MSI announces 400 series motherboards will support Zen 3 processors

MSI has announced that all its 400 series motherboards will support Ryzen 5000 processors, courtesy of a firmware update arriving in January. 

While we knew that AMD had confirmed that Ryzen 5000 processors would be compatible with existing B450 and X470 motherboards, it was also clear that each motherboard maker would need to offer such compatibility. Fortunately, MSI has decided to go all in by ensuring that all its X470 and B450 offerings provide support. That includes the company's Max and non-Max models. 

It plans on doing so via new firmware that will work with the Zen 3 processors with minimal hassle. The plan at the moment is that the firmware will be made available in January with a more precise release schedule coming soon, once AMD has provided the AGESA code to the motherboard manufacturer. 

For now, what we do know is that Ryzen 5000 processors go on sale on November 5th and AMD isn't releasing a new chipset for these parts. That means 500-series motherboard owners will be the only ones able to use the processors at launch. Unless anything changes before then, 400-series motherboard owners will need to wait until January to get the opportunity. 

So, this isn't an ideal set of timings for MSI owners but at least the option is there. Previously, AMD had to backtrack on allowing support for Zen 3 processors via 400-series motherboards, so at least there is a path forward, albeit not one that's as soon as we'd like. Don't forget - if you follow this path, there's no PCIe 4.0 support and this is a one-way firmware upgrade with no way to rollback. 

Wondering about 300-series motherboards? Current official information from AMD still states that they're not supported. Things could change, but we can't see it unfortunately. 

MSI isn't the only firm to arrange relevant firmware updates. Asus also recently announced that they would be rolling out 400 series motherboard updates from January 2021 too.