Wednesday, October 14th 2020
ASUS Seemingly Drops Support for AMD Ryzen 5000 Series CPUs on X470 Motherboards, the Company Responds
Today there is some quite interesting information circulating the web regarding ASUS and its alleged decision. Going a few months back, AMD released a statement regarding the support for its upcoming Ryzen 5000 series CPUs and said that it should enable compatibility with the last-generation X470 and B450 chipset. That, however, has remained a bit of mystery. The update is baked-in with the BIOS, which every manufacturer, like MSI, ASUS, Gigabyte, etc. provides independently of AMD. So it is a manufacturer-dependant case, where if one vendor chooses not to provide support for 400 series chipsets, many motherboards will not support new CPU generation.
Update Oct 14th: ASUS has reached out to us and said that "ASUS will provide updated BIOS' for the X470 and B450 chipsets based on AMD's current release schedule of new AGESA code in January 2021. This original report was based on incorrect information." This means that the customer support case contained wrong information, and ASUS is going to support 5000 series Ryzen CPUs on 400 series chipsets. Please note that the information below is incorrect.This represents the case of what seems to be happening with ASUS. In correspondence with ASUS support, a customer asked ASUS if they plan to update a Crosshair VII Hero X470 motherboard with support for AMD's upcoming Ryzen 5000 series CPUs, the company gave a rather negative answer. Here is the quote below:It appears that ASUS recommends users that they upgrade to new motherboards and that there will be no support of AMD's Ryzen 5000 CPU series on 400 series chipset on their motherboards.
Source:
Reddit
Update Oct 14th: ASUS has reached out to us and said that "ASUS will provide updated BIOS' for the X470 and B450 chipsets based on AMD's current release schedule of new AGESA code in January 2021. This original report was based on incorrect information." This means that the customer support case contained wrong information, and ASUS is going to support 5000 series Ryzen CPUs on 400 series chipsets. Please note that the information below is incorrect.This represents the case of what seems to be happening with ASUS. In correspondence with ASUS support, a customer asked ASUS if they plan to update a Crosshair VII Hero X470 motherboard with support for AMD's upcoming Ryzen 5000 series CPUs, the company gave a rather negative answer. Here is the quote below:
ASUS SupportI am writing this email to provide you an update about your ongoing case. According to our engineers, We have no plans for the Crosshair VII Hero to support the Ryzen 5900X, please purchase Crosshair VIII Hero and any Ass (*ASUS) B550 motherboard that will support Ryzen 5900X and 5000 series processors.You can check out the full Reddit thread here.
159 Comments on ASUS Seemingly Drops Support for AMD Ryzen 5000 Series CPUs on X470 Motherboards, the Company Responds
AMD aren't the ones that have to dedicate engineering and support manpower to it.
I tried.
Even boards designed for 1xxx series CPU could run the newest 5xxx series, yes maybe the performance would suffer a little due to power requirements/turbo but it's possible to make it work.
I remember my old Crosshair IV, you could run all possible Phenom 2 CPUs on that board and at the end you could even use a Bulldozer CPU even with an AM3 socket!
This is just a quick cash grab by ASUS, but it will do them more damage in the long run. I know that I won't be buying their board for my next build.
* Some Asus B450 boards has worse vrm than MSI A320 series.
* Always late on AGESA BIOS update, literally they r behind like 4~5 months vs MSI/Asrock/Gigabyte release.
* Sell lower quality hardware at premium than other manufacturers.
www.amd.com/en/chipsets/a520
Thing is... the real life situation doesn't differ all that much for the vast majority of people, which is why ASUS does this the way it does it. They know the market that is really eager for that compatibility is possibly small enough to ignore OR the benefit in sales doesn't weigh up to the cost for them.
Its not the first time. And its going to be a recurring thing.
I'm not saying AMD is in any way at fault here for setting up their sockets as they do. Kudos to them for TRYING. Its just that for numerous reasons most people still see themselves buying new boards every gen or other gen. And this is especially true if you're not upgrading every gen which most people don't do to begin with.
I do like how you all rush to the defense though, lol This. And its falls straight into the trend we know of them, way too loose agreements with industry partners, too much leeway that gets abused time and time again. Whether its timely support, availability, time to market, or general PR and communication. Something is always amiss.
Not good for perception. And definitely, most definitely this is an AMD problem more than anyone else's. Its not just ASUS either, every partner will be making up the balance here, every single time with every new release. Its a cost/benefit scenario for them and AMD should eradicate that thought to begin with: it should be 'you sell our product, damn well make sure you support them for the full lifecycle or you're simply not a partner anymore'. Note that the time between the release of Zen and Zen 3 is a mere 2,5 ~3 years now. One could question the practical use of switching hardware yearly or even bi-yearly, especially with the baby steps we're getting gen to gen.
So they stand to lose a lot of money if they add support for x470
On a real note: dont buy ASUS (I know that I will not be buying ASUS or recommending it to anyone in my circle because of situations like this.
Also this is why I avoid Asus products, and will continue to do so.
I guess only x470 users should complain
I hope the market is strong enough to force these companies to bring support, because that's really what you're betting on every single time.