AMD Second-generation Ryzen "Pinnacle Ridge" Confirmed to Support AM4

[btarunr]

AMD, in an interview with Overclockers UK (OCUK), confirmed that its second-generation Ryzen desktop processors will support the existing AM4 socket, so current Ryzen platform users can seamlessly upgrade to the new processors, with a BIOS update. Most current AM4 socket motherboards will require BIOS updates to support Ryzen "Raven Ridge" desktop APUs, and Ryzen "Pinnacle Ridge" CPUs, as the two require an update to the latest AGESA 1.0.0.7 version. In the interview, AMD representative James Prior confirmed that the company plans to keep AM4 its mainstream-desktop processor socket all the way up to 2020, which means at least another two to three generations of processors for it.

The next generation is "Pinnacle Ridge," which is rumored to be an optical-shrink of the "Summit Ridge" silicon to the 12 nm process, enabling higher clock speeds. The decision to keep AM4 doesn't mean the company's 300-series chipset will be made to stretch over 3 years. The company could release newer chipsets, particularly to address 300-series chipset's main shortcoming, just 6-8 older PCI-Express gen 2.0 general purpose lanes (while Intel chipsets put out up to 24 gen 3.0 lanes).



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[gmn17]

That’s good news

 

[RejZoR]

Another reason to go with AMD instead of Intel. I mean, buying new motherboard because you want CPU upgrade just isn't of any fun... The way Intel is currently handling this is just stupid. They may just as well solder the damn CPU's to motherboards, they change them at such stupid rate.

 

[Chaitanya]

I thought AMD themselves had said they are going to stick with AM4 until release of DDR5.

 

[P4-630]

I wouldn't mind switching to AMD in the future. (graphics card is another story though...)
I like the idea that you don't need to upgrade your motherboard for a new gen chip. (unlike intel...)

 

[TheLostSwede]

This is both good and bad.

The good is that you can upgrade your CPU without having to touch a single other component in your system.

The bad is you won't get any other system improvements. (By only upgrading the CPU that is)

However, the AM4 platform is far from perfect in my opinion. AMD went a bit too stingy on the PCIe lane count so it's not possible to add a second NVMe drive or other high-speed interface cards such as RAID, 10Gbps etc. which is disappointing. If only there had been support for an additional four PCIe lanes, the overall platform would've been so much better.

Sadly this doesn't look like it's something that can or will be addressed until we have a new socket now, so anyone with an AM4 system is going to be slightly limited to what they can stick in their system. Ok, 10Gbps Ethernet can still go via the chipset, but might be a bottlenecked slightly, but other things will be far too limited to go through there.

The pictured board is actually good example of a very limited product, as you have to chose between M.2 or U.2 and PCIe x4 2.0 or M.2 PCIe 2.0, as you only get one or the other, not both.

So let's hope AMD thinks ahead a little bit more when they make their next socket and does something a little bit more future proof when it comes to expandability, not just CPU upgrades.

 

[RejZoR]

Even graphic cards aren't bad quite frankly. Polaris was a huge success for them even though it's only a mid end part. And RX Vega isn't that bad either. It's not king of the hill and prices are not totally in their favor, but tech wise, it's quite a decent chip. Not to mention Vega works exceptionally well at lower clocks where it's not being pushed to its absolute limit. Making it very interesting solution for APU's and embeded systems.

 

[Zubasa]

This is both good and bad.

The good is that you can upgrade your CPU without having to touch a single other component in your system.

The bad is you won't get any other system improvements.

However, the AM4 platform is far from perfect in my opinion. AMD went a bit too stingy on the PCIe lane count so it's not possible to add a second NVMe drive or other high-speed interface cards such as RAID, 10Gbps etc. which is disappointing. If only there had been support for an additional four PCIe lanes, the overall platform would've been so much better.

Sadly this doesn't look like it's something that can or will be addressed until we have a new socket now, so anyone with an AM4 system is going to be slightly limited to what they can stick in their system. Ok, 10Gbps Ethernet can still go via the chipset, but might be a bottlenecked slightly, but other things will be far too limited to go through there.

The pictured board is actually good example of a very limited product, as you have to chose between M.2 or U.2 and PCIe x4 2.0 or M.2 PCIe 2.0, as you only get one or the other, not both.

So let's hope AMD thinks ahead a little bit more when they make their next socket and does something a little bit more future proof when it comes to expandability, not just CPU upgrades.

What stops them the from making an AM4+ socket to address those issues while maintaining compatibility?

 

[notb]

Another reason to go with AMD instead of Intel. I mean, buying new motherboard because you want CPU upgrade just isn't of any fun... The way Intel is currently handling this is just stupid. They may just as well solder the damn CPU's to motherboards, they change them at such stupid rate.

Isn't this topic a bit worn out already?

Do we really need an article every month reminding us that AM4 can't afford to redesign the socket more often? Do we really need the comments stating that it's great?

 

[efikkan]

Another reason to go with AMD instead of Intel. I mean, buying new motherboard because you want CPU upgrade just isn't of any fun... The way Intel is currently handling this is just stupid. They may just as well solder the damn CPU's to motherboards, they change them at such stupid rate.

And why would anyone upgrade a one year old system with a new one? Even if they sell the old CPU, it's still a waste of money. Intel chooses to bring new platform features over prioritizing those 0.1% of buyers who want to upgrade to every new iteration. In reality nearly everyone keeps motherboard, CPU and RAM "bundled together" throughout the lifespan of a system. Graphics cards, SSDs, HDDs, etc. are on the other hand easy to swap independently.

Even graphic cards aren't bad quite frankly. Polaris was a huge success for them even though it's only a mid end part. And RX Vega isn't that bad either. It's not king of the hill and prices are not totally in their favor, but tech wise, it's quite a decent chip. Not to mention Vega works exceptionally well at lower clocks where it's not being pushed to its absolute limit. Making it very interesting solution for APU's and embeded systems.

Why are you sugar-coating it?
Vega is the largest failure in many years for AMD, and there is no reason to buy it for gaming. So when a product is inferior, the fans keep focusing on theoretical specs over actual performance…

 

[Vya Domus]

The pictured board is actually good example of a very limited product, as you have to chose between M.2 or U.2 and PCIe x4 2.0 or M.2 PCIe 2.0, as you only get one or the other, not both.

That's what most people do anyway , they go for one or the other. So , limiting ? Yes. A big deal ? Not really.

Not to mention Vega works exceptionally well at lower clocks where it's not being pushed to its absolute limit.

It's not that Vega works well at lower clocks , it's the node itself that works better at lower clocks. Every expert in the field agrees that TSMC's 16nm is far superior at higher clocks.

 

[the54thvoid]

This is exactly why I bought a Ryzen chip. I kept my x79 for 6 years (?) but had few cost effective upgrade routes that would have improved CPU speed by much. If the Pinnacle Ridge chips can run at a guaranteed 4-4.2Ghz, that'd be a clean 10%+ uplift. It'd help games too for that single threaded fps where Ryzen's lower clocks do make a slight difference at higher rates (where I dont notice it on a 60Hz monitor ).

Anyway, looking forward to seeing what they can do with the shrink.

 

[HD64G]

Absolutely predictable move and normal practice for AMD. Customer friendly tactics and more than sensible pricing will help them get more sales in the future when one knows that he will put any upcoming CPU or APU in the same mobo he got from 2017 up to 2020 and even further maybe.

 

[GreiverBlade]

as expected ... now i can calmly think about my purple switch

 

[ZeDestructor]

What stops them the from making an AM4+ socket to address those issues while maintaining compatibility?

Pin count and assignment for the most part: to increase the PCIe lane count while also keeping performance very high, you need to assign more pins from the socket to PCIe so that you can either connect more stuff directly to the CPU, or have a wider link to the chipset.

Then you have the CPU die itself, where you need to widen the PCIe controller there to talk to more PCIe bits.

In theory, if AMD has left enough unassigned pins in the socket, they could rework the CPU die and chipset/motherboard guidelines to add more lanes and call it AM5 or something, but most likely there are no extra unassigned pins. They could also just increase the socket size a bit like the old 386/486 math coprocessor upgrade bits and have the old chips use a smaller area of the newer socket, but again, annoyingly to deal with.

 

[Filip Georgievski]

Friendly cost effective move by AMD here as it is still the underdog in the CPU market.

 

[TheLostSwede]

What stops them the from making an AM4+ socket to address those issues while maintaining compatibility?

Not enough pins in the socket? Unless they do an Intel and make a new chipset with more PCIe lanes, which will hopefully use a PCIe 3.0 bridge next time around. Then again, we don't know if they have extra capacity or not to add something like four more PCIe lanes to the socket, but it doesn't seem too likely.

That's what most people do anyway , they go for one or the other. So , limiting ? Yes. A big deal ? Not really.

Well, it's already limiting for me, as I've got an NVMe M.2 drive and can't add another one to my system unless I want to put in a PCIe 2.0 slot. So yes, it is a big deal for some of us.

 

[notb]

What stops them the from making an AM4+ socket to address those issues while maintaining compatibility?

Pins? Physics?
Remember FM2+? It was compatible with FM2 CPUs, but not the other way around. So FM2+ made updating the mobo possible, but if you wanted a new (FM2+) CPU, you had to get a new mobo as well.
And that was a good move for AMD, because - as some of us have been stating since this AM4 lifespan discussion started - platform's features evolve faster than the raw performance.

Absolutely predictable move and normal practice for AMD. Customer friendly tactics and more than sensible pricing will help them get more sales in the future when one knows that he will put any upcoming CPU or APU in the same mobo he got from 2017 up to 2020 and even further maybe.

Absolutely not normal practice for AMD and not really customer-friendly tactics (not if they want to grow outside the gaming/home-tinkering niche).
Comments like this one are based on the FM3 era which lasted long not because AMD was so keen to keep the platform, but because they couldn't afford upgrading it (while working on Zen).
Not so long ago AMD not only was replacing the socket as frequently as Intel, but actually had 2 sockets in the consumer lineup.

 

[hat]

Absolutely not normal practice for AMD and not really customer-friendly tactics (not if they want to grow outside the gaming/home-tinkering niche).
Comments like this one are based on the FM3 era which lasted long not because AMD was so keen to keep the platform, but because they couldn't afford upgrading it (while working on Zen).
Not so long ago AMD not only was replacing the socket as frequently as Intel, but actually had 2 sockets in the consumer lineup.

When... exactly... was this? I remember AMD being very compatible forwards and backwards since AM2.

 

[EarthDog]

When... exactly... was this? I remember AMD being very compatible forwards and backwards since AM2.

s754 and s 939...?? Before am2, but...

I thought AMD themselves had said they are going to stick with AM4 until release of DDR5.

they did.. its reconfirming.

 

[Vayra86]

This is good because its what Ryzen really needs to remain competitive. The first gen was OK, but is still trailing top performance on quite a lot of situations. Keeping the same socket will increase their sales of Pinnacle Ridge, because people will upgrade more readily, 'flooding' the second hand market with 1st gen Ryzens.

Great way to gain back market share and regain trust. But, Pinnacle better be a tangible improvement or this whole strategy won't work.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

This is both good and bad.

The good is that you can upgrade your CPU without having to touch a single other component in your system.

The bad is you won't get any other system improvements.

However, the AM4 platform is far from perfect in my opinion. AMD went a bit too stingy on the PCIe lane count so it's not possible to add a second NVMe drive or other high-speed interface cards such as RAID, 10Gbps etc. which is disappointing. If only there had been support for an additional four PCIe lanes, the overall platform would've been so much better.

Sadly this doesn't look like it's something that can or will be addressed until we have a new socket now, so anyone with an AM4 system is going to be slightly limited to what they can stick in their system. Ok, 10Gbps Ethernet can still go via the chipset, but might be a bottlenecked slightly, but other things will be far too limited to go through there.

The pictured board is actually good example of a very limited product, as you have to chose between M.2 or U.2 and PCIe x4 2.0 or M.2 PCIe 2.0, as you only get one or the other, not both.

So let's hope AMD thinks ahead a little bit more when they make their next socket and does something a little bit more future proof when it comes to expandability, not just CPU upgrades.

I guess that just depends on if they also introduce a new chipset with 2.0 that addresses those concerns. There's nothing saying that you can't upgrade your motherboard if you upgrade to 2.0, but it's sure nice that you don't have to upgrade. The ability to just drop in a new CPU if you are otherwise content is a nice option.

 

[notb]

When... exactly... was this? I remember AMD being very compatible forwards and backwards since AM2.

Oh really? Wasn't AMD selling FM and AM platforms simultaneously? :-D

 

[EarthDog]

Oh really? Wasn't AMD selling FM and AM platforms simultaneously? :-D

Intel sells HEDT and Mainstream at the same time. Isnt that APU and 'Mainstream'?

 

[xkm1948]

@RejZoR Good old praising Vega and RyZen while using Intel and just bought a 1080Ti. Very convincing, bro.