New AGESA BIOS Updates enables AMD Smart Access Memory functionality for X470 and B450

erek

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"ASUS on the other hand also have a series of BEta BIOSes, however ASUS mentions that they do not recommend the use of this BIOS version if a Ryzen 3000 (Zen 2) or Ryzen 2000/1000 (Zen) or even an A-series processor (Bristol Ridge) is used. ALso, and quite important, this BIOS update cannot be undone. Once updated, it is not possible to switch back to an older BIOS version in the event of problems.

Version 2406 Beta Version 2020/11/24 10.36 MBytes

PRIME B450M ‑A BIOS 2406

  1. Update AMD AM4 AGESA V2 PI 1.1.8.0 for new CPU support
  2. It's highly recommended not to update this beta BIOS when using AMD AM4 Socket for AMD Ryzen ™ 3000 Series / 2000 Series / 1000 Series / A ‑ Series Desktop Processors.
  3. This beta BIOS can't be reversed."

https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/n...s-memory-functionality-for-x470-and-b450.html
 
The "cannot be reversed" is weird to me. Is it a case where the new BIOS writes a configuration setting to a place (like very low level PCIe settings, for example) where the old BIOS never does and therefore the older BIOS cannot undo whatever the new BIOS did simply because the old BIOS wasn't programmed to set the parameter back to whatever it was originally as shipped from the factory?
 
Neat. Maybe there’s still a chance of a zen3 apu upgrade in the future for my little b450 box.
 
The "cannot be reversed" is weird to me. Is it a case where the new BIOS writes a configuration setting to a place (like very low level PCIe settings, for example) where the old BIOS never does and therefore the older BIOS cannot undo whatever the new BIOS did simply because the old BIOS wasn't programmed to set the parameter back to whatever it was originally as shipped from the factory?

Sometimes there are firmware updates to various things in the bios update (LED firmware gets updated all the time on my Asus boards for some reason). With an older bios pre firmware update, it might not be compatible with changes to firmware that has been updated. That's really the only reason why I would think that it would be a one way flash.
 
It looks like ASUS has this through most or all of the B450 boards since there's a beta BIOS for my ROG Strix B450-F Gaming board. I don't have a 5000 series CPU and I don't go near beta ASUS BIOS files so I'm not touching it either way. I'm not sure I'd even put a 5000 series CPU in this board unless I found a 5600x for really, really cheap. I don't think it's worth using anything lower than a 500 series chipset board with a 5000 series CPU.
 
It looks like ASUS has this through most or all of the B450 boards since there's a beta BIOS for my ROG Strix B450-F Gaming board. I don't have a 5000 series CPU and I don't go near beta ASUS BIOS files so I'm not touching it either way. I'm not sure I'd even put a 5000 series CPU in this board unless I found a 5600x for really, really cheap. I don't think it's worth using anything lower than a 500 series chipset board with a 5000 series CPU.

AMD Radeon Smart Access Memory Coming to 400 Series Motherboards

 
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