Last August 2022, AMD launched the update to its long-standing AM4 socket, which has been with us since 2016. The new AM5 platform brings a lot of new things under the arm, but is it really worth it? Especially considering it’s not exactly a cheap upgrade.
The keys to AMD’s AM5 platform
Until now, AMD processors used the AM4 socket, with a socket connection method called PGA (Pin Grid Array) in which the connection pins were on the processor itself. One of the main (physical) changes of the new platform is the fact that it is now LGA (Land Grid Array), so that the connection pins are on the socket and not on the processor. This is obviously one of the reasons why you have to change your motherboard in order to upgrade to AM5.
But the physical change of the processors is not the only reason to have to change the motherboard, since the chipset has also been updated (at the time of writing these lines, there are 4 compatible chipsets: X670E, X670, B650E and B650) which expands system compatibility and connectivity, but also added support for DDR5 RAM memory which physically is also different from DDR5 and therefore also required a physical change to the motherboard (in this case RAM sockets).
On the other hand, interface compatibility has also been added. PCI Express 5.0allowing to use its higher bandwidth and speeds (although it is true that, for the moment, no device takes advantage of it, even if we are already talking about SSDs with this interface).
Basically, if you were on an AM4 rig and planning to upgrade to AM5, you’ll need to at least change your CPU, motherboard, and RAM, since AM4 compatible coolers must also be AM5 compatible (meaning that you can reuse the radiator). . Likewise, your PC case, graphics card, power supply and even storage devices will be fully compatible with the new platform.
So is it worth updating?
As we said, changing the processor, motherboard and RAM memory is not an easy task, especially with the price of current hardware. Considering that currently only four processors use AMD’s new AM5 socket (these are the Ryzen 5 7600X, Ryzen 7 7700X, and the Ryzen 9 7900X and 7950X), there isn’t much to choose from (for now ), and even choosing the lowest-end processor of all this, we are talking about an update that can easily approach 1,000 dollars.
At this point, upgrading to the AMD AM5 platform might be a good idea if your current PC is already relatively old, like a Ryzen 2000 series or 9th Gen Intel Core or earlier (we’re talking about platforms 2018). However, unless you really need a noticeable performance boost (which you’ll get, of course), you might want to wait for AMD to bring more CPU options to the table, because as As we mentioned earlier, for now there are only four models to choose from.
What is certain is that this AM5 platform is the future of AMD processors; the manufacturer has promised that the next generations of processors will keep the same socket, so just as AM4 lasted from 2016 to 2022, we can expect at least AMD to use this socket until 2028. In other words, AM5 can be a good bet for the future for any type of user.
