It appears that everything is moving along according to AMD's plans. Asus, MSI and Biostar have rolled out BIOS updates for their existing AMD B450, X370, and X470 motherboards to support the upcoming AMD Ryzen 3000-series, codenamed Matisse, desktop processors.
There have been whispers that AMD had sent out engineering samples to multiple motherboard partners for testing. The rumors could be true, considering motherboard manufacturers including Asus, MSI and Biostar have already started releasing BIOS updates, seemingly in anticipation of the Matisse processors. Asus and MSI specifically mention support for upcoming AMD processors, while Biostar didn't provide any specific details.
As per TechPowerUp's sources, AGESA (AMD Generic Encapsulated Software Architecture) microcode version 0.0.7.x is allegedly designed to support the AMD Zen 2 processor microarchitecture and Ryzen 3000-series processors. The updated BIOSes from MSI and Biostar include the AGESA 0.0.7.2 microcode, while the Asus BIOSes are utilizing the older AGESA 0.0.7.0 microcode.
It's apparent that support for Zen 2 is coming on multiple fronts. HWiNFO, a popular system information and diagnostics utility, recently released the changelog for its forthcoming version 6.03 build 3710. Among the list of upcoming changes, there is mention of improved support for Zen 2.
A recent roadmap detailing AMD's plans for 2019 confirmed that the chipmaker will launch its Ryzen 3000-series chips at the middle of the year. Although no concrete date was given, speculation around the hardware world has been running wild. Some think that AMD will announce the new processors on May 1 to commemorate the company's 50th anniversary. Others think that the chipmaker will announce them during Computex, which starts on May 28, and launch them shortly after. In one way or another, AMD is poised to shake up the mainstream processor market with the Ryzen 3000-series processors.
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Zhiye Liu is a news editor and memory reviewer at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.