One Motherboard Maker Explains why AMD AM4 Boards are Missing

Zarathustra[H]

Zarathustra[H]

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Have you been looking to set up a sweet new Ryzen system, only to be foiled by not being able to find a motherboard? Well, you are not alone. Legit Reviews has been looking into just why we have seen such a shortage of compatible AM4 boards. Of course, it depends on who you ask. AMD suggests its because Ryzen sales have been an unexpected success, but off the record anonymous Motherboard makers are telling a different story.

Hopefully AMD can patch things up with the motherboard makers, since if AMD is going to make a comeback, they'll need good motherboard support. You can't sell CPU's without a motherboard to put them in, and pissing the motherboard makers off is not a good way to get them to play ball.

"Then we started hearing back from the board manufactures and most stated that the first batch of boards was very small and shipped by air. They also noticed that the normal bulk shipments are done in shipping containers that come into North America by sea from Asia and that takes weeks and they should start arriving at any time. ECS (Elitegroup Computer Systems) has been notably absent from the AMD AM4 motherboard market, but they do have AM4 boards coming. While we heard back from most all of the manufactures one statement stood out from the rest and they wanted it shared as long as they could remain anonymous."
 
This isn't surprising. They've been poor at supporting partners for as long as I've been into computers. Even ATI, before AMD bought them out, was poor at such things, mainly driver development and patching, for as long as they've been in the business. Back when the Athlon first came out, they said they didn't want to be in the chipset business, but then wouldn't give any assistance to companies (VIA and nVidia) trying to develop chipsets. They were, and is seems still are, horrible about partnering with anyone. They need someone to put their egos in check and get them to behave.
 
I've noticed. Zero boards available. No retailer has any not even instock, but they aren't even listing any boards, so you could order. Which means even the suppliers are clueless when shipments could arrive.

AMD managed to screw something up yet again, when they were so close to making it a hit.
 
well, maybe the new boards will just work properly right out of the gate?

my conspiracy theory is that AMD wanted, so badly, to keep Intel in the dark on what the new chips can do they purposefully skimped on this - sure, shooting themselves in the foot at first, but then - BOOM! what it was supposed to be from the start (a very good CPU). Intel then is the one playing catch up. then it's remembered as "botched start - great finish"

Hah - one could hope : P
 
One thing I asked about a lot before the launch was about motherboard support and every time I asked I got very solid and confident feedback from AMD. I did frame the question that it was more likely to be a negative launch if motherboard support was not robust.
 
milk_carton.jpg
 
And people wonder why the majority don't trust any AMD product.
The underdog is "under" for a reason.
 
No big whoop just some more time. Mobo manufacturers are pissed bc they aren't capitalizing as fast as they could have. Shits sake its an all new architecture of course there are growing pains. Let's not forget Intel's shit been around since 06 and they are a multi billion company.... No shit they can do better in giving partners what they need. In the end AMD is probably right seems they didn't want to say there was going to be huge demand ( they probably had no idea of demand) and then burn mobo manufacturers with excess inventory.. how would the mobo manufacturers liked that then? Any better?
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
ECS (Elitegroup Computer Systems) has been notably absent from the AMD AM4 motherboard market
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Notably absent? Who the hell noticed? Does anyone actually buy that dreck?

And....from the article:
In general, it’s been too long for AMD to launch a new CPU, so they forgot how to do it, so they launched the CPU just like they were launching the graphics card. They didn’t care about the platform eco-system, so the eco-system is suffering and stock is delayed.
Click to expand...
A bit of a leap to say they 'did not care'. I'd venture to say that AMD cared a great deal. They simply did not have the resources & personnel to get the job done in the slick fashion that they are accustomed to with Intel.
 
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Uvaman2 said:
No big whoop just some more time. Mobo manufacturers are pissed bc they aren't capitalizing as fast as they could have. Shits sake its an all new architecture of course there are growing pains. Let's not forget Intel's shit been around since 06 and they are a multi billion company.... No shit they can do better in giving partners what they need. In the end AMD is probably right seems they didn't want to say there was going to be huge demand ( they probably had no idea of demand) and then burn mobo manufacturers with excess inventory.. how would the mobo manufacturers liked that then? Any better?
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I think you are missing the point here AMD kept the board partners in the dark and did not properly support them in bios creating. Considering it will be the MOBO OEM that gets blamed by consumers for poor BIOS' i would be upset too.
 
EchoWars said:
Notably absent? Who the hell noticed? Does anyone actually buy that dreck?

And....from the article:A bit of a leap to say they 'did not care'. I'd venture to say that AMD cared a great deal. They simply did not have the resources & personnel to get the job done in the slick fashion that they are accustomed to with Intel.
Click to expand...

What with AMD being a chip and chipset maker, having the people on hand to get basic communication done with a handful of motherboard vendors should be near the top of the list. Doesn't matter how good the chip is if the motherboards don't work right or there aren't enough boards to support a profitable degree of sales volume.
 
MB : "We thought Ryzen would be another dud, so we focused our production line on cookie cutting mobos for Intel's lineup until we saw their demos on youtube. We tried to get whatever information we can about configuration two weeks before its launch date. If only they have told us otherwise..."
 
Teenyman45 said:
What with AMD being a chip and chipset maker, having the people on hand to get basic communication done with a handful of motherboard vendors should be near the top of the list. Doesn't matter how good the chip is if the motherboards don't work right or there aren't enough boards to support a profitable degree of sales volume.
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No argument from me. But the fact remains that the launch was certainly mishandled. As to why, we can only speculate (as I did in my previous post), but saying that AMD 'didn't care' cannot be accurate.
 
fuzzylogik said:
well, maybe the new boards will just work properly right out of the gate?

my conspiracy theory is that AMD wanted, so badly, to keep Intel in the dark on what the new chips can do they purposefully skimped on this - sure, shooting themselves in the foot at first, but then - BOOM! what it was supposed to be from the start (a very good CPU). Intel then is the one playing catch up. then it's remembered as "botched start - great finish"

Hah - one could hope : P
Click to expand...

Considering that Intel purposely keeps AMD around to avoid violating antitrust laws by becoming a monopoly, your theory is very far in the clouds there. You have to remember, Intel's R&D budget alone could snuff out AMD if they really wanted to.

Let's see the AMD fanboy brigade try to defend this nonsense though. You'll know they'll spin it any which way they can.

serious said:
MB : "We thought Ryzen would be another dud, so we focused our production line on cookie cutting mobos for Intel's lineup until we saw their demos on youtube. We tried to get whatever information we can about configuration two weeks before its launch date. If only they have told us otherwise..."
Click to expand...

It has begun!!! (Mortal Kombat music starts playing)
 
Ha! Yup - though the story-teller in me justifies it as a plausible way to get out from under the thumb of Intel. :)


Still, so many odd miss-steps with this release. Since these chips were/are(?) going to keep AMD alive... I'm surprised great care wasn't given on every little detail.
 
ZeroBarrier said:
Considering that Intel purposely keeps AMD around to avoid violating antitrust laws by becoming a monopoly, your theory is very far in the clouds there. You have to remember, Intel's R&D budget alone could snuff out AMD if they really wanted to.

Let's see the AMD fanboy brigade try to defend this nonsense though. You'll know they'll spin it any which way they can.



It has begun!!! (Mortal Kombat music starts playing)
Click to expand...

I work in one of those companies who are in the position of "intel" and having "AMD's" as competitor.
There is no reason for improvement as long as there is no competition and the shareholders will extract all the cash and they can and R&D is not a priority or those who do it is not a priority.

When the finance market started moving a lot things happened again to counter other initiatives and staying ahead by throwing money at issues.
How the world works, coulda been worse, total communism = no progress whatsoever.

On topic again, AMD did right by rushing and also very wrong.
They have great completed cpu's with a somewhat broken ecosystem.

I think Asus, Gigabyte and all have underestimated, and AMD doesn't have patience as every day is a struggle to pay the loans.
Hopefully Vega is also good so they have a chance of getting on the feets and we'll see some real competition again.

I miss the early 2000's with all competition :)
 
Motherboard manufactures made a mistake prioritizing the Intel boards before Chinese New Years and AMD made the mistake of moving up the launch date. Which led to a rushed state of affairs and both had a hand in it. Sounds like they think this will clear up shortly which is good for people waiting on a motherboard.
 
In the 10+ years I've been reviewing motherboards this has to be the worst motherboard / chipset launch I've ever seen. I thought Z170 was a cluster fuck. It was rushed but ultimately, the motherboards worked pretty well and were available out of the gate. In contrast, Z270 was probably the best launch I've seen so far.
 
Lol they sent their stuff via crate. I hope they fix their shipment soon, I have no interest in spamming refresh to buy a board.
 
serious said:
MB : "We thought Ryzen would be another dud, so we focused our production line on cookie cutting mobos for Intel's lineup until we saw their demos on youtube. We tried to get whatever information we can about configuration two weeks before its launch date. If only they have told us otherwise..."
Click to expand...
To be honest this sounds more accurate, based on the motherboard manufacturer's whining from the article.
I think the only thing that makes sense is AMD didn't know demand, no one knew really.
 
Never underestimate AMD's ability to step on their dick.

I also wonder how many early adopters are kicking themselves for buying those $300 MSI boards.
 
Holy shit really? Well I was all pissed off because of the Asus CH6 issues with BIOS. Now I come to find out its AMDs fault.

Stupid idiots! Who the hell is running that piehole. I feel like selling my new Ryzen rig and getting an Intel system now!
 
Motley said:
Holy shit really? Well I was all pissed off because of the Asus CH6 issues with BIOS. Now I come to find out its AMDs fault.

Stupid idiots! Who the hell is running that piehole. I feel like selling my new Ryzen rig and getting an Intel system now!
Click to expand...

As I said, the base code of the BIOS has to come from the CPU manufacturer first. In this case, AMD is also the chipset manufacturer. So there may be code relating to that as well. That code goes to the motherboard manufacturers for validation, testing and modification to for use on specific brands and models. There are releases that go to the motherboard manufacturers at several stages during development. The final BIOS code from AMD seems to have been late. This gave the motherboard manufacturers no time to get their shit right before launch. No doubt this caused delays in product delivery as well.
 
weeks by boat...

why is this still a thing?

seriously. it's 20 god damn 17 and weeks by boat is still a thing.
 
ZeroBarrier said:
Considering that Intel purposely keeps AMD around to avoid violating antitrust laws by becoming a monopoly, your theory is very far in the clouds there. You have to remember, Intel's R&D budget alone could snuff out AMD if they really wanted to.

Let's see the AMD fanboy brigade try to defend this nonsense though. You'll know they'll spin it any which way they can.



It has begun!!! (Mortal Kombat music starts playing)
Click to expand...

Intelfanboy alert! Intelfanboyalert! :D ;) Dude, you really need to chill out since you clearly are not going to buy AMD anyways. Also, I have 2 computers running AMD Ryzen right now and walked in to Microcenter twice and bought what I wanted.
 
ManofGod said:
Intelfanboy alert! Intelfanboyalert! :D ;) Dude, you really need to chill out since you clearly are not going to buy AMD anyways. Also, I have 2 computers running AMD Ryzen right now and walked in to Microcenter twice and bought what I wanted.
Click to expand...

He makes a good point that I've even made myself. That said, it isn't absolute. Intel's a large corporate entity. As a result, when they choose a course, changing that course can be an arduous and expensive task. Intel's been a financial giant compared to AMD but got caught with its pants down when K7 and K8 came along. Intel was already set on a course with it's Netburst Microarchitecture because at that time Intel had taken the P6 Microarchitecture as far as they could. Intel knew they were screwed and had to ride out that dismal product because going a different direction with its CPUs would require years of R&D and engineering to create a new processor design. Intel made a bet that it could push Netburst farther via raw clock speeds than AMD could push its performance via IPC and it was wrong. Intel course corrected and it took a few years before the Core 2 architecture was released but when it came out, it was amazing.

Intel has arguably been apathetic and lazy for some time now. It's CPUs are designed around a performance per watt mentality and holding a quad core 4 lyfe status quo. AMD is in a position to challenge that status quo and that's precisely what its doing. Intel needs some course correction. Ryzen will shake things up and its very likely that Intel will course correct with a vengeance as they have in the past.
 
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