Gigabyte has officially announced compatibility with AMD's next-generation Ryzen 9000 CPUs on its outgoing X670, B650, and A620 motherboards. The board partner has officially released AGESA 1.1.7.0 beta BIOS updates, featuring support for the new Zen 5 chips for all of its 600-series motherboards, and has confirmed AMD's Ryzen 9000 branding for the new line of chips.
Gigabyte is the third board manufacturer to unveil AGESA 1.1.7.0 support (and thus Ryzen 9000 support). Ryzen 9000 is the name of AMD's next-generation CPU lineup based on its upcoming Zen 5 CPU architecture. AMD is making Ryzen 9000 backward compatible with first-generation AM5 motherboards (similar to AM4), enabling Ryzen 7000/8000 owners to upgrade to a Ryzen 9000 chip without purchasing a new motherboard.
We don't know much about Zen 5 just yet, other than that it's coming soon and that it will utilize TSMC's 4nm and 3nm process nodes. Leaks have given us some more interesting tidbits of the Zen 5 architecture — but, as with all leaks, they must be taken with a grain of salt.
Gigabyte's announcement confirms Ryzen 9000 as the name of AMD's desktop Zen 5 parts. We already know that Zen 5-based APUs and mobile solutions are being developed. Strix Halo is the codename for AMD's upcoming Zen 5 + RDNA 3.5 mobile APU, which will reportedly compete with Apple's M series CPUs. Fire Range is reportedly the codename for AMD's Zen 5 desktop APUs, and Strix Point is the codename for AMD's less-potent Zen 5 mobile APUs.
We expect Ryzen 9000 will debut later this year, which explains why AMD's board partners are introducing Ryzen 9000 support now. According to Gigabyte's blog post, every X670 series, B650 series, and A620 motherboard currently supports the new AGESA 1.1.7.0 beta BIOS update — but it's only available in beta format at the moment, so there might be some bugs.
