During the official presentation of the Ryzen 7000 based on Zen 4 architecture, AMD has confirmed that this new generation will come exclusively to the AM5 socket, and that they would need a new motherboard and DDR5 memory to work. This marked the end of the AM4 socket and opened a new stage within the AMD standard consumer CPU ecosystem.

This is the official version, but information from the AMD CPU vendor points in the opposite direction, as it ensures that there will be Zen 4-based products that are compatible with the AM4 socket. If this is confirmed, you will be able to upgrade the AM4 motherboard with a Ryzen 7000 CPUAnd you won’t have to change your team RAM because these processors will work with DDR4.

This information is very interesting and makes sense, because during the presentation of Zen 4, AMD abandoned the fact that the motherboards of socket AM4 “do not go anywhere”, so they indicated that they still have a long life and that they would coexist with AM5 motherboards for several years.

What would Zen 4 need to run on an AM4 motherboard? We see differences

This anticipated version of Zen 4, modified to work on the AM4 motherboard, should bring very important changes. The first would be the most obvious, because it would be noticeable to the naked eye and would be in contact with the motherboard. AM4 will use pins (PGA), while AM5 will use matrices (LGA)which means that AMD would have to reuse the Ryzen 5000 packaging process.

Another key change would be in a memory controller that would need to support DDR4because AM4 motherboards do not support DDR5 memory. Finally, the third change would be given by the support of the PCIe standard that would be limited to Gen4 in these new processors. It would have lower importance because the standard continues to offer a large bandwidth.

It seems that AMD could limit these versions of Zen 4 for AM4 to Low and medium rangewhich means we shouldn’t expect to see a Ryzen 9 7950X adapted for that outlet. Again, it makes sense, because it would allow AMD to provide available opportunity to those who want to upgrade their equipment and give it a new life without having to change the motherboard and memory. Let me remind you that the Ryzen 7000 could hit the market on September 15th.