









AMD’s Announcement Today











AMD AM4 Motherboard Support
AnandTech uArch A320 B350
X570 B550
Ryzen 4000 CPU Zen 3 X X Beta
Ryzen 4000 APU** Zen 2 X ? ? ? ?
Ryzen 3000 CPU Zen 2 X Beta
Ryzen 3000 APU Zen+ X
Ryzen 2000 CPU Zen+ X
Ryzen 2000 APU Zen X X
Ryzen 1000 CPU Zen X X
Athlon A-Series * X X X
Ryzen Pro CPUs follow their non-Pro equivalents
* Excavator or Carrizo
** Unknown - product not announced yet

AMD's full press release is given below.










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  • FreckledTrout - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link

    True socket support in the past meant CPU support but I simply don't see any reason to get outraged. It’s not like they are arbitrarily limiting support or Like Intel creating a new socket for no technical reason. They have real reasons of fitting all that AGESA code into the BIOS. Reply
  • rarson - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link

    I agree with you completely on the outrage part. People are reacting a bit too extremely about this. But to me, this whole situation is a little disappointing for a few reasons. Primarily, I'm disappointed that AMD was caught so off guard by this problem, as BIOS limitations should have been pretty obvious before they started shoving everything onto AM4. Previous generation APUs had their own socket and I'm not sure why AMD felt the need to consolidate everything to AM4, especially the pre-Zen stuff like Bristol Ridge. They already had Zen, Zen+, Zen 2, and Zen 3 on the public roadmaps LONG before Ryzen was launched and should have known well before this that the CPU support list was going to become massive with all these different chips to support. Basically, it's a little embarrassing for a company who has manufactured CPUs for this long to run into this problem, let alone be blind-sided by it. I'll chalk it up to ambition, but they should have seen this coming.

    Also, CPU support based on the socket always made planning builds with future upgrades in mind a lot easier with AMD. Given that they have usually been the budget option, this is plus for their target audience, it makes going with AMD an even easier decision. If AMD wants to shift CPU support to the chipset, that's fine. I may not like it, but if that's what they determine they should do, then I accept that. However, it's not right to suddenly introduce this change when you're 75% of the way through your socket road map and many of your loyal customers bought in at the beginning under the assumption that the company would continue maintaining support the same way they had for decades.

    And honestly if they do shift to a chipset-centric support model (which, let's face it, they have because X370 support is done), that will make me think twice the next time I want to build an AMD computer. I'm not saying that I'm boycotting them or anything, just that I'll be a little more weary about CPU support.
  • JoeWright - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link

    Why'd you wait 4 years to complain about this?
    Couldn't you have made similar complaints right at the start claiming that amd failed to keep their promises because cpus like 1800x and cheap a320 mobos existed at the same time?
  • rarson - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link

    Part of the problem is that in the past, AMD has typically changed the socket when changing CPU support, and even then, as was the case with the "plus" sockets, still retained some compatibility between new and old boards and CPUs. Usually, AMD would announce the socket and state how long they intend to support the socket, and that was it. Intel on the other hand was always tied to specific chipsets, and the socket had no real bearing on what processors would be supported by a given board. This has always somewhat frustrated me about Intel, because you can never assume that a given chipset will support future processors. Case in point, I feel like anyone that invested in Z270 got really ripped off. That aside, I will give Intel a small bit of credit for avoiding this kind of mess completely by setting customer expectations.

    I built my first PC in 1997, and have always switched between AMD and Intel, based on my budget, the parts currently available, and the best bang for the buck with upgrade path in mind. Granted, parts are a lot cheaper than they used to be (graphics cards aside), but generally I start with a good motherboard and a cheap CPU so that I can upgrade down the road. It's ALWAYS been easier to plan very far ahead with AMD, because you knew that when they said they would support a socket for a number of years, the newer CPUs would work with all boards that used the same socket. In fact, when they first announced AM4, I assumed that meant that every AM4 board would support all CPUs up to and including Zen 3 (based on the timelines it seemed pretty clear that the third Zen iteration would arrive within that support window). It's a little frustrating to have AMD suddenly change CPU support without changing the socket after decades of doing the opposite. I would have rather seen them change the socket for Zen 3 than continue with the same socket while breaking support. But it's pretty clear they realized far too late that this BIOS thing would be a problem.

    I don't necessarily fault them for being overly ambitious, however it kind of makes you wonder why they bothered with stuff like Bristol Ridge on AM4 or why a company that has been making CPUs and chipsets for decades wasn't more aware of the BIOS problems arising from supporting too many CPUs on a single socket. If it comes down to removing BIOS graphics altogether and going back to a normal, plain menu interface then I'm all for it, as I really loathe useless BIOS graphics.
  • mkaibear - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link

    Actually, and I can't believe I have to keep pointing this out, it's closer to Intel: "We tried to make multiple generations work on the same socket before and we got absolutely *slated* by the enthusiasts and press when changing power budgets meant not every chip worked - so now we don't make promises about how long sockets will last" Reply
  • rarson - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link

    Intel has never made promises about how long sockets will last, CPU support has always been tied to the chipset and not the socket.

    What Intel got blasted for is creating warmed over refreshes (Kaby Lake) and useless chipsets (Z270) fully aware of the impending release of higher core chips with Coffee Lake.
  • DigitalFreak - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link

    How many people really upgrade their CPU and keep the same motherboard? Seems like a solution looking for a problem. Reply
  • ArcadeEngineer - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link

    Surely everyone if they could? What's the reason for a random consumer to throw away a perfectly good B450 board and buy B550? Reply
  • PhysicsNurd - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link

    PCIe 4 NVME SSD support? Reply
  • Ratman6161 - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link

    I recently upgraded from a 1700 + X470 to a 3700X + X570. But I almost decided to just put the 3700X in the X470 board. I don't currently have anything that takes advantage of PCIe 4 so there is really no performance advantage to be had from the motherboard upgrade. I mainly did it for future upgrades and because I could use the old motherboard and CPU in another system. Reply

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