Now that AMD has officially confirmed that the upcoming Ryzen 9000 will once again be built on the AM5 socket, motherboard manufacturers such as MSI and ASUS have verified their existing models, meaning all you’ll need to upgrade is a simple BIOS update.
Spotted by Videocardz, the Asus ROG Strix B650E-I was the first AM5 motherboard seen to support the new AGESA Combo AM5 Pi 1.1.7.0 Patch software, which could flash the BIOS and get ready for the incoming chip generation. However, according to this source, MSI went one step further by showcasing a press release explaining that the “MSI 600 Series motherboard will support AMD’s Next-Gen CPU.”
This news further leans into the fact that the next generation of AM5 chipset hardware, codenamed Granite Ridge, will debut towards the end of the year, which is consistent with what we saw with the launch of AM5 with the Ryzen 7000 Series back in 2022. Generally speaking, every two years, Team Red will showcase a new upgrade for its existing socket, with the new line rumoured to support up to 16 cores – matching that of the Ryzen 9 7950X model. The main difference, therefore, is likely to be the clock speeds and threads.
AMD tends to support its sockets considerably longer than Intel, and early signs showing manufacturers will offer updates for the new hardware are encouraging. This points to the fact that the next-generation AM5 will likely be evolutionary, such as the jump from Intel’s 13th Gen Raptor Lake over to the current 14th Gen refreshes, rather than earth-shattering, such as the jump from AM4 to AM5. Said socket change was the company’s first big innovation for six years, meaning AM5 could be around until 2028.
It’s a commendable pro-consumer move, meaning you won’t necessarily have to run out and buy a top-end motherboard every time you want to upgrade, but there’s no telling if this is a one-off. AM5 exclusively uses DDR5 RAM and is PCIe 5.0 ready, so there’s less to backdate as with Intel’s LGA 1700 socket, which has support for both; this could work in the Red Corner’s favour. We’ll be updating you as soon as we know more about Ryzen 9000.