AMD Ryzen 3000 support being rolled out to compatible motherboards

The next generation AMD Zen 2 Ryzen 3000 CPUs are all set to be available in June and motherboard OEMs seem to be gearing up for the launch by releasing BIOS support for the new CPUs for the current crop of socket AM4 boards. AMD already said that Socket AM4 will be supported at least till 2020 implying that you can upgrade to the latest CPU release while still hanging on to an earlier motherboard model.

MSI, Asus, and BioStar have started rolling out updates for their current X470, B450, and X370 motherboards. Interestingly, B350 boards are not in the queue for Ryzen 3000 support; at least, not all of them. The AMD Generic Encapsulated Software Architecture (AGESA ) v0.0.7.x is expected to support Zen 2 and from what we know so far, BioStar and MSI are offering AGESA v0.0.7.2 while Asus is using the older AGESA v0.0.7.0 BIOS. TechPowerUp reports that the 0.0.7.x version is for testing of Zen 2 engineering samples and we might see an AGESA v1.0.0.0 closer to official launch.

There is some speculation in the media that some B350 boards will not be getting support for Ryzen 3000 due to BIOS size limitations. AMD or motherboard OEMs are yet to confirm this so consider it a rumor for now. Also, we don't find any reason why existing BIOSs will not be able to accommodate an update that essentially just helps the motherboard to recognize the CPU. After all, modders were successful in getting to run Coffee Lake on Z100/200 series motherboards even though Intel said that it isn't supporting the older platform due to power constraints.

As we get closer to the Zen 2 launch, more motherboard OEMs can be expected to offer BIOS support for Ryzen 3000. We'll keep you posted on related developments so watch this space.