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AMD officially launched its Zen 5 lineup of high-end processors at Computex this week, stating they’ll be available for DIY PC builders and OEM system integrators in July. The company also unveiled a revamped X870 chipset for AM5 motherboards. It’s theoretically designed to be paired with the new CPUs, but according to a new report, they won’t be available when the CPUs launch. Instead, AMD will go to market with its existing AM5 600-series motherboards.
Word of AMD’s launch plans for its upcoming X870 motherboards comes from Hardwareluxx in Germany. The site reports that motherboard companies exhibiting at Computex were surprised to find out they could show off their X870 motherboards at the show. The surprise is because they were reportedly led to believe that even though the new Ryzen CPUs are launching in July, the accompanying X870 boards won’t be launching at the same time but are coming a bit later. However, since the new Zen 5 processors work just fine on existing 600-series motherboards, AMD expects upgraders to use their existing boards and newcomers to buy a board already on the market.
We might have to wait a bit longer to find out whether the new X870 motherboard is a wise upgrade over the existing X670 boards.
Credit: AMD
Another possible reason AMD isn’t making sure new motherboards are available at launch is that there isn’t a compelling reason to upgrade from X670(E). Hardwareluxx plainly states the new chipsets don’t offer any innovations or improvements over the existing platform, which is pretty harsh but could be close to the truth. In AMD’s announcement, it stated that X870 and X870E (extreme) will offer USB 4 support, PCIe Gen 5 for GPU and storage, and higher EXPO memory frequencies, but that’s all it’s revealed so far. That’s certainly not nothing regarding new features, but it remains to be seen if those will move the needcomple for AMD fans.
Current AM5 motherboard owners should expect a new BIOS shortly to support the latest processors, so they are all set in their upgrade path. People who want to upgrade to the Ryzen 9000 can choose from many available boards at a wide range of price points. This situation starkly contrasts with the Zen 4 launch in 2022, when both X670 motherboards and memory were expensive.