Image Credit - AMD
The Ryzen 7000 series is only a few short months away from launching, and AMD is promising solid gains over the already excellent 5000 series. These gains are going to come at a price however. The 7000 series will require a new motherboard, DDR5 RAM, and more powerful cooling due to new power limits. All of this will likely provide about a 10% to 20% improvement compared to Ryzen 5000 series.
...but...
What if you have a perfectly workable AM4 motherboard and good DDR4 RAM though? Is there a way to save the DDR5 tax? Actually, there is.
Ryzen 5000 series compatibility has trickled down to some of the earliest AM4 boards. The performance difference between the 1000 or 2000 series can be substantial, and I can personally attest this as I upgraded from a Ryzen 2600 to a 5600 with a substantial improvement in gaming performance on a 5700XT GPU at 1080P. All I had to do was a quick BIOS update, and then drop in the new CPU. It might be that easy for you as well.
Today we have videos from Hardware Canucks an Hardware Unboxed looking at this very issue. If you're an early ZEN user, they're worth watching, especially if you're a gamer. Think about it this way; If all you had was a $1000 to upgrade your PC your path could look like this:
1. Ryzen 7000 CPU ($300) + 32GB DDR5 ($350) + AM5 Z670E motherboard ($300)
or....
2. Ryzen 5000 Series CPU ($200) + RTX 4080 ($800).
The second option is going to reap massive benefits as a gamer over the first, assuming you're upgrading from something like an GTX 1080 or RTX 2060. We're talking well more than double your current game performance. Upgrade situations don't come up all that often anymore, so it's definitely some food for thought.
In the meantime, check out the videos below, and make sure you subscribe to their awesome channels.
Last edited:
