MSI ‘Max’ Makes AMD Ryzen 3000 Motherboards Affordable

While the release of the new AMD Ryzen 3000 processors have been keeping us more than a little busy, one of the biggest factors in our manic workload recently has been all of the new motherboard releases that (nearly) always follow a CPU launch. While not hitting the launch date, however, MSI may have something very interesting on the horizon.

In a report via cowcotland, MSI is planning to release new versions of both their 300 and 400-series motherboards. Ones that will essentially double the amount of BIOS memory available. While this might sound a bit bland, it’s actually more interesting (and better) than you might think!

MSI ‘Max’ Motherboards

At the time of writing, most motherboard BIOS systems have 16mb of memory. MSI plans, however, to double this to 32MB with the release of a new range of ‘MAX’ motherboards. This upgrade will be made available on both the 400-series and, perhaps most surprisingly, also on their older 300-series models.

This increase has been made to help compensate for the new Ryzen 3000 processors which have, of course, meant that BIOS’ (particularly on older motherboards) will have to store even more data than before. The release of the new Ryzen 3000 processors isn’t known to cause any specific problems in terms of backwards compatibility on older motherboards. Many models, however, have had to opt for a far more basic UEFI presentation to keep the data size down. It does, therefore, allow for a little bit of future-proofing while retaining a nice and slick user-interface. There is, however, another key bonus to these releases. One that might help relax your purse strings a little.

Interesting Move

While the more recent motherboards do offer improved performance (specifically through PCIe 4.0 and the bandwidth it offers) it does come at a rather significant price tag. In addition, not everyone is really ready to make 4.0 a genuinely viable upgrade. At least, not at the moment. As such, MSI may be playing it very smart here. What they are doing is essentially refreshing older motherboard models. Specifically, to make them an attractive and alternative budget-friendly option all while offering true AMD Ryzen 3000 support.

Overall, it comes across as a really smart move by MSI.

These new models will, incidentally, be identifiable by ‘MAX’ being added to their name. For example, the B450 Gaming Pro Carbon AC with the 32mb BIOS upgrade will now see MAX attached. If you are, therefore, in the market for a new motherboard, it might be worth waiting a little longer. Although no release date has yet been revealed, we expect these to hit the shelves in the very near future!

What do you think? Are you looking to upgrade your motherboard? Do you think these models will prove popular? In addition, are you planning on upgrading to Ryzen 3000? – Let us know in the comments!