AMD B450 and X470 to support Zen3 and Ryzen 4000 CPUs

In a rather surprising but welcome reveal, AMD has announced that it intends to secure support for the Zen3 and Ryzen 4000 series CPUs on B450 and X470 motherboards.

While the 4000 series aren't publicly revealed yet, and most likely wont be until the autumn, AMD has said that it will make sure that you don't have to buy a new motherboard, although they are honest enough to state that exactly how this will happen is currently unknown, even to them.

While the B550 chipset and accompanying motherboards will be available in stores next month, the B450/X470 was not to be found on the compatibility charts. This didn't go down well with AMD originally having promised that the AM4 socket motherboards would support chipsets from 2016 onwards, with some feeling cheated as they had the impression that all CPUs released during the last four years would be supported, no matter what.

The main issue is surprisingly not the socket. Rather the storage size of the 16 MB BIOS means that any new Ryzen 4000 CPUs that can address and use, say, 32 MB BIOS, would have to use two separate ones, or see them as split - somehow. And while it's not a problem for the early AM4 CPUs that had this very limitation, it will be a problem going forward, especially as the BIOS will have to support a vast number of APU and CPU models, making storage a real problem - which is why AMD's 5 series motherboard chips were made. AMD said in a press release:

"We've heard our audience, and we understand the concerns. We are going to work out a way to support Zen 3 on our 400-series chipsets between now and launch - we're still working out the what and the how, but we will update you closer to Zen 3 launch"

Two BIOS? Mandatory platform-specific BIOS updates? Who knows what the future holds. But credit to AMD for appearing to follow through on an old promise.