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MSI has launched AMD 400 and 300 series 'Max' motherboards

by Mark Tyson on 19 July 2019, 12:11

Tags: AMD (NYSE:AMD), MSI, ASUSTeK (TPE:2357)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qaebyr

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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.



HEXUS Forums :: 13 Comments

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32GB EPROMs ? So much bloat, these days. ;)
Someone said in one of the topics, AMD should dictate the size of the BIOS chips to the mobo vendors and I think that's a great ideas.
Tabbykatze
Someone said in one of the topics, AMD should dictate the size of the BIOS chips to the mobo vendors and I think that's a great ideas.

There actually were guidelines from AMD.
The problem is the race to the bottom for budget meant corners were cut, and that was often one of them.
Good business sense IMO.

The current boards have been useful for those on the 2000 series, even good enough for a 3000 chip for those who wanted to upgrade. People with the original boards can still use the 3000 chips, it's not like these are new boards that everyone needs to run them.

The max boards will be the choice for people new into the market not looking to fork out on an x570.

Yeah, I can't find myself getting upset about this in the slightest.
ByteMyAscii
There actually were guidelines from AMD.
The problem is the race to the bottom for budget meant corners were cut, and that was often one of them.

Yup - in many ways it happened. Now that the chips are better bang for buck this might change a bit, the X570's are expensive because they are fully featured boards