Source
r/buildapc•
FG_Regulus

What's the Deal with Zen 2 Motherboards?

I'm currently running an i5 4690 on an old LGA 1151 board and unfortunately it just went kaput.

As a replacement I really wanted to go with AMD and nab a 3600. But when I went to get a motherboard I realized it's kind of batcrap crazy. The X570s are too rich for my blood. But nothing else seems to actually ship with Zen 2 support. "You can flash it" - I don't have a Zen 1 and I see a bunch of complaints online from people doing the USB flashes on MSI boards. Consider me spooked. "Then get it from a store" - My local store will charges about $100 more for a motherboard compared to online. For that price I'd just get a X570.

Is there seriously no sane way to just buy a $100-120 motherboard for this chip that just...works? I would have figured this process would have gotten easier as time went on, why is this so complicated? Moreover, why did AMD release a line big on "power for a budget" and then require motherboards that cost more than the chip?

Posted Aug 14, 2019, 1:20 AM UTC

16
MegaBassFalzar•

B550, the Ryzen 3000 version of B450, isn't out yet but it should be coming by December. MSI is also releasing the MAX line, which is B450 but with much more BIOS storage and ready off the shelf. MAX is already available in Europe and should ship to retailers in the US in the coming weeks

Edit: to add, you can get any B450 board and request a free bootkit from AMD. They'll send you a garbage Athlon that will work for updating BIOS, then you just send it back with the included return envelope. Even comes with thermal paste

6
melete•

Yeah, a B450 Tomahawk Max would be ideal but we're still waiting on them here in the States unfortunately.

4
melete•

AMD will send you a boot kit.

https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/faq/pa-100#faq-Short-Term-Processor-Loan-Boot-Kit

If you went that route you can get something cheap like an Asrock B450 Pro4 and wait for the boot kit to arrive.

3
GoingForwardIn2018•

I think you're off-base here, x570 is the top of the line chipset for the new generation of processors, so the cheapest boards being $170+ isn't really an issue. The chips were also released what, like 3 weeks ago now?

Complaining about the lengths AMD and their parents have gone to keep AMD's older/other chipsets working with their new chips is definitely out of line, you're not gonna get anywhere near that love from Intel.

2
Nayeonly•

Then get the cheapest available x570 should be fine.

From my perspective, I don't think you want to blame AMD for the motherboard pricing, if you want to blame, blame the motherboards manufacturer for riding the hype and milk the cash from AMD Ryzen hype. Also, it's the only boards with PCIe 4.0 support so they can milk it more from that premium too lol. There are really expensive x570 boards so that they can drive 12 cores or upcoming 16 cores chips and oc them just fine with overkill VRMs (though oc is questionable). For 6 cores, the cheapest available is enough for it.

1
ConcreteSnake•

I’ve heard reports of people buying b450 boards from places like amazon and Newegg that already have updated bios for Zen 2. Because of the backwards compatibility of the current Ryzen AM4 platform manufacturers are going to continue making b450 boards and it just takes time to sell through old stock to get to the point where all new b450s have the new bios. My B450 Airbus M that I bought on Judy 7th had the bios before the one for Ryzen 3000 support, so we are not that far off. As another user posted you can get a boot kit from AMD for free and it takes roughly 2 days to get, update your shiz, send that bad boy back.

1