AMD Pulls PCIe 4.0 Support on all non-X570 motherboards

That is not correct on the Asus TUF x470-Plus Gaming mobo PCIe4.0 was only enabled for the 1st NVMe slot not the PCIe x16 slot

 

I could understand if it were solely a technical limitation - it's moreso X570 platform adaption/saturation. Pulling "features" that weren't native to the non-X570 platforms to begin with won't move people away from them. Better for AMD to focus on improving the X570 platform and invest in why people aren't adapting to it & resolve that issue instead. The people that buy these products aren't ... how do you say ... "uninformed" ? At least I hope not...

 

Don't know why people would be complaining PCIe 4.0 was removed from older boards while saying there're no real performance gains and AMD never stated they would support it in the first place. I really don't think limiting PCIe 4.0 to X570 was a way to sell the new board; at least that's not why I bought it. I only decided to get a X570 board because I was doing a complete new build coming from a 4770K and wanted to ensure the best compatibility and minimal fuss from the get go. I would still have gotten the X570 board even if it only had PCIe 3.0. I honestly can't see how PCIe 4.0 was an incentive for anyone with a current working board to spend more money. Imagine the amount of flak AMD will cop if PCIe 4.0 ended up being unstable and causing issues in older boards. Just because something will run doesn't necessarily mean it will run well.

But of course what seems like common sense for the most of us doesn't suit the agenda of Intel shills.

 

Made me think of X79 / SB-E / PCIE Gen3

 

They should let users to use it if THEY really want. Whoever cry if they lost data or something, than its clearly THEIR fault, not AMDs... I don't care if they put a big WARNING or whatever, this is a pretty dicky move. Yes, they said "NO" for X470, but still if OEMs decided to "maybe" implement it they shouldn't have the "right" to say "hey, no, if they want, let them buy our x570"

 

AMD will not lock the feature. Well F that, they locked it anyway.

 

Seriously, the last paragraph from that article quoted above just states wait and see. Even earlier:

Unsubstantiated AMD representatives and a could be limited statement at the end...click bate. Appears the loss of support on older platforms remained accurate.

 

you have official actual bios that support it ( at least Asrock and Asus on most motherboard and MSI on only some ).

 

You mix things. AGESA must support it, which itself is only a module within your BIOS, but crucial for the function of the system. Like a sub-system in BIOS which is able to "command and control" (pun intended!) the AMD hardware, just like Intel ME does for Intel hardware (not 100%, but to give you an idea about the function).

You may mod your BIOS and even flash it in an unsigned state by some "force" switch or BIOS flashback. But the AGESA itself (AFAIK, correct me if I am wrong) is signed and authenticity is checked at boot. I don't know how your system will behave if the certificate chain is broken, but usually it should "stop working" (unsigned code isn't allowed to run; could be malware), and so your board.
But you COULD (in theory, not tested!) extract the last AGESA in which PCIe 4.0 support is given as a file to your disk and add it to the newest BIOS which is available for your board, after you removed the AGESA included in the new BIOS file.

So if BIOS v1100 still has PCIe support, but v1101+ doesn't:
DL v1100 BIOS
Flash BIOS v1100 to get the latest AGESA which still has PCIe 4.0 support
Extract this AGESA firmware with BIOS v1100 modification tool.

>>recurring part:
DL newest BIOS
Remove AGESA from newest BIOS
Add "old" AGESA to newest BIOS
Flash newest BIOS

But you would have to do it EVERY and EVERY time a new BIOS is released AND you risk bricking your board by different things: If for example there is an internal update routine by the newest BIOS to update AGESA and do some checks, you are f*** because the check will fail (old AGESA is NOT new AGESA), or it could be a newer BIOS depends on the function / output / whatever of the newest AGESA, which your "old" AGESA can't provide.

So I think this is too experimental / risky to try it out, at least before information is disclosed about how AGESA works and what accesses AGESA when and how or about what AGESA itself accesses or does exactly.
OR you need a hardware flasher and much experience in general, then go ahead.

 

I am not mixing everything: if you have a board that have enabled this and that you need it... you don't need to get the new one without PCIe 4.0.
simple as this.

I know that moding can be fun but sometime it's lot of work for almost nothing (btw you forget the size of your bios in your theory).
Personaly i will not upgrade to next bios as ,as stated before the flash, "once upgraded you cannot go back to previous bios" .
I will see if it work and if it doesn't work well... i will not care and update to the new bios, the B450 do the work quite good for the price i have paid it (69 Euro).

 

Doesn't matter what they said. BIOS's were put out that enable it.
The difference is it makes an X470 motherboard a more future compliant board and if you already have it that is a benefit. Not sure why I have to explain the value of that. I guess that is what happens when people get so used to Intel dropping a new chipset annually. Definitely not zero difference for SSD. The newest PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives perform better and they have only barely tipped into PCIe 4.0 bandwidth at this point. There are drives on the way that are really going to show the value of PCIe 4.0 to NVMe drives.

Ultimately, I really don't understand why I have to explain that it is bullshit to get a feature on a motherboard and then have it removed. This really only frustrates the launch of the Ryzen 3000 processors. X570 boards are bullshit too costing a whole bunch of money and 99.9% have stupid chipset cooling fans that we all thought were gone for good at this point. Hell, some of the younger kids probably never seen a chipset fan lol.

 

Obviously it wasn't a hard "no don't do that". Asus did it too and I believe some other brands. AMD needs to get better hold of their platform and stop crap like that from happening. PCIe is working flawlessly on a lot of X470 boards. Sounds like to me AMD wants people to buy boards which I get totally. I am pretty sure X570 is made by AMD this time around too unlike X470 and back. It's bullshit to get something and then have it revoked.

 

It's better that you don't talk about what you don't know. This is the difference between first hand experience and I read an article... I have an X470 Asus Hero motherboard that currently has PCIe 4.0 enabled as per BIOS Asus released. It is not just the 16x slot it also includes 1, 4x m.2 as well. Maybe take your arrogant self back to that article you read where it said some could be limited to just the 16x slot closest to the CPU. It's board dependent.

My issue is not with X470 and back sticking to 3.0 it is the issue that BIOS's have already been released to support 4.0 on these older boards and now that is being taken away. When does it ever feel good to get something and then just have it taken back for whatever reason? Why are you defending that? If this happened to something that that mattered more to you, you'd likely whistle a different tune.

You sure can call my so called bitching bullshit... What's your point?

 

Yes, I am running a Corsair PCIe 4.0 SSD on my Asus X470 Hero with no issues. Just because you are hearing that there could be problems doesn't mean that there even would be. Way to drink the AMD Koolaid. If a motherboard company is confident that their board can handle PCIe 4.0 how they want to support it, why should they not be able to? They would be the ones taking on the extra tech support calls when it doesn't work. Who the hell is calling AMD when their Gigabyte motherboard is having issues with their GPU or SSD? Ever think about that? If a motherboard manufacturer can determine all the other components and standards on their boards they can surely figure out if their board meets signal requirements for PCIe 4.0, it's really not rocket science when the standard is in place.

I am almost certain that AMD makes their chipsets for X570 this time around and would love to see boards sold. Without PCIe X570 really doesn't have much over X470. Better PBO but that's marginal. Point is they want to move products and X570 needs to be different enough.

If AMD really didn't want board partners to offer PCIe 4.0 they should have shut it down I will say it again. Maybe there should be a lawsuit then if AMD truly said no. My guess is it apparently wasn't in writing or there board manufacturers probably wouldn't have done it.

Data is always at risk of potentially being corrupt. No one is saying they want increased risk of corruption. If a motherboard manufacturer can support it then what is the big deal. It would be one thing if they were failing at much higher rates. The fact is there are many board out there that support the tech because they exceeded PCIe 3.0 standards. The boards that can support it should continue to it's that simple. Seems like some people are just so used to buying a new motherboard all the time they want to justify it someone.

This argument is just like saying Z270 couldn't run coffee lake CPUs because it wasn't up to the job when in reality it was just Intel changing a pin or so to push more motherboards. This is business, not a real worry of data loss and component failures.

 

Not sure why many of you are saying people would blame AMD. If your GPU or m.2 wasn't working with your motherboard you wouldn't call AMD you'd call the motherboard manufacturer if the m.2 and GPU were known good. This is obvious I feel.

Your analogy is pretty ridiculous though lol. I didn't find a wallet... I installed an official BIOS from the manufacturers website. It was put out there for me to have. That's more like someone giving me money and then asking for it back but they shouldn't have given it to me. You don't do that it is bullshit.

What are you talking about with expectations and all? I should have expected to have PCIe 4.0 on my motherboard when the BIOS was put out for me to have? WTH?

The problem is we have working examples that PCIe 4.0 works on older motherboards. Now not only do we know that PCIe 4.0 is working on these older boards, we know this because we have been supplied the ability to enable it. Now this is going to be taken away. You don't see the problem with this. If PCIe 4.0 never came to X470 and back it wouldn't be a big deal but it did and now it is being taken away. That's hugely different from not allowing it in the first place. And with knowing that many of the boards are functional with the standard it shows that AMD is after the cash which is understandable to some extent of course.

 

That's not how it happens though.

People now go online and post crap about their AMD board that doesn't function properly, has errors, and is just unstable.
If no one tells the tech Support people that you're running an "unofficially" supported BIOS, how are they supposed to diagnose the problem ?

It was stated in the beginning that PCIe 4.0 would only be available on the new X570 chipsets.
Board partners decided by themselves to activate PCIe 4 on previous chipsets.
i'm not sure if the board vendors actually tested the PCIe 4 functionality or stability, they may have, some may have not (not all boards anyway).

So, AMD has full right to come in and say "OK, thats it. No PCIe 4 on anything other than X570 and newer.", and to do so with a BIOS/Microcode update.

I'd have liked to have kept PCIe 4 functionality on my B450M, but seriously, i'm not going to be needing it just yet.

If you really need PCIe 4, then you should have an x570, to be sure of the stability of the platform and the drivers.

Thats it.
If you are really annoyed at someone about this, then bitch to Asus Tech Support, that you got the board specifically with the PCie 4 compatibility in mind, as it was advertised. See what they say.
(Probably something along the lines it was a "Use at your own risk" or "Your experience may vary" type of functionality).
They could honour their mistake, and upgrade you to X570. never know.

 

Sorry but just because you arnt having issues or are not seeing that you are having issues doesn't mean squat.

 

It's backwards compatible... You'll still get 4.0 speeds lol. This is like saying every computer component is DOA because in two years something faster will be out.

 

You gravely underestimate the average person's level of stupidity and excessive finger-pointing.
If anyone is angry enough at AMD for taking away a feature they explicitly said they weren't going to support, they're going to be angry enough to whine about AMD when a feature their hardware supports isn't working. I've seen people bitch about either Intel or AMD because they installed their CPU heatsink wrong, where the CPU started to thermal throttle. There are people who rate products poorly because the package was delivered late. There are people who rate a product poorly because it was "DOA" (in most cases, there's no such thing - most hardware is QC tested before it is packaged).
If you seriously think AMD won't get blamed if/when people lose data because of these motherboard hacks, then you clearly haven't encountered enough angry customers.

It seems you don't understand the point of analogies...
The BIOS was never meant for you to have. The mobo manufacturers did something they weren't supposed to do. Just because you have access to it, doesn't mean it was ever intended to be in your hands. That's why I brought up the wallet - if you found someone else's wallet, that doesn't give you the right to keep the contents. For argument's sake, you could say someone pickpocketed the wallet's owner and just left the wallet on the ground in plain sight for you to see (which is basically what the mobo manufacturers did).
Remember, the mobo manufacturers modified AMD's code.

For the last time:
No, you shouldn't have.
AMD explicitly stated they were not going to support PCIe 4.0 on older chipsets. You had no reason to expect it when you bought the board, you had no reason to expect it when Zen2 was announced, and you have no reason to expect it after Zen2 was released.

No, we have theoretically working examples. There's not enough evidence to suggest [all of] those older boards can reliably give you a stable PCIe 4.0 experience. How are you not understanding that this is exactly the reason why it was taken away?
Like I said before, AMD isn't the one who created the specification for PCIe 4.0. But, the spec is picky, and those older boards basically aren't certified for it. That doesn't mean it won't work, but they can't guarantee reliability.

Are you serious? It wasn't supposed to come to X470. That's the whole point! It's as though you think AMD just simply permitted their AGESA code to be modified.

 

The amazing thing about this is how often someone believes a product is DOA, goes to a store to return it, blames that store, and when the store says they can replace it, they state "No! I don't trust your store, quality here is bad, i'll go buy the exact thing at your competitor, as they at least have quality!"........... At one point i worked at officemax and how often this was stated and people "stormed off" to staples for their supposedly superior exactly the same product from staples was astonishing.