Asrock will always come up with stuff like this. I remember the time of DDR2 and DDR3 modules on the same board, or somehow ultra low end mobos with extreme CPUs. The only question is longevity.

Now show me SAM running on a B350/B450 motherboard with a Gen 1 or 2 CPU and a simple mod BIOS/Driver hack. AMD slowly turning into Intel.

sideeffect:

Now show me SAM running on a B350/B450 motherboard with a Gen 1 or 2 CPU and a simple mod BIOS/Driver hack. AMD slowly turning into Intel.

Supporting older mobo is a delicate cooperation between the cpu maker and the motherboard makers. You do not want make motherboard vendors angry because they have to write and tests 150 bioses for motherboards sold 3 years ago at 80 dollars. Is for sure possible to support it, the socket is the same, the chipset does basically nothing, but marketing wise it does not make sense.

Asrock for a long time has always been my no.2 mobo supplier, usually replacing different brand failed board. They always have interesting solutions, generally support cpus above their mobo class, decent prices and software support. It does not suprise me one bit they came up with this kind of solution. It may piss the other motherboard manufacturers off, but I appreciate it as a consumer.

asturur:

Supporting older mobo is a delicate cooperation between the cpu maker and the motherboard makers. You do not want make motherboard vendors angry because they have to write and tests 150 bioses for motherboards sold 3 years ago at 80 dollars. Is for sure possible to support it, the socket is the same, the chipset does basically nothing, but marketing wise it does not make sense.

3 years is not very long support. Many of the x370 motherboards cost a lot more than 80 dollars. The BIOS is the same for most motherboards in the range for example if you compare any b350 Asus BIOS with any other Asus b450 BIOS using a hex editor the code is very much the same apart from the name strings and a few options enabled or disabled. AMD produce most of the code in their AGESA and probably contribute in other ways to the development. What makes sense marketing wise is what the end user will accept which is how b450 motherbaords got support after the reaction.

Ero Ruz:

Asrock will always come up with stuff like this. I remember the time of DDR2 and DDR3 modules on the same board, or somehow ultra low end mobos with extreme CPUs. The only question is longevity.

That's because Phenom II had IMC capable to use DDR2 and DDR3. Question of 300 series boards is quality of power delivery. Most of them had insufficient power delivery for iGPU, so I would not worry much about CPUs as long as board has enough power. But I would worry about usage of newer APUs.

Can't say I'm surprised. IIRC, the 400 series chipsets is electrically the same as the 300, there's just firmware updates. I kinda gave up the hope that my board will have Zen3 support, though it'd be a pleasant surprise if I were to be proven wrong.

asturur:

You do not want make motherboard vendors angry because they have to write and tests 150 bioses for motherboards sold 3 years ago at 80 dollars.

True, but.... mobo manufacturers could also make fewer variations. Like really, pick any brand - doesn't matter which, and look at their whole product lineup. You might get as much as 4 variations for a single form factor and the same chipset. Why? The PCBs are almost always black with gray accents and they usually come with the same integrated devices. Best-case scenario, you might pay more for one that has a CMOS reset button, a better looking heatsink, and a better VRM. Seems to me they're making their own lives harder and more expensive. If you're going to make more than 1 product with the same form factor and chipset, there should actually be something distinguished about it. Though that also gets me to wonder: if so much of the board is the same as other SKUs, how hard could it be to just have a single BIOS that works between each of them? EDIT: Oh yeah, and it's not really doing the customer a favor either. We don't like being overwhelmed with choices, especially when the differences are so subtle.

schmidtbag:

Can't say I'm surprised. IIRC, the 400 series chipsets is electrically the same as the 300, there's just firmware updates. I kinda gave up the hope that my board will have Zen3 support, though it'd be a pleasant surprise if I were to be proven wrong. True, but.... mobo manufacturers could also make fewer variations. Like really, pick any brand - doesn't matter which, and look at their whole product lineup. You might get as much as 4 variations for a single form factor and the same chipset. Why? The PCBs are almost always black with gray accents and they usually come with the same integrated devices. Best-case scenario, you might pay more for one that has a CMOS reset button, a better looking heatsink, and a better VRM. Seems to me they're making their own lives harder and more expensive. If you're going to make more than 1 product with the same form factor and chipset, there should actually be something distinguished about it. Though that also gets me to wonder: if so much of the board is the same as other SKUs, how hard could it be to just have a single BIOS that works between each of them? EDIT: Oh yeah, and it's not really doing the customer a favor either. We don't like being overwhelmed with choices, especially when the differences are so subtle.

100% agree, i would love the basic motherboard and the better version. Atx and mini-itx. Done. 4 motherboard per chipset. max 2 chipset per cpu. Ln2 overclockers can design their own PCB and probably they do not even want a chipset. the just want the cpu, the memory controller and the GPU.

Ero Ruz:

Asrock will always come up with stuff like this. I remember the time of DDR2 and DDR3 modules on the same board, or somehow ultra low end mobos with extreme CPUs. The only question is longevity.

And they did boards with AGP and PCIe x16 slots too! Crazy shizzle. o_O

sideeffect:

Now show me SAM running on a B350/B450 motherboard with a Gen 1 or 2 CPU and a simple mod BIOS/Driver hack. AMD slowly turning into Intel.

Sorry, but what on earth are you talking about?

Not surprised by any of this because I have heard that it isn't that difficult for the motherboard manufactures to add the microcode needed for the new CPUs if they already have access to it .

Ero Ruz:

Asrock will always come up with stuff like this. I remember the time of DDR2 and DDR3 modules on the same board, or somehow ultra low end mobos with extreme CPUs. The only question is longevity.

That also takes me back to motherboards that supported both Pentium 2 and Pentium 3 CPUs as well. Also not only longevity but how well the VRMs are on those boards as well especially the A320 boards considering how cheap those boards are.

3 years not enough? Intel socket 1200 was released in may and latest cpu for this platform will be released soon. Less than a year support. BTW still hard to find 3300x in many countries.