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MSI launches new revisions of AMD 300 and 400 motherboards with 32MB Firmware
As discussed in detail, older 300 and 400 series motherboards have been stripped in the BIOS from older CPUs and some features, due to a too-small EEPROM size. No biggy, but MSI is solving this with updated motherboards as well.
If you want to install a Ryzen 3000 CPU on an older motherboard, you will lose support for, among other things, data raid and some older Socket AM4 CPUs. MSI now offers a number of motherboards with a larger storage size for the BIOS. The backward compatibility of Ryzen AM4 is praiseworthy but also presents the board manufacturers with some problems.
The new motherboards get an extra-label called 'Max' and thus have the new 32 MB BIOS. The 300 and 400 series are cheaper than the newly introduced X500 motherboards and thus could be an attractive alternative if you do not fancy PCIe 4.0 These will be the motherboards:
- A-320M-A Pro Max
- B450M-A Pro Max
- B450M Pro-M2 Max
- B450M Pro VDH Max
- B450-A Pro Max
- B450M Mortar Max
- B450 Tomahawk Max
- B450 Gaming Plus Max
- X470 Gaming Plus Max
- X470 Gaming Pro Max
So the suffix Max indicates that there are now 32 MiByte of BIOS storage available.
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insp1re2600
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#5692242 Posted on: 07/18/2019 01:54 PM
so what happens to us who bought a x470 with 16mb other than losing raid and older cpu support? can the bios be replaced on these boards?
so what happens to us who bought a x470 with 16mb other than losing raid and older cpu support? can the bios be replaced on these boards?
schmidtbag
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#5692251 Posted on: 07/18/2019 02:11 PM
What's with the A320 board? I thought AMD had no intention on supporting Zen2 on that chipset, so, why not just leave that behind?
But hey, at least everyone will know that these Max boards should be Zen2 compatible out-of-the-box. They might be the only pre-500 series boards on the market that are guaranteed to work.
If you unsolder the chip then I'm sure you could. Personally, I'd rather just lose support for Bristol Ridge.
What's with the A320 board? I thought AMD had no intention on supporting Zen2 on that chipset, so, why not just leave that behind?
But hey, at least everyone will know that these Max boards should be Zen2 compatible out-of-the-box. They might be the only pre-500 series boards on the market that are guaranteed to work.
so what happens to us who bought a x470 with 16mb other than losing raid and older cpu support? can the bios be replaced on these boards?
If you unsolder the chip then I'm sure you could. Personally, I'd rather just lose support for Bristol Ridge.
Cplifj
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#5692316 Posted on: 07/18/2019 04:51 PM
This is great , more space for hacks too.
This is great , more space for hacks too.
Astyanax
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#5692330 Posted on: 07/18/2019 05:24 PM
Imagine if the programmable flash chips were still placed in holders.
MSI could have done a couple of dollars replacement program so users could upgrade their stuff.
What's with the A320 board? I thought AMD had no intention on supporting Zen2 on that chipset, so, why not just leave that behind?
But hey, at least everyone will know that these Max boards should be Zen2 compatible out-of-the-box. They might be the only pre-500 series boards on the market that are guaranteed to work.
If you unsolder the chip then I'm sure you could. Personally, I'd rather just lose support for Bristol Ridge.
you're not just losing support for bristol ridge, they scaled back graphical aspects of the bios to bring size down.
Imagine if the programmable flash chips were still placed in holders.
MSI could have done a couple of dollars replacement program so users could upgrade their stuff.
What's with the A320 board? I thought AMD had no intention on supporting Zen2 on that chipset, so, why not just leave that behind?
But hey, at least everyone will know that these Max boards should be Zen2 compatible out-of-the-box. They might be the only pre-500 series boards on the market that are guaranteed to work.
If you unsolder the chip then I'm sure you could. Personally, I'd rather just lose support for Bristol Ridge.
you're not just losing support for bristol ridge, they scaled back graphical aspects of the bios to bring size down.
schmidtbag
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#5692333 Posted on: 07/18/2019 05:29 PM
As far as I'm concerned, that's an improvement.
you're not just losing support for bristol ridge, they scaled back graphical aspects of the bios to bring size down.
As far as I'm concerned, that's an improvement.
Astyanax
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#5692334 Posted on: 07/18/2019 05:32 PM
tbh, i don't disagree.
As far as I'm concerned, that's an improvement.
tbh, i don't disagree.
abula
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#5692335 Posted on: 07/18/2019 05:37 PM
This is a great move from MSI imo, given that Ryzen 3000 is such a good offering, but to me X570 is way too expensive for being good option to the market, specially i hate the proprietary chipset fan (i still have so many bad experiences). To all my friends that move toward ryzen 3000, im going to recommend this new MSI B450 Max boards, specially since it will come with bios that will boot with ryzen 3000, at least until B550 is released.
This is a great move from MSI imo, given that Ryzen 3000 is such a good offering, but to me X570 is way too expensive for being good option to the market, specially i hate the proprietary chipset fan (i still have so many bad experiences). To all my friends that move toward ryzen 3000, im going to recommend this new MSI B450 Max boards, specially since it will come with bios that will boot with ryzen 3000, at least until B550 is released.
Astyanax
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#5692341 Posted on: 07/18/2019 05:55 PM
No, its a cash grab working and exploiting the 'ignorance' of previous buyers. A great move would be MSI offering a board swap program.
This is a great move from MSI imo, given that Ryzen 3000 is such a good offering, but to me X570 is way too expensive for being good option to the market, specially i hate the proprietary chipset fan (i still have so many bad experiences). To all my friends that move toward ryzen 3000, im going to recommend this new MSI B450 Max boards, specially since it will come with bios that will boot with ryzen 3000, at least until B550 is released.
No, its a cash grab working and exploiting the 'ignorance' of previous buyers. A great move would be MSI offering a board swap program.
Aura89
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#5692345 Posted on: 07/18/2019 06:22 PM
They released perfectly working boards that are now showing their age with supporting so many CPUs. This also implies that "all" motherboard manufacturers purposefully "took advantage" of "ignorant" previous buyers.
These new MAX boards don't even affect previous owners, as most of the stripped content, is content you don't need, and processors you won't use, since you're obviously trying to use a 3000 series CPU. And "exploiting the ignorance of previous buyers" implies that people who bought the older motherboards are likely to buy the new motherboards, that'll effectively work the same for them, just for some GUI and old processor support? If someone actually does that, that's not even remotely taking advantage of someone, as they made their choice to buy a new motherboard that won't do anything more for them specifically. 99.9% of people will not upgrade just to have a more flashy GUI and older CPU support, it makes zero sense.
But as stated above, what this has done is effectively given NEW buyers more informed choices when buying ryzen 3000 series CPUs, and not wanting to fork over the cash for x570, but know their CPU will work. There's nothing wrong with this....would it have been better if MSI has released new motherboards with support of ryzen 3000 series out of the box but left it at 16mb firmware? Would your "cash grab" statement stand there? What would be the point of that?
Some of the things you say Astyanax....some of the things you say....
No, its a cash grab working and exploiting the 'ignorance' of previous buyers. A great move would be MSI offering a board swap program.
They released perfectly working boards that are now showing their age with supporting so many CPUs. This also implies that "all" motherboard manufacturers purposefully "took advantage" of "ignorant" previous buyers.
These new MAX boards don't even affect previous owners, as most of the stripped content, is content you don't need, and processors you won't use, since you're obviously trying to use a 3000 series CPU. And "exploiting the ignorance of previous buyers" implies that people who bought the older motherboards are likely to buy the new motherboards, that'll effectively work the same for them, just for some GUI and old processor support? If someone actually does that, that's not even remotely taking advantage of someone, as they made their choice to buy a new motherboard that won't do anything more for them specifically. 99.9% of people will not upgrade just to have a more flashy GUI and older CPU support, it makes zero sense.
But as stated above, what this has done is effectively given NEW buyers more informed choices when buying ryzen 3000 series CPUs, and not wanting to fork over the cash for x570, but know their CPU will work. There's nothing wrong with this....would it have been better if MSI has released new motherboards with support of ryzen 3000 series out of the box but left it at 16mb firmware? Would your "cash grab" statement stand there? What would be the point of that?
Some of the things you say Astyanax....some of the things you say....
Astyanax
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#5692351 Posted on: 07/18/2019 06:30 PM
They released perfectly working boards that are now showing their age with supporting so many CPUs. This also implies that "all" motherboard manufacturers purposefully "took advantage" of "ignorant" previous buyers.
These new MAX boards don't even affect previous owners, as most of the stripped content, is content you don't need, and processors you won't use, since you're obviously trying to use a 3000 series CPU.
But as stated above, what this has done is effectively given NEW buyers more informed choices when buying ryzen 3000 series CPUs, and not wanting to fork over the cash for x570, but know their CPU will work. There's nothing wrong with this....would it have been better if MSI has released new motherboards with support of ryzen 3000 series out of the box but left it at 16mb firmware? Would your "cash grab" statement stand there? What would be the point of that?
They sold quit expensive boards with a chip they save Cents for on each one, it was greedy pennypinching that contributed to this kerfaffle and its greedy offering what should have been the expected configuration and not a replacement program.
The 16MB spi rom has been a limitation from the release of these parts, MSI just got creative in working around it. they knew full well that AMD's agesa modue and others are quite large and would continue to grow towards 2020 where AMD stated quite clearly that they would be ensuring cpu support till 2020 on the existing components.
And "exploiting the ignorance of previous buyers" implies that people who bought the older motherboards are likely to buy the new motherboards, that'll effectively work the same for them, just for some GUI and old processor support? If someone actually does that, that's not even remotely taking advantage of someone, as they made their choice to buy a new motherboard that won't do anything more for them specifically. 99.9% of people will not upgrade just to have a more flashy GUI and older CPU support, it makes zero sense.
Actually, this is a good point, people who were caught up by the 16MB rom won't even look at MSI again, product consistency is a requirement.
They released perfectly working boards that are now showing their age with supporting so many CPUs. This also implies that "all" motherboard manufacturers purposefully "took advantage" of "ignorant" previous buyers.
These new MAX boards don't even affect previous owners, as most of the stripped content, is content you don't need, and processors you won't use, since you're obviously trying to use a 3000 series CPU.
But as stated above, what this has done is effectively given NEW buyers more informed choices when buying ryzen 3000 series CPUs, and not wanting to fork over the cash for x570, but know their CPU will work. There's nothing wrong with this....would it have been better if MSI has released new motherboards with support of ryzen 3000 series out of the box but left it at 16mb firmware? Would your "cash grab" statement stand there? What would be the point of that?
They sold quit expensive boards with a chip they save Cents for on each one, it was greedy pennypinching that contributed to this kerfaffle and its greedy offering what should have been the expected configuration and not a replacement program.
The 16MB spi rom has been a limitation from the release of these parts, MSI just got creative in working around it. they knew full well that AMD's agesa modue and others are quite large and would continue to grow towards 2020 where AMD stated quite clearly that they would be ensuring cpu support till 2020 on the existing components.
And "exploiting the ignorance of previous buyers" implies that people who bought the older motherboards are likely to buy the new motherboards, that'll effectively work the same for them, just for some GUI and old processor support? If someone actually does that, that's not even remotely taking advantage of someone, as they made their choice to buy a new motherboard that won't do anything more for them specifically. 99.9% of people will not upgrade just to have a more flashy GUI and older CPU support, it makes zero sense.
Actually, this is a good point, people who were caught up by the 16MB rom won't even look at MSI again, product consistency is a requirement.
EspHack
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#5692389 Posted on: 07/18/2019 08:16 PM
oh i bet they planned on using that argument to convince AMD of not doing backwards compatibility but AMD pressed on
I'm curious to know how much more a 32mb BIOS chip is than a 16mb. I get that every penny counts but I doubt that saving ultimately outweighs the cost of this refresh. You'd think with AM4 sticking around so long they'd have expected BIOS space might get tight, that would leave plenty of extra room for needless GUI and graphics in the BIOS too.
oh i bet they planned on using that argument to convince AMD of not doing backwards compatibility but AMD pressed on
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#5692432 Posted on: 07/18/2019 10:20 PM
The thing that worries me is that MSI will probably slow down BIOS development for boards with 16mb chips. I mean this move practically doubles their AM4 offering. So double the testing and validation needed. I doubt MSI is going to put as much effort to the BIOSes on older boards.
The thing that worries me is that MSI will probably slow down BIOS development for boards with 16mb chips. I mean this move practically doubles their AM4 offering. So double the testing and validation needed. I doubt MSI is going to put as much effort to the BIOSes on older boards.
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#5692467 Posted on: 07/19/2019 01:10 AM
I wouldn't have bought my board knowing I'd get a crippled BIOS. I bought an X470 Gaming Pro Carbon with the intention of using it for Zen 2. So far there's basically nothing aside from a questionable beta BIOS that's stripped down. 16MB ROM chips in their "high end" boards, in 2019, are you shitting me?
I wouldn't have bought my board knowing I'd get a crippled BIOS. I bought an X470 Gaming Pro Carbon with the intention of using it for Zen 2. So far there's basically nothing aside from a questionable beta BIOS that's stripped down. 16MB ROM chips in their "high end" boards, in 2019, are you shitting me?
phatbx133
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#5692474 Posted on: 07/19/2019 01:48 AM
I know how you feel about stripped down, I am in same boat as X470 Gaming Pro Carbon.
I post other forum about Boycott MSI at https://www.overclock.net/forum/11-amd-motherboards/1729080-boycott-msi-motherboards-deceptive-practices.html
I hope somebody take MSI up to court, Hope we can get MAX version for free with trade-in old 16 rom motherboard.
MSI will be my last to buy. Look for new Asus or Gigabyte in the future (X670, B650...)
I know how you feel about stripped down, I am in same boat as X470 Gaming Pro Carbon.
I post other forum about Boycott MSI at https://www.overclock.net/forum/11-amd-motherboards/1729080-boycott-msi-motherboards-deceptive-practices.html
I hope somebody take MSI up to court, Hope we can get MAX version for free with trade-in old 16 rom motherboard.
MSI will be my last to buy. Look for new Asus or Gigabyte in the future (X670, B650...)
Click here to post a comment for this news story on the message forum.
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I'm curious to know how much more a 32mb BIOS chip is than a 16mb. I get that every penny counts but I doubt that saving ultimately outweighs the cost of this refresh. You'd think with AM4 sticking around so long they'd have expected BIOS space might get tight, that would leave plenty of extra room for needless GUI and graphics in the BIOS too.