Why no one has the right to be angry at AMD with regards to AM4

[JAB Creations]

Recently there was an uproar over AMD not being able to support all socket AM4 processors on all AM4 motherboards, namely the upcoming 4000 series. I have learned that perspective is critical to advancing in life and I feel that a lot of people completely lack that perspective. Before I continue I would like to clarify that while I have been cheering AMD since I realized many things I am not a blind-fanboy and am willing to criticize any business of any industry when it's appropriate.

• Socket AM4 debuted in September 2016 and their stock was about $6 - up from $2 a share.
• The stock for Asus in September 2016 was around was around $270, 45 times greater than AMD.
• AMD's market share around 2016 was below 20%.
• AMD's margins on their products haven't been great for them.
• AMD continued to lose market share when companies like Dell agreed to only sell Intel products.
• Total knobs who only care about FPS and are incapable of critical thinking blindly bought Intel.
• You're not a professional anything unless you're getting paid.
• Who was responsible for this? See my conclusion at the end.

Gamers Nexus recently posted a video about how it was the industry standard to use 16MB roms. As a developer that sounds like a ton of space (I don't use bloatware like jquery or other third party frameworks and libraries though I'm a rarity in that regards). As a business looking to make profit you can as a company completely reliant on other businesses go out and make demands to businesses that are literally 45 times your size. America is supposed to be a capitalist country though it has degraded largely in to cronyism - capitalism has checks and balances and the monopolies and mergers are a blatant sign that that corruption is completely rampant and only so because people are not holding government or businesses accountable which ultimately is from a lack of critical thinking.

Some more perspective:

• At $2 a share and large amounts of debt AMD's focus on higher margin products was about saving the company.
• If AMD would have gone out of business would you want to buy processors from Via to avoid the Intel tax? - Most people don't even know who Via is, kudos to those who frigin read.
• While AMD was struggling to build up and away from oblivion people were complaining about no killer GPUs from AMD, one of if not the lowest margin products they could have sold.
• Nvidia took the opportunity to jack their prices up to take advantage of the fact that AMD was not able to really compete.
• Who was responsible for this imbalance in the market? Again, see my conclusion at the end.

AMD is not your friend or mine, they're a business that exists to make a profit. Because they've been forced to compete with Intel and to a lesser extent Nvidia they've made some great (and some no so great) decisions to remain competitive in the markets they compete in. Because of their innovations (64 Bit, dual/quad/oct/multi-core, etc) they have been the business to keep the market moving forward.

Conclusion

You get what you pay for. It is up to each individual to take the time to think critical and include the impact of their purchases on our world in to those purchasing decisions. If masses of people didn't blindly buy 4-to-1 ratio or held government and businesses accountable imagine what we would have today from all three of these businesses. And this isn't farming people. This is technology. If a company like AMD goes out of business that's it, monopoly. If you think the prices of the RTX 2000 series are ridiculous just wait until there has been no competition for years, let me give you a preview: Intel.

At the end of the day if you are not capable of critical thinking then you are overwhelmingly likely directly contributing to the businesses that are not only dishonest though sustain dishonest tactics in the markets that we here on these forums are very much a part of. Whether you think you can or can't - you're right. I have only found my success in life by the presumption that I am wrong because it is better to validate one's position than to blindly carry on wearing the emperor's new cloths. Of course those subject to the Dunning-Kruger effect will always think they are right by default and continue to be mad at everyone other than who is at fault: themselves.

 

[R-T-B]

As a developer that sounds like a ton of space

Uh, it's not. What on earth are you developing that can make do with that at the barebones level? Windows has GIGABYTES of libraries supporting your little 2 meg exe, for perspective. For a baremetal example, Linux's kernel is around 100-200MB's in most distros.

 

[JAB Creations]

Uh, it's not. What on earth are you developing that can make do with that at the barebones level? Windows has GIGABYTES of libraries supporting your little 2 meg exe, for perspective.

I'm not interested in self-promotion here though I will say I do have a profile.

 

[R-T-B]

I'm not interested in self-promotion here though I will say I do have a profile.

All I can say is if you are doing BIOS/UEFI work you really know that's nothing.

My work here speaks for my experience in that department.

16MB's though, you get the opposite issue: You end up with free space in most UEFI toolkits and strange things can happen or be taken advantage of then that are offtopic for this thread. The truth is they need to bring back hardware write protect switches.

AMD's AGESA is exceptionally bloated though in that it does use the full 16MBs. As such, they should've planned for that.

 

[JAB Creations]

All I can say is if you are doing BIOS/UEFI work you really know that's nothing.

My work here speaks for my experience in that department.

16MB's though, you get the opposite issue: You end up with free space in most UEFI toolkits and strange things can happen then that are offtopic for this thread. The truth is they need to bring back hardware write protect switches.

Okay, so you're agreeing that AMD doesn't have enough to work with, thank you.

In regards to experience I'm not familiar with the work of others for the most part so I'm happy to read a bit of what you do?

I'm not familiar with hardware write protect switches.

 

[tabascosauz]

The 16MB issue is nonsensical for a different reason. All of Gigabyte's boards have 16MB chips and they have no problems except for trading APU support for Matisse support, but that's all. Including their X570 boards, which will support Ryzen 4000. Compared to Asus and ASRock, Gigabyte's BIOSes are weird, clunky and inefficient, but they work; MSI's stripped-down-to-the-core 16MB UEFI are laughable by comparison. Not a surprise, considering that Click BIOS 5 is just Click BIOS 4 from seven years ago with the number changed.

That aside, I don't understand why this has you so worked up that you feel the need to write a whole post to defend AMD. Tell your friends how you feel, continue to buy AMD, but this whole wall of text?

 

[R-T-B]

In regards to experience I'm not familiar with the work of others for the most part so I'm happy to read a bit of what you do?

I don't do much in the public sphere anymore, but I know bios modding inside and out and have threads in the mobo forums about scrubbing Intel Management Engine firmware from roms for security reasons. I'm very involved in that effort.

Last public project was this I think:

ASRock Z370/Z390 Taichi (and some others, actively modding!) Firmware with Intel Management Engine Disabled, new method

This is a new thread to remove the clutter from my old one, which can be found here: https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/asrock-z370-z390-taichi-and-some-others-actively-modding-firmware-with-intel-management-engine-disabled.243939/ This is for new builds utilizing a new technique which...

www.techpowerup.com

The real thing that strikes me as odd is that 8MB flash roms and 16MB flash roms are like pennies apart in cost, sometimes the 8MB rom even costs MORE. It was an odd choice for Ryzen X370 boards, but that was long ago now.

 

[DemonicRyzen666]

People got to use to old AMD and Am2 on up. Where you could've went from Am2 - Am2+ - Am3 - Am3+.

 

[silentbogo]

Uh, it's not. What on earth are you developing that can make do with that at the barebones level? Windows has GIGABYTES of libraries supporting your little 2 meg exe, for perspective.

We're talking about moving around few KBs of microcode in a mostly empty and yet... still bloated firmware. I'm sure there was a convenient way to keep all CPU support and not cut RAID and other functionality on a mostly empty ROM. Simply, no one cared enough to spend extra time on optimizations.... not AMD, not OEMs. Bureaucracy at its best.
BTW 128Mbit is a shitton of space for a firmware. Just few years ago 64Mbit was enough to store a firmware, a backup copy of a firmware, a HW diagnostics mini-OS, all those fancy backgrounds, and still have tons of space left.

Recently there was an uproar over AMD not being able to support all socket AM4 processors on all AM4 motherboards, namely the upcoming 4000 series.

Socket AM4 is scheduled to go EoL this year, and it had a solid run already. There'll be angry idiots all the time, but with a 3-year heads-up that we had, there is no logical reason to be angry.
If anything, we are lucky and should be thankful to get the fourth run on this platform right before its end.

 

[R-T-B]

We're talking about moving around few KBs of microcode in a mostly empty and yet... still bloated firmware.

There is. AGESA is pretty bloated.

BTW 128Mbit is a shitton of space for a firmware. Just few years ago 64Mbit was enough to store a firmware, a backup copy of a firmware, a HW diagnostics mini-OS, all those fancy backgrounds, and still have tons of space left.

Thank UEFI partially for the bloat, but only partially. Intel Roms still come in around or under 8MBs.

 

[jesdals]

I think the real issue hele is the B450 that until resent was promoted as Ryzen 4000 capable. MSI and others that made special MAX editions with Ryzen 3000 and beyond compatible motherboard. I have recently helped build both a MSI tomahawk and a mortar MAX. And was planning yet a mortar build. The most recent was with a 2700x because the 4000 Series where so close. All of those customers have a right to feel burned. But then again, my Vega II is a noter example, almost 2 months aften getting it - it was abandon by AMD.

 

[silentbogo]

Thank UEFI partially for the bloat, but only partially. Intel Roms still come in around or under 8MBs.

UEFI itself has nothing to do with bloat. Bloat itself does.
On both Intel and AMD sides the workflow is pretty similar: Intel or AMD ships firmware components, OEMs only put it together, add fancy UI that weighs more than firmware itself, tick a few checkboxes to enable/disable certain features, and that's pretty much it. Only the likes of Dell, HP and Apple spend actual time and resources on further firmware development and optimization.

 

[IceShroom]

I think the real issue hele is the B450 that until resent was promoted as Ryzen 4000 capable. MSI and others that made special MAX editions with Ryzen 3000 and beyond compatible motherboard. I have recently helped build both a MSI tomahawk and a mortar MAX. And was planning yet a mortar build. The most recent was with a 2700x because the 4000 Series where so close. All of those customers have a right to feel burned. But then again, my Vega II is a noter example, almost 2 months aften getting it - it was abandon by AMD.

Well you can still update to a Ryzen 9 3950X on that MSI board.
And AMD still supports Vega. Which Vega card you are talking about??

 

[R-T-B]

UEFI itself has nothing to do with bloat. Bloat itself does.

The frameworks and modules and common source everyone uses, mostly provided by AMI, are indeed a factor.

UEFI itself has nothing to do with bloat. Bloat itself does.
On both Intel and AMD sides the workflow is pretty similar: Intel or AMD ships firmware components, OEMs only put it together, add fancy UI that weighs more than firmware itself, tick a few checkboxes to enable/disable certain features, and that's pretty much it. Only the likes of Dell, HP and Apple spend actual time and resources on further firmware development and optimization.

The Intel and AMD components are only part of it. The base TianoCore firmware put out by Intel as an example is probably the most lightweight AMi based UEFI I know of and it's still way more bloated than the bios era.

 

[ratirt]

hat aside, I don't understand why this has you so worked up that you feel the need to write a whole post to defend AMD. Tell your friends how you feel, continue to buy AMD, but this whole wall of text?

I don't think he is defending AMD nor any other company. I see a lot of people in the forums (not just TPU) are fixed on either Intel or AMD. If you say AMD did good with that, you must be a fanboy. If you agree with something one of the given companies did or is about to do, doesn't make you fanboy but you still need to be objective. This is his conclusion about how people fail to understand the business and blame others for their own decisions when something goes south. Also blindly going for one or the other (AMD or Intel) despite the fact that these are companies and they want to make profit not to care about every individual that buys their products or potential customer. People are losing their judgement and for a lot of them it is either AMD or Intel and they don't understand you can be that, nowadays, weird dude in the middle watching and drawing conclusions about the situation or any other stuff the companies are doing.
At least, that's how I take it.

 

[Ultra Taco]

Don't have the right to feel angry?

Depends..

Did AMD lead people to believe / tell people their boards 470X would support ZEN 3?

"AMD is not my friend" it's a business. True? We don't have a relationship personally as friends.

Though I have built every computer I've ever owned and of family & friends because I support AMDs' culture of user support, value, underdog, and the ability to upgrade. If they start behaving like intel, why wouldn't I chose Intel? I bought a an FX8350 when Haswell was clearly better. I buy fair trade coffee and shop local farms because I understand that in capitalism we vote with our $ more than anything. If AMD has lost it's way then I will change my vote.

 

[GoldenX]

AMD promised 3 years, and delivered, besides, Zen3 is the last hurrah of AM4. It still feels like a dick move, but judging by my own experience with the MSI beta BIOS, I can understand them.
Hey, it's not like any vendor would sell the exact same product on 3 different sockets, right? Right.

 

[tabascosauz]

I don't think he is defending AMD nor any other company.

I'm not sure many portions of that original argument could be taken as standing from the perspective of a middleman.

Total knobs who only care about FPS and are incapable of critical thinking blindly bought Intel.

So I'm a total knob for buying Intel over the past 6 years because absolutely nothing out of AMD's entire K10 or K15 families was conducive to building <15L, balanced PCs for work,1440P gaming, and air travel?

And now I'm also a total knob for feeling a little taken aback that this is the end of the line for the B450 board I had just purchased, because "AMD is not my friend"? I'm not allowed to feel a little frustrated that I fell for all the "AM4 is one happy family" advertising that AMD put out, and all the tech sites echoed for AMD? I'm not in the streets with a pitchfork, but I just have to swallow this turn of events because it's all in the interest of not having a monopoly?

It's an interesting rant, and that's about it. People are hardly "losing their [collective] judgment". The original post makes it sound like PC-building human beings have completely lost the ability to think for themselves and purchase products on the merits of the hardware.

And that "unbiased" argument goes right back at you. Intel's a Grade A scumbag for the OEM bribing scandal (which I'm sure is ongoing given Dell's non-reaction to Renoir). AMD dug themselves out of the hole that they put themselves into with a good amount of help from Intel. Now AMD has decided that it's time to look to expanding their margins. And I'm still supposed to support them for it, because otherwise, monopoly. I sure as hell missed K10.5 when Bull[shit]dozer took its place, but pick a line and stick to it.

AMD is not your friend or mine, they're a business that exists to make a profit.

And I'll treat them as such, as I did when I had variously sized GCN 1.0-based GPUs because they were the right fit for my needs. Did I give a shit that Intel was pulling dirty tricks? No. Did I give a shit that Nvidia was jacking up the prices in the absence of competition? No. Did I give a shit that AMD was going under? No. Isn't that the correct attitude towards a profit-driven business?

When I see the endless mobs of red team simps foaming at the mouths occupying comment sections on hardware Youtube channels, I find it hilarious. I don't agree that people should have an unhealthy obsession with any company that thrives on making money off of you. I think you do make a valid point. But this entire post was an attempt at explaining while fanboyism is undesirable, yet labelling people in droves as fanboys for buying the products they did.

If it's a rant, it's a rant. I enjoy reading a good rant every now and then because there's a lot that I can relate to. But don't try and pass it off as some kind of enlightened proclamation. You don't get anywhere in a conversation (yes, this forum is a large network of loosely connected, sometimes incoherent conversations) by elevating yourself above other people.

 

[JAB Creations]

I'm not sure many portions of that original argument could be taken as standing from the perspective of a middleman.

So I'm a total knob for buying Intel over the past 6 years because absolutely nothing out of AMD's entire K10 or K15 families was conducive to building <15L, balanced PCs for work,1440P gaming, and air travel?

I've been doing 4K gaming on an 8350 up until the end of 2019 and you can't pull it off at 1440? How are you a middleman when you're upset that you didn't get what you want while simultaneously not acknowledging the multitude of problems that AMD had to deal with?

middleman - appeal to the masses. Sometimes reality is highly biased, existence blatantly does not care about "equality" (I'm not for AMD or Intel or etc). This specific false argument is relative to what other people think - not what the companies being discussed are doing.

You're trying to elevate yourself by trying to argue that I have some need to elevate myself which I don't. If you feel burned then go and get a bunch of people and advocate for a separate bios to be made for your motherboards. Instead you're wasting time on the forums being upset that someone has pointed out the invalid aspect of your misplaced anger.

 

[ratirt]

I'm not sure many portions of that original argument could be taken as standing from the perspective of a middleman.

That's the problem now and you can't seem to acknowledge it. If someone agrees with the company about something, he must be a fanboy because he agrees with what the company does or did in the past or is about to do, giving arguments supporting it. He used AMD as an example to show us what the problem is and what he has noticed. If he used Intel, would you have said he is defending Intel? I'm sure that would have been your answer.
You seem not to see the bigger picture and I do get why you don't see it. It is so common these days, people stop recognizing conclusions with an example of one company and conclusion about a bigger aspects, trying to show you what they are about. What's an argument without an example? People need to start recognizing what is the difference between, supporter, blind follower and conclusion giver with an example. This is something worth to think about especially when you have all of those given on a silver platter here on this forum.

I've been doing 4K gaming on an 8350 up until the end of 2019 and you can't pull it off at 1440? How are you a middleman when you're upset that you didn't get what you want while simultaneously not acknowledging the multitude of problems that AMD had to deal with?

You do realize that 4k gaming, requires less CPU power than 1080p or even 1440p (depending on the game) but rather more GPU power. It hasn't changed since. If he chose Intel that's his decision.
I remember people saying that the 4c4t or 4c8t is more than enough for gaming and people bought 7600k, 7700k when the price dropped. Now they wished they never did because some things have changed in gaming.

 

[JAB Creations]

That's the problem now and you can't seem to acknowledge it. If someone agrees with the company about something, he must be a fanboy because he agrees with what the company does or did in the past or is about to do, giving arguments supporting it. He used AMD as an example to show us what the problem is and what he has noticed. If he used Intel, would you have said he is defending Intel? I'm sure that would have been your answer.
You seem not to see the bigger picture and I do get why you don't see it. It is so common these days, people stop recognizing conclusions with an example of one company and conclusion about a bigger aspects, trying to show you what they are about. What's an argument without an example? People need to start recognizing what is the difference between, supporter, blind follower and conclusion giver with an example. This is something worth to think about especially when you have all of those given on a silver platter here on this forum.

AMD was forced in to their decision because they straight up have zero ability to encourage anything different, being literally 45 times smaller than Asus in example, forget about Intel.

Intel on the otherhand puts tons of their chips on all their motherboards. They are obsessed with preventing upgrades, they want to force people to do a rebuild (replacing the motherboard to upgrade a CPU is a rebuild, not an upgrade). WIFI, Nics, audio, just look at all those branded Intel chips on there.

Yes, AMD has done a few foolish things and I agree, blindly worshiping any company is just dumb. As I said earlier though the nature of the universe does not care about appeal the modestly or equality.

Now in a few years from now if AMD had AMD branded chips all over their motherboards I'd be the first to call them out on it. In fact I've never encountered anyone else who actually pointed out all those Intel branded chips on Intel motherboards and it's overwhelmingly blatant - you just have to look objectively.

I think AMD's best move is to encourage new separate bios builds and yes, I would say favor the motherboard manufacturers that are/have been helping maintain that high level of compatibility.

...but damn, AMD could bring back all the heroes of history to save the world but someone else gets lazy and now AMD is the new Intel overnight.

 

[tabascosauz]

You're trying to elevate yourself by trying to argue that I have some need to elevate myself which I don't. If you feel burned then go and get a bunch of people and advocate for a separate bios to be made for your motherboards. Instead you're wasting time on the forums being upset that someone has pointed out the invalid aspect of your misplaced anger.

Misplaced anger? I legitimately mean no offence when I say that you're throwing a lot of terms out there that just showcase your own strangely unfounded vitriol towards others. No, I'm not trying to elevate myself above other people. Just look at the opening sentence in your closing remarks. You've spent most of an entire post labelling others; what else would you call those sorts of remarks? They don't sound quite so unbiased or resigned-to-the-reality-of-the-product-market to me...

"Total knobs who only care about FPS and are incapable of critical thinking blindly bought Intel."
"if you are not capable of critical thinking then you are...contributing to the businesses that are not only dishonest though sustain dishonest tactics in the markets that we here on these forums are very much a part of."

These aren't my words, boss. Nevertheless, I found it interesting to read your thoughts on the matter. Good night.

That's the problem now and you can't seem to acknowledge it. If someone agrees with the company about something, he must be a fanboy because he agrees with what the company does or did in the past or is about to do, giving arguments supporting it. He used AMD as an example to show us what the problem is and what he has noticed. If he used Intel, would you have said he is defending Intel? I'm sure that would have been your answer.

No, that's not what I said. I made a passing remark questioning the necessity of all...this. Is this philosophy supposed to have some sort of impact on the masses, to bring about some sort of change in the groups of people that OP blames for the entire current state of the market?

And did I miss a seminar on new trigger words where they added "defend" to the list? Did he not seek to provide a reason for AMD's actions, albeit in a roundabout way? Did I ever accuse him of being a fanboy?

Yikes, can't even get a word in anymore without getting jumped on.

 

[Deleted member 67555]

A year from now AMD's yet released Ryzen 3 (4000 series) will be out and reduced...you'll be able to get a 4600x for $170...
So shh

 

[HD64G]

AMD can and should allow vendors to make UEFIs as they wish to. If they do so, most vendors will make UEFIs that support Zen2-3 CPUs and APUs on X470/B450 boards that would allow anyone with a Zen-Zen+ CPU or APU to upgrade. There wouldn't be any issue with the UEFI size then me thinks. I agree to not make UEFIs that have all AGESA codes for all Zen gen CPU and APU if that is not possible due to rom size but not allowing vendors to make UEFIs for their boards is another thing entirely that makes AMD look VERY bad towards their customers. And it will be only their fault. I hope they will change mind on that as they did with Zen2 and X470/B450 that didn't have support officially but was done by the vendors in the end.

 

[Melvis]

Yeah we do