MSI's AMD 'Max' motherboards
If you have been mulling over a purchase of a new 3rd gen AMD Ryzen processor to install on your previous gen motherboard you might have come across various blogs, news, and forum pieces concerning BIOS support. As some older motherboards have a BIOS EPROM that is too small for adding support for new processors and features, vendors have been stripping out support for older CPUs to make room.
Now news comes to light, via Guru3D, that MSI is issuing revamped designs of still popular previous gen motherboards with 32MB EPROMs. These motherboards will be suffixed with the word 'Max' to indicate this particular enhancement.
Thus the following motherboards will become available to those still interested in snapping up a 300- or 400-Series AMD chipset for their PC build:
- A-320M-A Pro Max
- B450M-A Pro Max
- B450M Pro-M2 Max
- B450M Pro VDH Max
- B450-A Pro Max
- B450M Mortar Max
- B450 Tomahawk Max
- B450 Gaming Plus Max
- X470 Gaming Plus Max
- X470 Gaming Pro Max
On a similar AMD BIOS processor compatibility related topic, a few days back, HEXUS reported on AMD's free boot kit offer for struggling Ryzen 3000 owners.
Asus motherboard users complain about buggy AGESA ComboAM4 1.0.0.3ABA
In another motherboard-based story today, TechPowerUp reports that Asus has pulled the latest version of AGESA microcode that enables 3rd generation Ryzen support on its AMD 400-series chipset motherboards - AGESA ComboAM4 1.0.0.3ABA. Please note that this isn't the same as the more widely distributed 1.0.0.3AB version.
The 'ABA' issue is commonly manifested as system instability. Peter 'Shamino' Tan from Asus commented that his company was under time pressure and didn't properly validate 1.0.0.3ABA. Tan added that the root cause of the observed issues was "that PCIE speed of BXB-C downgraded from gen4 to gen2". confusingly, some other motherboard vendors don't provide the full version string for their AGESA updates so its hard to be certain what is available, or has been delivered/applied.
