because most of those boards only have 16MB of BIOS flash which won't fit support for all AM4 CPUs. AMD wants to end the practice of 'beta' BIOSes that remove old-gen CPU support to gain new-gen CPU support. I can see why that's a reasonable business strategy to reduce support costs for people that brick their board by flashing the wrong BIOS, and then asking AMD to ship flash kits. It's clearly unsustainable.

However, high end boards like the CH7 have 32MB BIOS flash and flashback support for exactly this reason. These features are premium features that make the board support newer CPUs much more easily. As far as I know the new Zen3 CPUs have identical electrical pinout and identical VRM requirements, the only problem is AMD apparently restricting the required AGESA code to 5 series boards. Apart from PCIe 4.0 (chipset IO bandwidth), X470 and X570 chipsets are essentially the same.

ASUS needs to put pressure on AMD to release the required AGESA code so these boards can support Zen3/Ryzen 4000 series CPUs eventually, even if there won't be support on launch day.

Why should Asus (or every mobo maler) put pressure on AMD, if it's Asus itself interest not to expand Zen3 compatibility to x5xx boards?
Asus (or every mobo maker) must choose between spending money and resources on releasing new BIOS and earning fresh money from x5xx chipset mobos sellings.
I think unfortunately it's not a hard choice...

Baio

[blueskies]

Baio73 wrote:
Why should Asus (or every mobo maler) put pressure on AMD, if it's Asus itself interest not to expand Zen3 compatibility to x5xx boards?
Asus (or every mobo maker) must choose between spending money and resources on releasing new BIOS and earning fresh money from x5xx chipset mobos sellings.
I think unfortunately it's not a hard choice...

Baio

It's not really either-or, because BIOS developers would not suddenly be able to do electrical design on new boards 🙂

But I understand the resource limitation, tradeoffs and prioritization here. I'm just trying to voice my opinion as a customer who recently bought a CH7H under the impression that it would eventually support upcoming AM4 CPUs. I certainly urge ASUS to go the extra mile and at least try to support their more premium / higher margin boards, so people will keep buying them. It's a damn good board and it will be able to run Zen3 if the BIOS issues are resolved in cooperation with AMD.

[mimosoft]

AMD will bring Zen 3 support to X470 and B450:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhVGrLJpoy8

[blueskies]

Very nice indeed! I hope ASUS will provide this update. Many points in the AMD announcement does not apply to the Crosshair VII (BIOS flashback will be available to roll back these updates, CPU support list may not be cut because of the 32MB flash, etc.)

This is all I hoped for, now the waiting begins. Honestly, I probably won't even upgrade this year, unless there is a beast of a 4900X on sale for Black Friday 🙂

[JkFoobar]

It looks like the hitch is that Pre-4000 cpu's can't read past the 16MB rom size. So, if you have a 32MB rom(like C7H), once you update to 4000, you can't drop back.

Here is their updated statement:




https://imgur.com/a/xdpUlPj

I'm not sure how Asus is going to handle it- full 32MB code, or just do 16MB and nuke everything else. MSI is certainly happy, since they get to avoid a class action lawsuit for the MAX hardware they sold.

[JkFoobar]

One last thing, Ryzen 4000 looks to be 3.7/4Ghz base and 4.6Ghz boost. 8C/16C. IPC jump.

https://www.igorslab.de/en/new-details-on-ryzen-4000-renoir-desktop-apus-and-ryzen-vermeer-cpus-have...

http://www.redgamingtech.com/zen-3-ryzen-4000-analysis-ipc-clock-speed-core-count-more-analysis/