[SOLVED] can someone explain why 1st gen ryzen arent compatible with x570 mobos?

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is this still true?

does this mean if i get an x570 instead of a b550 i can continue to use my ryzen 2700 as a place holder?
Yes for X570... no for B550. There have been reports of Ryzen 2000 processors working on B550 motherboards but I wouldn't count on it as it's not supported.

VRM quality is much more...varied, lets say...on X570. There are boards with awesome VRM's, like Asus Crosshair Hero VIII, but there are some that are awesomely bad too considering the price tags those things carry. So you have to be careful about what you get.

B550 is more uniform, with some very good ones (but not as awesome as CHVII's) and some borderline capable. That's not so bad for B550 since it's marketed as more budget anyway with...
No, B550 doesn't even support 2nd Gen Ryzen, only 3rd Gen/3000 series, and the upcoming 4th Gen 5000 series Zen3 CPUs.

X570 doesn't support 1st Gen, only 2nd, 3rd and 4th gen. The reason why, is mainly because of BIOS limitations. Also because of architectural limitations. In the simplest terms possible, there are features on X570 and B550 that the 1st Gen Ryzen processors were simply not designed to support, and therefore they can't be used on those motherboards. It is a question of HOW the processors were designed, and they were not designed to be compatible with some aspects of the newer chipset designs like the 2nd and 3rd Gen CPUs were, and even were not, in the case of 2nd Gen not being compatible with B550 boards.

To some degree it is also probably a matter of AMD and board manufacturers not wanting to lose out on being able to sell newer models as well.

In truth, these boards don't really offer ANYTHING important, for now anyhow, over B450 models, except for PCIe 4.0 support, which 1st Gen Ryzen CPUs do not have, and cannot have, but which doesn't really offer any gains even with CPUs that do support it when paired with PCIe 4.0 NVME drives and graphics cards, so you are just as well off using a good B450 board anyway with that CPU.
 
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Desch_

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No, B550 doesn't even support 2nd Gen Ryzen, only 3rd Gen/3000 series, and the upcoming 4th Gen 5000 series Zen3 CPUs.

X570 doesn't support 1st Gen, only 2nd, 3rd and 4th gen. The reason why, is mainly because of BIOS limitations. Also because of architectural limitations. In the simplest terms possible, there are features on X570 and B550 that the 1st Gen Ryzen processors were simply not designed to support, and therefore they can't be used on those motherboards. It is a question of HOW the processors were designed, and they were not designed to be compatible with some aspects of the newer chipset designs like the 2nd and 3rd Gen CPUs were, and even were not, in the case of 2nd Gen not being compatible with B550 boards.

To some degree it is also probably a matter of AMD and board manufacturers not wanting to lose out on being able to sell newer models as well.

In truth, these boards don't really offer ANYTHING important, for now anyhow, over B450 models, except for PCIe 4.0 support, which 1st Gen Ryzen CPUs do not have, and cannot have, but which doesn't really offer any gains even with CPUs that do support it when paired with PCIe 4.0 NVME drives and graphics cards, so you are just as well off using a good B450 board anyway with that CPU.


thanks. makes it all pretty limiting and confusing. I have been keeping my r5 1400 but now im not sure why.
 
In addition to perhaps AMD and/or board manufacturers wanting to find an excuse for selling you later hardware, there is the issue that some early Zen processors can't support more than 16MB of BIOS code. I'm not sure how far this goes, but I'm going to assume all Zen processors have this limitation. Apparently board manufacturers don't think it's worth the trouble of trying to figure out how to make larger BIOSes compatible with Zen.

Also it appears AMD originally wanted the 500-series chipsets to be the "launchpad" for Zen 2 and on, while the 300 and 400 series chipsets were Zen, Zen+, and Zen 2. I liken this to be similar to the transition between AM2+ and AM3.

I'm starting to think AMD's "promise" of supporting AM4 through 2020 wasn't really clear enough. Or they were trying to save face by avoiding comparisons to Intel.
 
Not all boards had this limitation. Boards that were "cheaped out on" by the manufacturer, by using only 16mb Eproms. X570 boards have 32Gb Eproms, so this is not the problem regarding the compatibility on these boards. Mostly this applied to only B450 and older boards, and not all of those either.
 
Not all boards had this limitation. Boards that were "cheaped out on" by the manufacturer, by using only 16mb Eproms. X570 boards have 32Gb Eproms, so this is not the problem regarding the compatibility on these boards. Mostly this applied to only B450 and older boards, and not all of those either.
Looking into this further, it appears the issue only happened with Bristol Bridge APUs. But overall I don't think the explanation is as easy as "manufacturers just wanted to be cheap"

Honestly though, I think this is just a reaction to people assuming that "support for AM4 will happen through 2020" meant "every AM4 CPU will be compatible with every AM4 board through until 2020" Yes there's no technical reason why older AM4 boards can't support newer CPUs, but the size limitation means they have to drop support elsewhere. And while you could argue they should've added 32MB chips in the first place, nobody could've predicted how AMD would develop its product stack to the point where 16MB simply wasn't enough. Besides that, maybe 16MB was more than plenty back in 2017 when the expectation was supporting maybe up to 40-50 processors. But not the amount that technically compatible with AM4. A socket supporting 4 generations (technically 5 if you consider Bristol Bridge) of CPUs is unprecedented.

Either way, hindsight is 20/20.
 

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i upgraded from the r5 1400 to r7 2700 about 2 months ago. the 2700 is happy on my b350m with bios 4.30.

i wanted more cores for multitasking, video editing, streaming, and eventually flightsim, but more ipcs and better single threading is still desireable.

i would like to go to ryzen 5000 series but that would involve tearing down a work station thats on a b450m and tearing down my daily driver (b350m + ryzen 7) and swapping their mobos. sounds like way too much work tbh.

maybe mid-way thru next year theyll open some b350 support, til then the r7 2700 will have to do :(
 
B350 isn't going to ever support Ryzen 5000 series. Your B450m however, IS going to, come January.

No need to "tear down your work station" really. All you'd need to do is update to the latest BIOS when it becomes available, remove the CPU cooler, remove the CPU, install the new CPU, clean the thermal paste off the CPU cooler ASSUMING that it's a capable enough model to handle the new CPU (Or a new cooler if not), add fresh paste, install the cooler, done.
 

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B350 isn't going to ever support Ryzen 5000 series. Your B450m however, IS going to, come January.

No need to "tear down your work station" really. All you'd need to do is update to the latest BIOS when it becomes available, remove the CPU cooler, remove the CPU, install the new CPU, clean the thermal paste off the CPU cooler ASSUMING that it's a capable enough model to handle the new CPU (Or a new cooler if not), add fresh paste, install the cooler, done.

well the work station is used by multiple people so that would demand a big project.

anyway, ironically, my b350m is on lofe support. i put 3800mhz ram in it. ot was fine at first, after about 40 minutes of gaming she started crashing.

so i shut down, slotted the old RAM backin. it will no longer achieve xmp 2933 setting, it doesnt recognize dual channel anyway (it sees both sticks in slot 2&4 but is claiming 16gb single channel as of they were slots 1 and 3. (instead of 2x8 dualchannel). even wi thout the xmp setting (2166 default) i get a triple reboot everytime i boot/reboot. rather sad, but i guess im on the market for a b550 now
 
i upgraded from the r5 1400 to r7 2700 about 2 months ago. the 2700 is happy on my b350m with bios 4.30.

i wanted more cores for multitasking, video editing, streaming, and eventually flightsim, but more ipcs and better single threading is still desireable.

i would like to go to ryzen 5000 series but that would involve tearing down a work station thats on a b450m and tearing down my daily driver (b350m + ryzen 7) and swapping their mobos. sounds like way too much work tbh.

maybe mid-way thru next year theyll open some b350 support, til then the r7 2700 will have to do :(

More cores does NOT help MS Flight Sim 2020. It's DX11 which only does single threaded rendering. (not that is can't run background threads for scenery pulling from the cloud, or dynamic weather generation) Test show it is CPU limited, not GPU limited. So a faster cores are better, not more.
 
i guess im on the market for a b550 now
So you're going to replace the CPU as well, right? Because that Ryzen 5 1400 isn't going to be compatible with any B550 motherboard. ONLY 3rd Gen Ryzen 3000 and newer CPUs are supported on B550, and the Ryzen 3000 series APUs with graphics, which are actually 2nd Gen architecture, like the 3200G and 3400G, are not compatible either. You will need a B450 or X470 board if you want something newer than the chipset you have that will still support that Ryzen 1400. Cannot be done with B550. The R7 2700 isn't supported either.
 
It's decent. The B450 Tomahawk or Tomahawk max is the very best bang for the buck B450 board though. But the Steel legend is really decent for an budget board. I have no qualms with ASRock's product support either. I like their BIOS setup as well on most boards, but it might be a little bit "skinny" on some of their budget models.

These are the two budget boards I'd look at. While I'm really not a fan of MSI, they knocked it out of the part on these two boards if you factor in the quality and capability of the VRMs they included, at the price they sell it for.

PCPartPicker Part List

Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard ($126.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $126.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-10-20 21:02 EDT-0400


PCPartPicker Part List

Motherboard: MSI B450 Gaming Plus MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard ($109.99 @ B&H)
Total: $109.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-10-20 21:03 EDT-0400


But again, the Steel legend is ok too, not AS good, but decent, if you prefer ASRock.
 
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like technically speaking, why doesnt it work?


also, would my ryzen 5 1400 work with a b550 board?
I don't know that AMD has ever said there was a technical incompatibility with the chipset per se. I think their only concern was with BIOS compatibility and the growing problems of coding AGESA. After all, in addition to having sufficient room (in BIOS) to support all the CPU and APU configurations that have been on AM4 all the way from the 300 to the 500 series chipsets there's also the little problem of coding and regression testing each AGESA release for all those possible combinations too.

It's not likely anyone outside of AMD could say with any certainty but I'd believe it possible to make an AGESA and BIOS that would support your Ryzen 1400 on a b550. They just don't want to do it, it's that simple.

FWIW: B550 was supposedly not going to work with Ryzen 2000 CPU's but there are plenty of reports of people using them with their boards. So they may work for now but they're not supported. Meaning they may not work right or in the future.
 
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Desch_

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It's decent. The B450 Tomahawk or Tomahawk max is the very best bang for the buck B450 board though. But the Steel legend is really decent for an budget board. I have no qualms with ASRock's product support either. I like their BIOS setup as well on most boards, but it might be a little bit "skinny" on some of their budget models.

These are the two budget boards I'd look at. While I'm really not a fan of MSI, they knocked it out of the part on these two boards if you factor in the quality and capability of the VRMs they included, at the price they sell it for.

PCPartPicker Part List

Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard ($126.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $126.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-10-20 21:02 EDT-0400


PCPartPicker Part List

Motherboard: MSI B450 Gaming Plus MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard ($109.99 @ B&H)
Total: $109.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-10-20 21:03 EDT-0400


But again, the Steel legend is ok too, not AS good, but decent, if you prefer ASRock.


I need microATX or ITX

Im getting b550m Pro 4 by ASRock. I feel like the steel Legend is 35$ more just for LEDs. I perfer the chipset heatsink being separate from the m.2 heat sink too so theres no overspill of heat from my ssd into the chipset.

also returning the OLOy 3800 kit for this kit of memory.
https://www.newegg.com/g-skill-16gb-288-pin-ddr4-sdram/p/N82E16820232467?Item=N82E16820232467

also found a super cheap Ryzen 3 3100...cuz i couldnt find 3300x anywhere for "placeholder" price.

Will eventually go to Ryzen 5000 chip, idk which yet.
 
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Im getting b550m Pro 4 by ASRock. I feel like the steel Legend is 35$ more just for LEDs.
...
Actually...a B550 Steel Legend has a much better VRM than the Pro 4. It has 8 (or 12 for the ATX) phases of highly efficient DRMos power stages while the Pro 4 uses an outmoded design with 6 phases of discrete FET's. For a 3100/3300 CPU it won't matter much at all, of course, but if you've plans for the future you'll be limited by the VRM on the B550m Pro 4.
 

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Actually...a B550 Steel Legend has a much better VRM than the Pro 4. It has 8 (or 12 for the ATX) phases of highly efficient DRMos power stages while the Pro 4 uses an outmoded design with 6 phases of discrete FET's. For a 3100/3300 CPU it won't matter much at all, of course, but if you've plans for the future you'll be limited by the VRM on the B550m Pro 4.

thanks for this. i figured a b350m pro 4 was so good to me the last 3 years that a b550m pro 4 should be sufficient for another 3 atleast.

do those power phases affect RAM frequency when OCing memory or is that mostly a CPU overclock concern ?
 
thanks for this. i figured a b350m pro 4 was so good to me the last 3 years that a b550m pro 4 should be sufficient for another 3 atleast.

do those power phases affect RAM frequency when OCing memory or is that mostly a CPU overclock concern ?
I think it can affect RAM overclock as kind of a 'knock-on' effect, but not directly as the DIMM's have their own VRM's.

As the VCore VRM gets hot it doesn't hold stable voltages, with greater undershoot as loads drop off. So now you have to raise it more than should be necessary to keep a CPU stable. The higher voltage makes the entire CPU hotter. Remember that the memory controller is in the CPU so if it too gets hotter along with the rest of the CPU it can get less stable at high memory clocks.

And I'm not saying a 550m pro 4 won't be good for 3 years, especially a 3100 or 3300 processor. But we have no idea what the power draw of ryzen 5000 (assuming one is in your future plans) is going to be right now. Let's say it will be 'as efficient as' ryzen 3000...mainly because people have said so. Efficiency, simply, is how much work you get for the power it draws so ryzen 5000 could easily draw 19% more power because its greater IPC makes it do 19% more work... and it would not make those people liars because efficiency remains unchanged.

I know it's doubtless oversimplifying things, but if anywhere close to right it helps explain why almost all the B550 board lineup has so very much greater VRM capability than the B450 boards that preceded them.
 
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Desch_

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I think it can affect RAM overclock as kind of a 'knock-on' effect, but not directly as the DIMM's have their own VRM's.

As the VCore VRM gets hot it doesn't hold stable voltages, with greater undershoot as loads drop off. So now you have to raise it more than should be necessary to keep a CPU stable. The higher voltage makes the entire CPU hotter. Remember that the memory controller is in the CPU so if it too gets hotter along with the rest of the CPU it can get less stable at high memory clocks.

And I'm not saying a 550m pro 4 won't be good for 3 years, especially a 3100 or 3300 processor. But we have no idea what the power draw of ryzen 5000 (assuming one is in your future plans) is going to be right now. Let's say it will be 'as efficient as' ryzen 3000...mainly because people have said so. Efficiency, simply, is how much work you get for the power it draws so ryzen 5000 could easily draw 19% more power because its greater IPC makes it do 19% more work... and it would not make those people liars because efficiency remains unchanged.

I know it's doubtless oversimplifying things, but if anywhere close to right it helps explain why almost all the B550 board lineup has so very much greater VRM capability than the B450 boards that preceded them.


this is well worded. i wonder why newegg spec page doesnt go into more depth about VRMs. i fell down a little rabbit hole of reading about the different types and how "more" isnt always better or how there are some that have 4 with doublers and are fakely advertised as 8. all a little confusing tbh.
 

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More cores does NOT help MS Flight Sim 2020. It's DX11 which only does single threaded rendering. (not that is can't run background threads for scenery pulling from the cloud, or dynamic weather generation) Test show it is CPU limited, not GPU limited. So a faster cores are better, not more.


so will a 4 core 3100 do better on msfs than an 8 core 2700 cuz better single threading?

also, 32gb of slightly slower ram or 16gb of slightly faster for msfs2020? thoughts?

2x8 4000mhz cl18
vs
2x16 3600 cl18 is the numbers in question
 

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Unless you plan on keeping that ram for the upcoming 5k series amd cpu swap, and hoping that the cap on the ram ratios is changed, I'd go with the 3600MHz. After 3733MHz, the ratios are changed from 1:1 to 2:1, which effectively puts the brakes on the mclock/uclock speeds. Unless you are somewhat adept at ram & Infinity fabric settings manipulation.
 
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