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Update 19/05: AMD later clarified some new plans but they come with plenty of caveats.


If you're keeping an eye on the latest AMD processors coming, you might want to sit down and take a look at a recent post from AMD detailing their support plans for socket AM4 and Zen 3 compatibility.

Writing in a post on their community forum, AMD developer Robert Hallock announced their plans. Going over a little history, how in 2016 they said they would support socket AM4 until 2020 and since then processors have expanded a lot across the Excavator / Zen / Zen+ and Zen 2 architectures.

Starting off with the big question answered: the upcoming Zen 3 will be compatible with the X570 (2019) and B550 (2020) motherboards through a BIOS update. While they also mentioned "no plans" to have Zen 3 support older chipsets so if you were waiting on it you're likely going to need to spend more.

They've also provided a picture of their support status and plan:

For the full details, see here.

Curious about their upcoming Zen 3? AMD stated recently that it and their next-generation GPU architecture with RDNA 2 are on target for this year.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: AMD, Hardware
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Whitewolfe80 May 8, 2020
Quoting: NagezahnIt's always a nice thing when new things and old things get along well, but in this specific case for me it doesn't make a difference - there's usually too much time passing between upgrades. Still running an Athlon X4 860K here. And while I'm thinking about upgrading ever since Ryzen released, there's always a new version of them coming up on the "horyzen" that I fell there's never the point where I "have to" upgrade. After all, my machine is still working for the things I feed it.

That is very true upgrades are nice but if you constantly upgrading and the most demanding thing you play is esports titles its not like you need 20 cores its nice to have but you dont need it. I had that processor back in the day and i had no issue playing witcher 3 or fallout 4 back in my dual boot days.
SuperGrip May 8, 2020
Is it possible that they might release AM5 in 2021 with Ryzen 5000 series processors as they have stated in previous correspondences that AM4 will be supported till 2020 only. I am asking this to check the viability of support for the new B550 motherboards in the coming years. I am thinking of getting it but might wait if it is only going to support one generation of CPU's.
Xpander May 8, 2020
I have 3700X on Asus Prime X370 Pro and it works without any issues. so the image is a bit off i would say.
lqe5433 May 8, 2020
ZEN 2 should be enough for gaming for a long time.
sub May 8, 2020
I bought a B450 not too long because every "expert" out there claimed AMD will definitely support it with at least Zen 3. :/
Alm888 May 8, 2020
This makes the X570/B550 rather pointless boards. They will die off with AM5 socket entering the market.

Really disappointed about lack of B450 support for Zen 3 but this only means I won't get myself another AMD CPU as an upgrade in another 5 years till I completely switch the platform (CPU/RAM/PCIExpress version). Until then the R3600 should suffice.


Last edited by Alm888 on 8 May 2020 at 11:52 am UTC
lejimster May 8, 2020
Quoting: GuestIf i am not mistaken there are a few people using ryzen 3000 processors on 300 series chipsets with updated BIOSes. Only some motherboards allow that. If confirmed some users of 400 series chipsets may have a good surprise. AMD users seem to enjoy cheaper upgrades on more durable mainboards and could protest if it is not the case.


At least it is what i gather from forum posts i have read elsewhere.

I'm not really angry at AMD, they've offered upgrades way beyond what Intel have in recent years, but I guess I wanted to see how far I could wait until I upgrade the CPU on my B350 mobo. I'm quite happy with my 1700, but when I first built my PC I was expecting AMD to be already hitting around ~5Ghz by now, Zen2 is a good upgrade, but wasn't significant enough for me to warrant the cost.

If I can't upgrade and need to buy a new mobo, does it make sense to invest in a new mobo with no upgrade potential? I'm not sure of AMD's plans for Zen 4>, but I wouldn't be surprised if they choose to go with a new socket when DDR5 is launched.

Let's see what mobo manufacturers do.
tomaszg May 8, 2020
Well, I shouldn't have written badly about AMD yesterday since today my mobo died (as far as I can diagnoze). At the moment there is no reasonable replacement. Buying B450 is a bit pointless, as it won't support Zen 3 and there are no B550 mainboards yet to buy. I could get X570 board but they are rather pricey.
CFWhitman May 9, 2020
I have a 3700X running on an X370 motherboard (Asrock X370 Gaming X), though I did have to upgrade the firmware. The first upgrade had the RDRAND bug, but a later update fixed it. When I got the processor, the bug had already been fixed in the newest firmware, though the notes left something to be desired about properly explaining this. There has been another firmware update since. It seems to run pretty well at this point.
zirak May 9, 2020
I'm planning to buy a whole new desktop so this is very interesting to me. at least I'll buy a X570 motherboard.
I prepared this configuration yesterday before read this entry, what do you think about it?
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