Gadgetory

welcome back to harbor unboxed today we have a different sort of video but it's what I've been wanting to make for a little while now in fact it's an itch I've been wanting to scratch ever since AMD released their Raven Ridge apu series this is also something many of you have been asking me to grill AMD over for the past few months but I'm going to go about it a bit of a different way okay so some backstory here first AMD released their rise in CPU series on the new AM for platform back in March 2017 and over the course of the released over a dozen new cpus are using the am for socket for this first generation of horizon cpus we've got the a320 be 350 and X 370 chipsets in the very same year being 2017 Intel released two new mainstream desktop processor series first we got the seventh generation Core Series codenamed KB Lake and with it we got 15 use standard power desktop parts prices ranged from $40 us all up to 340 dollars u.s. then less than nine months later Intel released their eighth generation Core Series codenamed coffee Lake and we now had 14 new standard power desktop parts this time priced between $40 us and $360 u.s. why do I bring this up well because these cpu series despite using the exact same LGA 1151 socket aren't in any way compatible although Intel could have opened up compatibility they've deliberately blocked it and this means those wanting to move from say a core i5 7600 K to the core i7 8700 K will have to dump their motherboard in favor of a new 300 series board as it currently stands Intel's been continuing compatibility for two generations and two generations only for example Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge to the 2nd and 3rd generation Core Series are compatible then the fourth and fifth generations codename has well and Broadwell compatible and the sixth and seventh generations codenamed skylake and KB Lake are compatible this issue has been somewhat lessened by the fact that Intel's offered little to no improvement from one generation to the next so it wasn't until the sixth and seventh generations came along that those with second and third generation parts started to feel like they needed to upgrade an issue faced when continuing support by carrying over compatibility to a new generation is supporting those new CPUs on previous generation motherboards for example if you purchased a 6th generation Core i3 6100 in late 2015 but in early 2017 decides that you want to upgrade and a seventh generation Core i5 76 Henrique looks like what you're after you'd first need to ensure that your motherboard was up to date before installing the new CPU installing a new CPU without the required bias wouldn't see the system fail to post otherwise known as power on self test this is because the motherboard doesn't recognize the installed CPU motherboard makers are generally very fast to add support and often the required bias is available for download ahead of the actual CPU release so it's not really a big deal however if your board is n170 motherboard which was designed for the 6th gen core series and you bought that with a seventh gen processor it might not work out of the box and that leaves the consumer in a bit of a pickle helping to avoid this scenario Intel has always released a slew of new chipset so it's unlikely anyone would purchase a previous generation motherboard with a new CPU but it does still happen from time to time people who run into this issue will need to take their new hardware to a local pcs store and hopefully they can update the board otherwise you would need to send it back to the retailer and have them do it for you until does always go one step further to minimize this issue by eliminating compatibility entirely and starting afresh every second generation this simplifies things for Intel it makes them considerably more money in chipset sales and can help to avoid headaches for consumers that said the consumer is ultimately worse off with this approach particularly enthusiasts who are on a budget most of you watching this video would have no doubt appreciated the option to upgrade your 100 or 200 series Intel motherboard to support a coffee like CPU rather than get rid of it and forced to spend over $100 u.s. on a newsie 370 board okay so to rewind to the start AMD released horizon on the am4 platform in 2017 and at the time announced that they would keep compatibility till at least 2020 that means multiple generations of processors will be supported on the same socket not just the refreshes this is a seriously big deal and while we've now sent these second-generation Verizon cpus work perfectly fine on the a320 be 315 X 370 motherboards this should also be true for these in two processors slated for release in 2019 although AMD will continue to release new chipsets they aren't mandatory and this means that the be 350 motherboard that you bought last year for $70 u.s. will be sticking around for some time to come if you purchased the MSI be 350 mortar for example when it was first released it would have shipped with an early bass version probably version 1.0 or 1.1 but if you wanted to use the be 350 mortar with a Raven Ridge APU you'd need to make sure it was updated with bass version 7 a 37 v1b which was released two weeks ahead of the apu launch if you bought this motherboard featuring an earlier bias revision within your apu it wouldn't have worked since AMD didn't release a new chipset alongside the AP use and maintain support for existing 300 series chipsets most purchased to be 350 board and many of them were older stock shipped before the supporting BIOS update was developed I am DS copped a heap of flak over this so much so they actually had to invest time and money developing a program that could help customers update their motherboards by sending them a cheap a m4 CPU which could be used to boot the system up and then update the BIOS in hindsight it would have been much easier for them to do what they're done previously with their ap use and that was to segment the product lines and offer their APIs on a different socket with different chipsets ultimately that approach would have been less of a headache for AMD far less convenient for consumers and I for one am very thankful they didn't take that approach this issue resurfaced with the release of the second-generation rise and CP users people started trying to pair them with B 315 motherboards that hadn't been updated and once again AMD took a heap of flack for something they're doing that really benefits all of us it's impossible for AMD to add right now 4 CPUs they're going to release in the future and Intel hasn't developed a time machine to get around this issue either the only solution is to act support after a certain period of time and start afresh and this is the approach Intel's gone with we really and I mean really don't want AMD to take this same approach there will be a point in time when upgrading will be necessary to support new features and memory technologies but until that time I'd rather not see compatibility removed just so these companies can juice more money out of you I bet there's plenty of h1 10 H 170 and z170 owners that would love to stick a coffee like CPU on there perfectly good motherboard my worry though is that if AMD keeps receiving backlash for continuing support then I feel like this is something they might just abandon after 2020 and instead adopt the sound compatibility cycle as Intel which sees a cpu series released then refresh 2 year later on the same platform and then after that point they drop support entirely and start over forcing you to invest in a new motherboard that might not offer anything new beyond CPU support as I've said a lot of people have been attacking AMD over this bias update issue and quite a few of you have been asking me to attack AMD over this issue but it's not really a situation that AMD's handled poorly leading to these problems there is absolutely nothing or almost nothing AMD can do to prevent this if we want to see compatibility remain where new CPUs come out motherboards need to be updated to support them this has always been the case for both AMD and Intel although there isn't anything aimed you can do beyond offer their boot kits there are solutions though but they need to come from the motherboard makers a seuss has come up with one such solution which they call USB bias flashback for this method all you need is a 24-pin power cable connected to the motherboard and a USB stick with the required BIOS simply stick the USB storage device into the motherboards USB bios flush back port then press and hold the USB BIOS flashback or rog connect button for 3 seconds at this point in LED begins to blink you just need to sit back and wait till the LED stops blinking and that indicates at the bias has been updated and you're good to go unfortunately though a soos only offers this feature on their most premium boards and none of their be 350 models will support it perhaps this is something AMD could work on with their board partners to make a standard rise and feature I do understand this is a frustrating issue it's just also unfair to blame it on AMD those of us who build their own pcs do choose to take on the role of the technician and updating biases is all part of the job if you don't want to deal with that sort of stuff then buy a custom-built system from your local PC store you'll pay more but at least they come with support anyway that is gonna do it for this one oh you guys didn't mind this different kind of video like I said this is an issue that's been annoying me because while I get the frustration the alternative is far worse I'd much rather the inconvenience of having to try and update a motherboards bias opposed to having to buy a brand new motherboard as always though I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic so drop them in the comment section below thanks for watching I'm your host Steve and I'll see you next time