AMD Zen 4 CPUs & AM5 motherboards will only support DDR5
Heavy upgrade price on cards as reports from leakers suggest AM5 platform along with AMD’s new Raphael CPUs will only support DDR5 memory at launch
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AM5 is AMD’s brand new socket design for their up-and-coming Ryzen 7000 series CPUs, promising large scale performance increases when revealed during AMD’s keynote at CES 2022. It also provides support for the new PCIe Gen 5 standard and DDR5 RAM compatibility, but a Tweet has now surfaced from CapFrameX that suggests AMD Zen 4 CPUs will be DDR5 only
The New Zen 4 based architecture will be based on TSMC’s brand new 5nm chiplets, and bring never before seen performance and power efficiencies. This is a huge advantage over Intel which is producing proprietary 7nm chiplets for their 13th generation of CPUs.
There have been many hints by AMD in the past that AM5 and the Ryzen 7000 series will be based around the DDR5 memory standard and, recently, AMD’s representatives in AMD’s ‘meet the experts’ webinar confirmed that Raphael will be AMD’s first DDR5-based platform.
Tomshardware reported that the X670 chipset would be a dual-chiplet design instead of the single we’re used to seeing on current AM4 motherboards, The tech outlet also went on to state that AMD’s x670 and B650 chipsets will only follow the DDR5 RAM standard.
There is some speculation floating around the web suggesting that the A620 chipset (if it exists) will support DDR4, but a recently leaked AM5 feature compatibility list seems to contradict that.
This is a leaked AM5 compatibility list and, as CapFrameX states, there’s no mention of DDR4. That implies AM5 will not support DDR4 at all, at least not yet.
This means a couple of things. First and foremost it means that upgrading your PC to DDR5 is going to be expensive, although the prices have been steadily falling for months now. Maybe they’ll return to normal again by the launch of Zen 4?
This could also be a potential bottleneck for AM5 and Zen 4 sales. We don’t know if the supply of DDR5 memory can withstand a DDR5-only launch. We know that TSMC increased its production of 5nm chiplets by 25% earlier this year to accommodate the demand and combat supply shortages. But is there enough DDR5 to go around?
Intel also has a huge advantage here, and giving users the option to opt for DDR4 instead of being forced into DDR5 may make Intel a significantly cheaper option when looking at a CPU upgrade.
What we do know is that Ryzen is almost unrivalled now, especially with the 5800X3D snagging the top spot away from Intel for the ‘fastest gaming CPU’. On DDR5, AMD could be unstoppable. AMD Zen 4 CPUs will be DDR5 only
