Ryzen 5000 CPU support for older AMD motherboards has begun rolling out ahead of schedule

ASRock B450 Pro Motherboard — (Image credit: ASRock)

It was not always a foregone conclusion that AMD's latest-generation Ryzen 5000 series CPUs would work in older 400-series motherboards, but with AMD having developed AGESA code to make it happen, it's now up to its hardware partners to inject it into BIOS updates. If they so choose, that is, and ASRock has chosen to do so—it has begun pushing out BIOS updates for its B450 motherboard to support to the new chips.

ASRock lists its entire lineup of B450 motherboards as being slated to support AMD's newest CPUs. There are 15 motherboard models in all, and the company laid out which specific BIOS version is required for each one, to support a Ryzen 5000 series chip. They include:

B450 Steel Legend—P3.70
B450 Pro4—P4.50
B450 Pro4 R2.0—P4.50
Fatal1ty B450 Gaming K4—P4.50
B450M Steel Legend—P3.60
B450M Steel Legend (Pink Edition)—P3.60P
B450M Pro4—P4.60
B450M Pro4 R2.0—P4.60
B450M Pro4-F—P2.40
B450M Pro4-F R2.0—P2.40
B450M/ac—P2.30
B450M/ac R2.0—P2.30
B450M-HDV—P4.20
B450M-HDV R4.0—P4.10
Fatal1ty B450 Gaming-ITX/ac—P4.20

I looked up each model on ASRock's website, and almost all of them had the accompanying BIOS update available to download. The lone exception is the B450 Steel Legend. At the time of this writing, its newest firmware revision is 3.50, issued on October 6, 2020. If you own that motherboard, hang tight, as the 3.70 release is undoubtedly coming.

What about other motherboard makers? Asus will have updated firmware available soon, the company stated on Twitter this week.

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"Asus 400-series motherboard BIOSes updates (AGESA 1.1.8.0) for AMD Ryzen 5000-series CPUs will drop in a couple of weeks!," ASUS tweeted.

I have not seen any updated statements from Biostar, Gigabyte, or MSI, but I imagine they will not be far behind.

Incidentally, AMD said in October that it was working with its hardware partners on updated code, and that the first beta releases for 400-series motherboards would arrive in January 2021. That might still be the case for higher-end X470 motherboards, but at least for B450, things appear to be a bit ahead of schedule.

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Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).