MSI adds ZEN3 support to Series 400 Chipsets, even with 16 MB BIOS

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 05/28/2020 08:58 AM | source: reddit.com | 50 comment(s)

AMD planned they would only offer ZEN3 support for Series 500 motherboard chipsets, the reversed that decision and stated 32MB BIOS ready motherboards can support ZEN3. Now MSI mentions Zen 3 support on its AMD 400-series Chipset Motherboards with 16MB ROMs.

Yeah, not confusing at all eh? But it's sufficient to say there will be wide support from motherboard manufacturers on the Series 400 chipset platform for ZEN3. Eric van Beurden over at MSI in a presentation confirmed that with the non-MAX motherboards (16MB BIOS) will get Zen 3 support as well as MAX (32MB BIOS) versions with a 'selective BIOS' option.

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vbetts
Moderator

Posts: 15139
Joined: 2006-07-04

#5793307 Posted on: 05/28/2020 11:13 AM

16MB BIOS ROM are more than enough for storing few KB of AGESA microcode..

Then what was the point in releasing MAX boards with double the bios rom?

Astyanax
Senior Member

Posts: 13244
Joined: 2018-03-21

#5793311 Posted on: 05/28/2020 11:16 AM

Then what was the point in releasing MAX boards with double the bios rom?

supports more of the cpu's. :confused:

Undying
Senior Member

Posts: 18423
Joined: 2008-08-28

#5793317 Posted on: 05/28/2020 11:45 AM

Then it makes sense getting rid of the support for older cpus to make room for the new ones. 16mb is more than enough to support all zen2/zen3 cpus.

Alessio1989
Senior Member

Posts: 2264
Joined: 2015-06-11

#5793326 Posted on: 05/28/2020 12:16 PM

Then what was the point in releasing MAX boards with double the bios rom?

As I said, it's not only about putting a new version of AGESA on it. 32MB version means less issues for putting all the rest of useless things. Just thing about how much place a couple of bitmaps can take on a few MB ROM.
The OrochiPI AGESA in uncompressed form was like ~100KB size.. Let's say that we have now... 500KB to 1MB size (let's overestimate it!), all the rest is the default BIOS/UEFI program, 3rd party chipset firmwares, tuning profiles, graphics and animation effects.
Not supporting older MB is more due economical reasons than BIOS sizes, otherwise they would just support only the "MAX" motherboards.

wavetrex
Senior Member

Posts: 1453
Joined: 2008-07-16

#5793335 Posted on: 05/28/2020 01:06 PM

I also consider the 32MB need completely bulls**t.

My "ancient" PRIME X370-PRO has the latest AGESA ComboAM4 1.0.0.4b in a bios image of only 11 MB, which it increased just by 3 MB since I bought it for a Zen 1 (R7 1700) CPU (and it STILL supports that one, I tested, since I still have it)
So the entirety of all the CPUs since first release of Zen (2000 series, 3000 series, all APUs) only increased the bios image size by just 3 MB !??

Even if the AGESA need for Zen 3 is double the size of what was added for Zen 2, it should STILL fit in 16 MB just fine without removing the support for any of the CPUs.
And my guess is that 300 series could support Zen 3 just fine IF they (AMD) wanted it...

---
I think this entire situation is a combination of lazy programming and marketing BS.

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