AMD plans to support the new AM5 socket through 2025 and beyond

AMD Ryzen CPU inside the new AM5 CPU socket
(Image credit: AMD)

AMD has confirmed its commitment to the new AM5 CPU socket, promising to support the platform until at least 2025, and likely beyond. 

With the new AMD Ryzen 7000-series CPUs the red team is introducing its first new processor socket in six years, and the first LGA design, too. Yes, finally no need to keep an old credit card handy to fix those damned bent pins. Though you are going to need to be more careful about the pins now sitting in the new AM5 socket, however.

The old AM4 socket was around before even the first Zen processor, but it's being effectively retired from front line duty with the release of the next generation of AMD CPU. We shouldn't, however, expect AMD to start introducing a new socket every other year, like some people. 

*cough* Intel *cough*

"We built the platform around next generation technologies so that you can build today and upgrade as your needs grow over time," explains AMD's David McAfee at today's event. "And, just like AM4, we're making a commitment to support the AM5 platform with new technologies and next generation architectures through at least 2025. We're really excited about the next era of rising desktops with AM5."

But AM4 is not done: "We do expect AM4 and AM5 to coexist for quite some time," Lisa Su tells us. "You should expect that, like with AM4, we'll build out the entire AM5 stack, but it will it will take some time to build out and we want to make sure the cost points are right, as always."

That's an impressive commitment to both socket designs, and builds on AMD's focus on providing continued support around its platforms. The company has gone to great lengths to ensure the existing AM4 CPU coolers will all fit the new AM5 motherboards, meaning you may not even need to replace your cooler when Zen 5 appears in 2024.

Because, yes, AMD has also confirmed that it's on track with the new Zen 5 core design, too.

"I'm also glad," says AMD's Mark Papermaster, "to share that we remain on track for Zen 5 featuring a new grounds up core for 2024. Zen 5 will bring a combination of performance gains as well as further optimizations for the growing AI workloads."

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Dave James
Editor-in-Chief, Hardware

Dave has been gaming since the days of Zaxxon and Lady Bug on the Colecovision, and code books for the Commodore Vic 20 (Death Race 2000!). He built his first gaming PC at the tender age of 16, and finally finished bug-fixing the Cyrix-based system around a year later. When he dropped it out of the window. He first started writing for Official PlayStation Magazine and Xbox World many decades ago, then moved onto PC Format full-time, then PC Gamer, TechRadar, and T3 among others. Now he's back, writing about the nightmarish graphics card market, CPUs with more cores than sense, gaming laptops hotter than the sun, and SSDs more capacious than a Cybertruck.

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