MSI streamed its weekly Insider episode yesterday evening. You can see a recording of the whole show (2hr 45mins), hosted by Marketing Director Eric van Beurden, embedded below. MSI B550 motherboards were the theme of the show. However, importantly for existing MSI customers with AMD 400-series motherboards, forward compatibility was made very clear.
In the video above the key compatibility chart is shared by the presenters, and discussed, from 23 mins 15 sec in. I've took a screenshot of this chart, which you can see below (click to zoom image).
About 10 days ago AMD officially yielded to public pressure and "decided to change course" with Zen 3 B450/X470 support. That was a given fact in the background of the MSI video. Nevertheless it is still reassuring to see companies like MSI embrace the directive. Existing customers will likely be pleased with the willingness of MSI to pre-announce its intentions in this matter, rather than it being quiet (or even reluctant) on how it will implement Zen 3 support on existing AMD 400-series motherboards.
The details are quite straight forward. Owners of MSI's AMD B450 and X470 boards will get support for future AM4 processors based upon the Zen 3 architecture. As per AMD's explaning of possibilities, older boards with limited EEPROM capacity will have cut down BIOS features and support for older processor families removed - to make room for new SKUs - via a 'Selective Beta BIOS'.
Owners of MSI's MAX suffixed (32MB BIOS) motherboards will be more comfortable with an update which is likely to retain compatibility with most, if not all, older AM4 processor models that were originally supported by the platform. Furthermore, the MAX boards should easily retain their feature-rich UEFI setup options.
Hopefully other motherboard makers will follow suit with confirmations of BIOS updates providing AMD 400-series Zen3 support.
