AMD is preparing new chipsets that will be used in new motherboards scheduled to launch in the third quarter of 2024. As you might have guessed from the date, these new motherboards will accompany the next generation of Ryzen processors based on Zen 5and the top-of-the-line chipset will be labeled as AMD X770.

If you are worried about the compatibility issue, don’t worry, the socket will not change, which means that these new motherboards will continue to use the AM5 socket and that both Zen 4 and Zen 5 will work on these new and current models. Of course, this doesn’t mean that there won’t be differences between a current AMD X670 chipset motherboard and an AMD X770 chipset motherboard, but the differences won’t be important.

Although we still don’t have much information, it is most likely that the most relevant changes will end up being limited to a improving the connectivity ecosystem on these new motherboards and possibly on the total number of PCIe Gen5 lanes available. We’ll have to wait for the leak to dive into this issue.

As I said, Zen 4 and future Zen 5 CPUs will run smoothly on motherboards with AMD X770 chipsets as well as the current X670 and below, we can be sure of that, although it is also very likely that we need to update the BIOS first the latter to achieve compatibility with future AMD processors, as happened with previous generations under the AM4 socket.

Current motherboards will experience a period of cohabitation with the new models until the existing stock is sold out, although AMD may decide to keep the cheaper models to avoid a gap in the low end, instead of launching a new chipset in it. If this were to happen, the A620 chipset would still be the cheapest option to fit the Zen 4 and Zen 5 CPUs and it would not have a successor, that means we would not see the A720 chipset.

If AMD decided to do a complete renovation, the situation would be different and we would find a total of three new chipsets, which would be placed in different ranges. Chipset AMD X770 would follow the X670 and occupy the high range while the chipset AMD B750 It would be a mid-range successor to the B650. Finally, there would be a chipset AMD A720successor to the A620 in the low range.

Intel is also expected to launch new motherboards with 800 series chipsets and LGA 1851 socket in the third quarter of 2024. These boards will be used with Intel Arrow Lake processors and will mark the end of the life of the currently used LGA 1700 socket. The socket will most likely be compatible with two generations, the aforementioned Arrow Lake and its successor, possibly its refresh.