Ryzen 5000 on X370 motherboards

AMD revealed earlier this year that it wanted to open older chipsets like the X370 for Zen 3 processors aka Ryzen 5000. As Reddit posts show, Asus and Gigabyte are rather closed, but at least indicate that they are open to the topic. Both are apparently waiting for AMD to provide the appropriate microcode.

When AMD announced in early January that it wanted to open 300-series I/O hubs for Zen 3 processors, quite a few users hoped for an inexpensive upgrade to a Ryzen 5000 CPU. While Asrock has already launched an update for the X370 Pro 4 at the expense of Bristol Ridge support, Asus and Gigabyte are still keeping a low profile. However, user requests published on Reddit also raise hope. Apparently, both motherboard vendors make support dependent on appropriate microcode.

The user "SovietMacguyver" reports that his request was initially rejected. 

"Due to the age and design of the X370 chipset on the Asus motherboard, there is no future support for new BIOS versions for the AMD Ryzen 5000 series CPUs on Asus' X370 chipset motherboards." 

However, when the user confronted Asus support with AMD's statement, the latter backtracked. 

"Until AMD officially supports the chipset with new versions of microcode, we would not be able to provide firmware updates for that specific chipset. For other chipsets, some features do not depend on microcode for other controllers and can therefore be enabled even without AMD support. "

Users now interpret this statement in such a way that Asus is quite open to the topic. Ultimately, only official support from AMD is missing - and they had only promised a solution in the past few months. Ryzen 5000 on X370 motherboards: Even gigabytes remain vague

In the same comment thread, Reddit user "axaro1" reports on his experiences with Gigabyte. Here the support informed the user that AMD released the new "AGESA Combo V2 1205" for A320, B350, and X370 mainboards for Renoir (Ryzen 4000G series), but without support for Vermeer aka Ryzen 5000. "We are investigating the issue and will get back to you as soon as we have a better understanding of the issue." With a little goodwill, a fundamental openness can also be read from this. It would be conceivable that Gigabyte is just waiting for the green light from AMD.

In other news, the Intel boss strikes back. In a video that has largely gone unnoticed so far, he sees AMD as defeated thanks to Alder Lake. And Intel shouldn’t give up the lead at all if it’s up to him.