In a recent announcement posted by MSI, the company has confirmed that all MSI 400 series motherboards will have BIOS updates that can support the Ryzen 5000 series CPUs. It is good news for those who are still rocking an X470 or B450 motherboard and plans to upgrade to the latest Zen 3 Ryzen 5000 CPUs later. You can check out more details below.
UPDATE (11/5/2020): AMD Ryzen 500 Series CPUs are up. Check latest pricing and availability below (#ad):
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X – Amazon.com here or Newegg.com here
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X – Amazon.com here or Newegg.com here
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X – Amazon.com here or Newegg.com here
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X – Amazon.com here or Newegg.com here
MSI’s X470 and B450 Will Support AMD Ryzen 5000 CPUs via BIOS Update
Below is the entirety of MSI’s news:
MSI’s Entire Line-Up of AMD 400 Series Motherboards Will Support Ryzen 5000 Series Processors. AMD has officially announced Zen3 architecture Ryzen™ 5000 series processors on October 8th. The latest Zen3 processors have significant performance improvements compared to the previous 7nm Ryzen 3000 series processors. For the upcoming processors, MSI has released the latest AGESA COMBO PI V2 1.1.0.0 for all X570 and B550 series motherboards to perfectly utilize the PCI-E 4.0 performance.
In response to the upgrade demands, AMD also mentioned the BIOS update for selected 400 series motherboards to support Ryzen™ 5000 series processors will be ready in January 2021. To respond to our users’ anticipation, MSI is announcing that all 400 series motherboards, including X470 and B450, MAX, or non-MAX products, will provide BIOS updates later on that can support Ryzen™ 5000 processors. All the evaluation is in progress under the R&D team. A detailed BIOS release schedule will be announced after the BIOS code is provided by AMD. Please stay tuned for the latest information on msi.com.
Regarding the 300 series motherboards, including X370, B350, and A320 chips, AMD’s current official information points out that they are not supported. If AMD makes any official updates later, MSI will also provide the latest information on time.
What Will You Miss If You Don’t Upgrade to X570 / B550?
Using a new Ryzen 5000 CPU on an older motherboard doesn’t have any performance loss. At least that’s the reports are saying. However, while opting not to upgrade to the latest X570 or B550 motherboard, you will miss out on some of the features that the newer motherboards offer. Whether you need those features or not is entirely up to you and your use case.
The most notable feature is the lack of PCIe 4.0 support on the X470 and B450 motherboards. You won’t be able to use the faster Gen4 NVMe SSDs on the older motherboards. You’ll also miss out on the faster WiFi 6. But like I said, it depends on whether you need them or not. Below is a table showing the difference between AMD’s chipsets.
If even you do plan to upgrade, you can check out some of the MSI X570 and B550 motherboards below.
MSI X570 Motherboards available on Newegg.com here
MSI B550 Motherboards available on Newegg.com here
