AMD to Support AM5 Platform with New Products Till 2025 and Beyond

[kapone32]

AM5 would have seen much more success if they had taken the logical and customer friendly route that Intel took, and supported DDR4 on AM5. That hurt AMD, at least initially, and I bet that is why AM4 is still very active, enough for new products. I would like to think AMD learned from that, but I won't hold my breath when AM6 comes in a few years.

I am sure AMD was aware of that. Lisa Su herself said during the launch of AM5 that AM4 would continue to be supported. She did mention that 180+ million AM4 systems were sold and that is a huge customer base. The MB vendors are more to blame with $1000 top end boards and between $500-$700 for mid range. DDR5 was achievable for $200 all of these prices are in Canadian. The 7800X3D is the fulcrum of AM5 sales for me and it also at a time where B650/E boards sit around $200-$400. If you are building a new PC, AM5 makes sense for CPU upgrades. If you are already on AM4 and don't have a 5000 series chip, these new chips on AM4 make complete sense. A 5700X3D is $100 less than a 5800X3D. You could also get a 5900X for $359 or $20 more. When you really look at it with either you are Golden. If the 8900X3D supports 5.6 Ghz on the Vcache CCD, I will be buying one. My nephew has a 3600 based system, the 5700X3D looks like a nice upgrade for him for his Bday in May. I would not worry about AMD at all, if anything the MSI Claw more cemented their position in the APU space. That allows them to sell the 8700G for more than the 5700X3D and just $20 less than the 5800X3D. Even their GPUs seem to be selling well as I see about 4 models at the store (7600Xt, 7800Xt, 7900XTX, 7600) while there are plenty of 4080s and 4070Ti variants. The thing is you can buy 2 7800XTs for the price of a 4070TI and 4 7600XTs for the price of a 4080.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

I sure hope so. The runaway success of AM4 should have taught AMD a thing or two as it brought them from the brink to absolutely battering Intel. If you were to tell me eight years ago that we'd be here today, I would've said "You're nuts!" but here we are.

I prefer to have new socket for ZEN 6. And new chipset series for motherboards with finally natural support of USB4(why not USB4 v2.0?). Also new series motherboards with new chipsets in 2026-2027 maybe finally will got 10G Lan with next Realtek NIC and 10G will not anymore option only for premium prised model but for masses.

 

[Wirko]

Huh?

I prefer to have new socket for ZEN 6.

That would be justified if it brought about some substantial improvement, for example, a third 64-bit memory channel. But such an expansion wouldn't come for free, nor for cheap.
Anything else? Chipset link will probably be upgraded to PCIe 5 x4 and the two remaining PCIe 5 x4 links may get lane-splitting abilities. All of that can be done on AM5.

We could also speculate about an "AM5+" socket. It would be a surprise but not a big one.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

That would be justified if it brought about some substantial improvement, for example, a third 64-bit memory channel.

No, because AM6 I believe that will come with DDR6.

 

[Wirko]

No, because AM6 I believe that will come with DDR6.

Agreed. Either DDR6 or PCIe 6, whichever arrives first. None of them will make sense on consumer platforms for a few more years but we can't know what the industry will be pushing.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I prefer to have new socket for ZEN 6. And new chipset series for motherboards with finally natural support of USB4(why not USB4 v2.0?). Also new series motherboards with new chipsets in 2026-2027 maybe finally will got 10G Lan with next Realtek NIC and 10G will not anymore option only for premium prised model but for masses.

I have no use for 10GB ethernet so I'd really rather not be forced to pay extra for it (which would undoubtedly happen). If you have use for 10Gb ethernet, you're a very small proportion of the population. Premium boards are made for you. If you want the bells and whistles like 10Gb ethernet, you can pay for it. I don't even use 1Gb.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

I have no use for 10GB ethernet so I'd really rather not be forced to pay extra for it (which would undoubtedly happen). If you have use for 10Gb ethernet, you're a very small proportion of the population. Premium boards are made for you. If you want the bells and whistles like 10Gb ethernet, you can pay for it. I don't even use 1Gb.

It's 10G in my country and it's really a bit expensive for me right now. So, I'm not using this offer. But this is a few years from now, so the price will drop. Also, Realtek is really mass producing and I think it would charge quite a bit cheaper than Marvell's AQtion AQC113C controller costs today.

 

[AusWolf]

I have no use for 10GB ethernet so I'd really rather not be forced to pay extra for it (which would undoubtedly happen). If you have use for 10Gb ethernet, you're a very small proportion of the population. Premium boards are made for you. If you want the bells and whistles like 10Gb ethernet, you can pay for it. I don't even use 1Gb.

Agreed. It's funny that we live in the era of 5G phones, but cable broadband speed hasn't even reached 100 Mbps in my area, yet. Besides, I'm only renting my home, with limited options to route cables, so a good WiFi chip and quality antennas are much more useful to me.

 

[Avro Arrow]

AM5 would have seen much more success if they had taken the logical and customer friendly route that Intel took, and supported DDR4 on AM5. That hurt AMD, at least initially, and I bet that is why AM4 is still very active, enough for new products. I would like to think AMD learned from that, but I won't hold my breath when AM6 comes in a few years.

I agree with you but AMD's socket nomenclature has been about the RAM type it supports ever since AM2. AM2 and AM2+ supported DDR2, AM3 and AM3+ supported DDR3, AM4 supports DDR4 and AM5 supports DDR5. Part of the problem with AMD is that their design philosophy is to put the RAM controller on the CPU die while historically, Intel's practice was to include it with the motherboard's northbridge chipset. That makes it a lot easier to mix and match RAM with CPUs. AMD would've had to put two RAM controllers on their CPU dice and that would've screwed up their Ryzen setups as well as made things more expensive. I do wish that it wasn't like this because I have 64GB of DDR4 that will be useless when I finally do upgrade. It will be years from now though because I have an R7-5800X3D and an RX 7900 XTX.

However, to be fair, Intel's current scheme of having two possible RAM types is exceedingly rare. The last time that I saw it wasn't even on a platform, it was on a single motherboard, the ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA. It was an early LGA775 motherboard that had perhaps the most innovative northbridge that I've ever seen, the VIA PT880 Ultra. I purchased this board to make switching from my Pentium-4 platform easier. That board supported both DDR and DDR2 along with both AGP and PCI-Express. Again, it was because the RAM controller was part of the northbridge, not the CPU itself. Such a setup would've been impossible on an AMD platform.

What AMD did that I thought was a serious mistake (and annoyed the hell out of me as well) was the creation of the Ryzen 9 7900X3D, easily the most pointless Zen5 CPU ever released (the Ryzen 9 7950X3D is in second place for that "honour"). Instead of making a CPU that nobody would buy, they should have instead cut the R9-7900X3D dice in half, put the 3D V-Cache on both CCX's and sold them as the R5-7600X3D. Their pricing structure would've easily supported it as their X3D CPUs were priced the same as the X CPUs in the tier above. So, the R9-7900X3D cost the same as the R9-7950X, the R7-7800X3D cost the same as the R9-7900X, and the R5-7600X3D would've cost the same as the R7-7700X. I believe that the AM5 adoption rate would've tripled if they had done that. Instead, they created CPUs that were so cynical that I found their existence downright offensive.

The R9-7950X3D was almost as useless because it's weaker in games than the far less-expensive R7-7800X3D and it's weaker in production than the also less-expensive R9-7950X so it was pretty pointless. The R9-7900X3D was the same situation only worse because it was even weaker in games than the R9-7950X3D and weaker in productivity than the R9-7900X which makes it completely pointless.

An R5-7600X3D would've been a guaranteed home-run, but instead AMD decided to bunt.

Not to mention, a 5800X3D is more than enough for any gamer. I say this, owning a 7800X3D, as I only bought it due to curiosity, not need. I wouldn't recommend anyone with an AM4 system to follow my path, as it is a waste of money (a nice waste, but still a waste).

As an R7-5800X3D owner, I couldn't agree more. I expect around five years before I'll be forced to upgrade (I could be wrong about the five years but it'll be at least three).

It's 10G in my country and it's really a bit expensive for me right now. So, I'm not using this offer. But this is a few years from now, so the price will drop. Also, Realtek is really mass producing and I think it would charge quite a bit cheaper than Marvell's AQtion AQC113C controller costs today.

I hope that you're right. Falling prices are good for all of us. However, there's something else to consider... If you want 10Gbps ethernet, you could just buy an add-on card like this one for less than $20USD:

10G Double Port Ethernet Card - $18USD

People these days never seem to remember that not everything has to be on-board. We have PCI-Express slots for a reason yet most people leave them empty.

Agreed. It's funny that we live in the era of 5G phones, but cable broadband speed hasn't even reached 100 Mbps in my area, yet. Besides, I'm only renting my home, with limited options to route cables, so a good WiFi chip and quality antennas are much more useful to me.

I just have CAT5 cables running everywhere (not out in the open, but you know what I mean). I like my internet hard-wired because my apartment is long and rectangular. The design doesn't lend itself to high-speed WiFi very well. I used to use ethernet over powerline adapters and those things are awesome, but they all eventually burn out and they're not cheap. I use WiFi for my phone and tablet but I don't do any serious file transfers with those so it doesn't matter. On the other hand, downloading a game from Steam would probably take 1.5-2x as long as it does now with my PC being hard-wired.

I also think it's ridiculous that we're using 5G cellphones when a 50MB app on a phone is considered large. I'm still using a 4G phone and I don't have any desire to upgrade to something that will do the exact same things that my phone does now.

 

[kapone32]

I agree with you but AMD's socket nomenclature has been about the RAM type it supports ever since AM2. AM2 and AM2+supported DDR2, AM3 and AM3+ supported DDR3 and AM4 supports DDR5. Part of the problem with AMD is that their design philosophy is to put the RAM controller on the CPU die while historically, Intel's practice was to include it with the motherboard's northbridge chipset. That makes it a lot easier to mix and match RAM with CPUs. AMD would've had to put two RAM controllers on their CPU dice and that would've screwed up their Ryzen setups as well as made things more expensive. I do wish that it wasn't like this because I have 64GB of DDR4 that will be useless when I finally do upgrade. It will be years from now though because I have an R7-5800X3D and an RX 7900 XTX.

However, to be fair, Intel's current scheme of having two possible RAM types is exceedingly rare. The last time that I saw it wasn't even on a platform, it was on a single motherboard, the ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA. It was an early LGA775 motherboard that had perhaps the most innovative northbridge that I've ever seen, the VIA PT880 Ultra. I purchased this board to make switching from my Pentium-4 platform easier. That board supported both DDR and DDR2 along with both AGP and PCI-Express. Again, it was because the RAM controller was part of the northbridge, not the CPU itself. Such a setup would've been impossible on an AMD platform.

What AMD did that I thought was a serious mistake (and annoyed the hell out of me as well) was the creation of the Ryzen 9 7900X3D, easily the most pointless Zen5 CPU ever released (the Ryzen 9 7950X3D is in second place for that "honour"). Instead of making a CPU that nobody would buy, they should have instead cut the R9-7900X3D dice in half, put the 3D V-Cache on both CCX's and sold them as the R5-7600X3D. Their pricing structure would've easily supported it as their X3D CPUs were priced the same as the X CPUs in the tier above. So, the R9-7900X3D cost the same as the R9-7950X, the R7-7800X3D cost the same as the R9-7900X, and the R5-7600X3D would've cost the same as the R7-7700X. I believe that the AM5 adoption rate would've tripled if they had done that. Instead, they created CPUs that were so cynical that I found their existence downright offensive.

The R9-7950X3D was almost as useless because it's weaker in games than the far less-expensive R7-7800X3D and it's weaker in production than the also less-expensive R9-7950X so it was pretty pointless. The R9-7900X3D was the same situation only worse because it was even weaker in games than the R9-7950X3D and weaker in productivity than the R9-7900X which makes it completely pointless.

An R5-7600X3D would've been a guaranteed home-run, but instead AMD decided to bunt.

As an R7-5800X3D owner, I couldn't agree more. I expect around five years before I'll be forced to upgrade (I could be wrong about the five years but it'll be at least three).

I hope that you're right. Falling prices are good for all of us. However, there's something else to consider... If you want 10Gbps ethernet, you could just buy an add-on card like this one for less than $20USD:

10G Double Port Ethernet Card - $18USD

People these days never seem to remember that not everything has to be on-board. We have PCI-Express slots for a reason yet most people leave them empty.

I just have CAT5 cables running everywhere (not out in the open, but you know what I mean). I like my internet hard-wired because my apartment is long and rectangular. The design doesn't lend itself to high-speed WiFi very well. I used to use ethernet over powerline adapters and those things are awesome, but they all eventually burn out and they're not cheap. I use WiFi for my phone and tablet but I don't do any serious file transfers with those so it doesn't matter. On the other hand, downloading a game from Steam would probably take 1.5-2x as long as it does now with my PC being hard-wired.

I also think it's ridiculous that we're using 5G cellphones when a 50MB app on a phone is considered large. I'm still using a 4G phone and I don't have any desire to upgrade to something that will do the exact same things that my phone does now.

Well I have a 7900X3D and it drives more than 3-5 GB/S to my GPU vs a 5800X3D. I do not in any way regret my decision. I get the snappiness of 12 cores with the 1% joy of Vcache. There is also the fact that the 7800X3D is not faster than it's brothers in every Game. I know I may be in the minority but I promise you that if you got a 7900X3D you would not regret it.

 

[gffermari]

Well, although the 5800X3D is decent, not for 5 years as was written above, the 7800X3D is miles ahead in cpu limited conditions.
If the 9800X3D is that faster than the 7800X3D, I don’t think we see a 10000 series on AM5. AMD will kill AM5 and introduce AM6 and 10KX3D regardless the memory support tradition they have been following.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

If the 9800X3D is that faster

Possible non "3D" 9800 will be game performance equivalent to 7800X3D or even little better. Has rumors that ZEN 5 will arrive with good increase of IPC and multi-thread performance.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Well I have a 7900X3D and it drives more than 3-5 GB/S to my GPU vs a 5800X3D. I do not in any way regret my decision. I get the snappiness of 12 cores with the 1% joy of Vcache. There is also the fact that the 7800X3D is not faster than it's brothers in every Game. I know I may be in the minority but I promise you that if you got a 7900X3D you would not regret it.

I believe you, I'm sure the gaming performance is excellent. It's just that everything is relative. Yes, the R7-7800X3D isn't always faster but it is cheaper and it is never slower. Please understand that I was speaking from the perspective of what was the best course of action for AMD to take and the truth is that the R9-5900X3D isn't selling well and never did. This is easy to see by the price cuts that were made. When AMD first released AM5, people were unhappy with the cost-of-entry because, at the time, DDR5, motherboards and even the CPUs themselves were VERY expensive (unless you were buying an R5-7600 or 7600X). This was bad for AMD because when you're releasing a long-lived platform like AM4 was, the more users you get on board in the beginning, the better it will be for you because those users will be locked into your CPUs for the life of said platform. The users will be happy because they'll be getting a much better deal on your CPUs vs. your competitors (no motherboard cost is huge) and your competitor is shut out of your customers' wallets for years.

From AMD's perspective, it would've been far more consumer-friendly and profitable for them to have made an R5-7600X3D instead of the R9-5900X3D (or make both if they wanted to). Sure, the R9-5900X3D works for you and that's great. The problem is that most people don't want it but I would be willing to bet that a good number of R5-7600 and R5-7600X owners would've been willing to stretch to the price of the R7-7700X if a 6-core X3D CPU was on offer. It would've been an incredible gaming value, for many, too incredible to pass up.

Instead... they didn't. This is how AMD shoots itself in the foot through its own stupidity.

 

[kapone32]

I believe you, I'm sure the gaming performance is excellent. It's just that everything is relative. Yes, the R7-7800X3D isn't always faster but it is cheaper and it is never slower. Please understand that I was speaking from the perspective of what was the best course of action for AMD to take and the truth is that the R9-5900X3D isn't selling well and never did. This is easy to see by the price cuts that were made. When AMD first released AM5, people were unhappy with the cost-of-entry because, at the time, DDR5, motherboards and even the CPUs themselves were VERY expensive (unless you were buying an R5-7600 or 7600X). This was bad for AMD because when you're releasing a long-lived platform like AM4 was, the more users you get on board in the beginning, the better it will be for you because those users will be locked into your CPUs for the life of said platform. The users will be happy because they'll be getting a much better deal on your CPUs vs. your competitors (no motherboard cost is huge) and your competitor is shut out of your customers' wallets for years.

From AMD's perspective, it would've been far more consumer-friendly and profitable for them to have made an R5-7600X3D instead of the R9-5900X3D (or make both if they wanted to). Sure, the R9-5900X3D works for you and that's great. The problem is that most people don't want it but I would be willing to bet that a good number of R5-7600 and R5-7600X owners would've been willing to stretch to the price of the R7-7700X if a 6-core X3D CPU was on offer. It would've been an incredible gaming value, for many, too incredible to pass up.

Instead... they didn't. This is how AMD shoots itself in the foot through its own stupidity.

I understand your sentiment. One of the things that Lisa Su has said is that she does not want AMD to be considered the "budget brand". As such what they may have done in the past to me is not as foolish as before. It may seem crazy but CPUs like the 3300X have influenced AMD to do what they have done. I understand that AMD could have made a 7600X3D but even on AM4 how long was it before we saw a 5600X3D? AMD likes to keep the cost of their CPUs as high as possible but right now the 7900X3D is less than the 5900X was and that is a good thing. I have said this before but the MSI Claw has basically justified AMD's position in the handheld space. If you think that is small look at AMD Radeon Graphics position on Steam Charts and realize the penetration handhelds have had. For example the Asus Rog Ally is cheaper to buy than a 8700G based system right now.

I think that they are doing just fine in the CPU space especially as this is the first generation of Hanfheld APUs with RDNA Graphics. I was watching ETA Prime this moring and he built a 8700G based system using an AS Rock A620 (120 hz support on HDMI) and was getting over 140 FPS at 1080P low playing CP2077 with Frame Gen. The next chip should be even faster.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I understand your sentiment. One of the things that Lisa Su has said is that she does not want AMD to be considered the "budget brand". As such what they may have done in the past to me is not as foolish as before. It may seem crazy but CPUs like the 3300X have influenced AMD to do what they have done. I understand that AMD could have made a 7600X3D but even on AM4 how long was it before we saw a 5600X3D? AMD likes to keep the cost of their CPUs as high as possible but right now the 7900X3D is less than the 5900X was and that is a good thing. I have said this before but the MSI Claw has basically justified AMD's position in the handheld space. If you think that is small look at AMD Radeon Graphics position on Steam Charts and realize the penetration handhelds have had. For example the Asus Rog Ally is cheaper to buy than a 8700G based system right now.

I think that they are doing just fine in the CPU space especially as this is the first generation of Hanfheld APUs with RDNA Graphics. I was watching ETA Prime this moring and he built a 8700G based system using an AS Rock A620 (120 hz support on HDMI) and was getting over 140 FPS at 1080P low playing CP2077 with Frame Gen. The next chip should be even faster.

Oh, I totally understand what you're saying and most of the time, keeping their CPUs as expensive as possible is the right way to go, but not with the first-gen of a specific platform because locking customers down to the new AM5 platform should've been their top-priority, even if they had to make less profit. The reason for this is the same reason that Sony makes essentially zero profit on every Playstation that they sell. They want you to be locked into it and then you have to buy games (which is where they make their $$$). This model would work great with AMD CPUs because of how long their platforms last. See, motherboard makers are charging more for the motherboards because AM4 taught them that they might not be seeing your money again for seven-odd years so they make sure that they get their profits from you when you buy your first (and possibly only) AM5 board. It's up to AMD to make it worth your while to pay that extra money to get onto the AM5 platform and they would do that by having some killer deal that most people wouldn't be able to refuse. Getting an R5-7600X3D for the price of the R7-7700X, even with the cost of the motherboard and RAM would be an awesome deal because that CPU would leave the previous king, the R7-5800X3D in the proverbial dust.

If you had invested in the AM5 platform, they have you because you'd have to buy a motherboard to get off of it and if the platform is long-lived (which it probably will be), all of your CPU upgrades are going to be to AMD models. It's great for them because people would probably get top-end models for their upgrades and it's great for users because they get to keep using a motherboard that they already own which makes for much cheaper (and much easier) upgrades. What AMD should have done is release an R5-7600X3D to get gamers on-board and then omit a budget X3D CPU in the later models.

The thing about AM5 is that once you have a user on-board, you're guaranteed more CPU sales in the future. That's what they should've focused on.

 

[chrcoluk]

I feel like saying the 7800X3D is pointless for gaming is something I cant agree with, in recent years I have had a far bigger impact on gaming with CPU than GPU.

This applies to both PC and consoles.

If we think about the consoles, the clear upgrade for them was not the GPU, not the NVME, but the CPU, they finally dropped jaguar, and you can really tell when playing on consoles now, the experience is so much better. However on those platforms the CPU is like the forgotten child, the under appreciated if you like.

On PC, I feel its similar but perhaps less pronounced as people upgrading are not necessarily having such a big jump like from jaguar to Zen 2. Many of the recent titles reviewed it was revealed problems went away when you stuck a latest gen intel in there or a X3D AMD in there. Trying to play one of these titles on a CPU from say 2020 was really painful. GPUs are far easier to deal with, turn down resolution, turn down shadows, turn down lighting, you will eventually have a playable game. Whilst if the CPU is bottlenecking you "might" if turning down the frame rate get out of the mess, if that isnt a go you have to upgrade or grit your teeth.

When I upgraded my platform so many games which previously had issues are now much more playable. FF15 is an example, on even CPUs just a few years old (the game is older), the game will just freeze for a second or two as you playing it, is videos still being made about it. But on a latest gen CPU, the game is finally rid of those freezes. Same with FF13-2, LR, tales of zestiria, and many other titles, trend here is JRPGs which are usually horribly optimised for PC.

On the subject of AM5, from where I sit AMD has/had a degree of arrogance, they have finally come good in the CPU space, and are in a good place with the products they are producing, this is now reflected in their pricing, in particular the platform cost. I expect AMD simply felt they would sell huge numbers of AM5, even with high pricing and a DDR5 requirement. I think the pricing is a barrier, but also there will be people waiting for a AM5 new set of CPUs and maybe new boards with the hope the DDR5 compatibility issues get resolved. For some reason AM5 boards cost more than Intel boards, I think this is either due to the AMD chipset having a higher licensing cost or board vendors knowing the boards last longer for CPU support are compensating themselves. Although I have noticed things are going that way on intel's side also with Z790 being more expensive than Z690.

If AM5 supported DDR4 and had a lower cost, I think there would have been much more jumping on it, but board vendors likely would have wanted compensation for that.

 

[kapone32]

I think this is either due to the AMD chipset having a higher licensing cost or board vendors knowing the boards last longer for CPU support are compensating themselves.

Exactly, I can't see myself buying a new board when the next CPU launches. I also feel that AMD are also playing the long Game with AM5. I mean how many AM4 CPUs have been launched in the last 12 months. I am sure with how featured X670E are that all of the board vendors also came to that calculus. There are boards from MSI, Asus and Gigabyte that are $1000. There is no example of that on AM4 but if I remember the Asus X370 Crosshair was $499. The very last boards on AM4 (X570S) were expensive but featured. I will say that X670E boards are very heavy though.

As far as DDR4 support I agree but at the same time it is not like AM4 is not viable.

 

[AusWolf]

Well I have a 7900X3D and it drives more than 3-5 GB/S to my GPU vs a 5800X3D. I do not in any way regret my decision. I get the snappiness of 12 cores with the 1% joy of Vcache. There is also the fact that the 7800X3D is not faster than it's brothers in every Game. I know I may be in the minority but I promise you that if you got a 7900X3D you would not regret it.

I don't regret getting the 7800X3D, either. It's very efficient, easy to cool, and plenty fast. It's only that I'm never in any scenario when I'm CPU-limited enough to actually use it. Maybe if I also had a 4090, but I don't.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I feel like saying the 7800X3D is pointless for gaming is something I cant agree with, in recent years I have had a far bigger impact on gaming with CPU than GPU.

This applies to both PC and consoles.

If we think about the consoles, the clear upgrade for them was not the GPU, not the NVME, but the CPU, they finally dropped jaguar, and you can really tell when playing on consoles now, the experience is so much better. However on those platforms the CPU is like the forgotten child, the under appreciated if you like.

On PC, I feel its similar but perhaps less pronounced as people upgrading are not necessarily having such a big jump like from jaguar to Zen 2. Many of the recent titles reviewed it was revealed problems went away when you stuck a latest gen intel in there or a X3D AMD in there. Trying to play one of these titles on a CPU from say 2020 was really painful. GPUs are far easier to deal with, turn down resolution, turn down shadows, turn down lighting, you will eventually have a playable game. Whilst if the CPU is bottlenecking you "might" if turning down the frame rate get out of the mess, if that isnt a go you have to upgrade or grit your teeth.

When I upgraded my platform so many games which previously had issues are now much more playable. FF15 is an example, on even CPUs just a few years old (the game is older), the game will just freeze for a second or two as you playing it, is videos still being made about it. But on a latest gen CPU, the game is finally rid of those freezes. Same with FF13-2, LR, tales of zestiria, and many other titles, trend here is JRPGs which are usually horribly optimised for PC.

On the subject of AM5, from where I sit AMD has/had a degree of arrogance, they have finally come good in the CPU space, and are in a good place with the products they are producing, this is now reflected in their pricing, in particular the platform cost. I expect AMD simply felt they would sell huge numbers of AM5, even with high pricing and a DDR5 requirement. I think the pricing is a barrier, but also there will be people waiting for a AM5 new set of CPUs and maybe new boards with the hope the DDR5 compatibility issues get resolved. For some reason AM5 boards cost more than Intel boards, I think this is either due to the AMD chipset having a higher licensing cost or board vendors knowing the boards last longer for CPU support are compensating themselves. Although I have noticed things are going that way on intel's side also with Z790 being more expensive than Z690.

If AM5 supported DDR4 and had a lower cost, I think there would have been much more jumping on it, but board vendors likely would have wanted compensation for that.

I had no hope that they'd support AM4 but I do think that they should've come out with something so good that gamers wouldn't have been able to say no, like an R5-7600X3D for the same price as an R7-7700X. AMD puts their memory controllers on the CPU die which makes it less modular of a design while Intel tends to put their memory controllers into their northbridge chipsets. This means that, theoretically, Intel could use any type of RAM with any of their CPUs.

Exactly, I can't see myself buying a new board when the next CPU launches. I also feel that AMD are also playing the long Game with AM5. I mean how many AM4 CPUs have been launched in the last 12 months. I am sure with how featured X670E are that all of the board vendors also came to that calculus. There are boards from MSI, Asus and Gigabyte that are $1000. There is no example of that on AM4 but if I remember the Asus X370 Crosshair was $499. The very last boards on AM4 (X570S) were expensive but featured. I will say that X670E boards are very heavy though.

As far as DDR4 support I agree but at the same time it is not like AM4 is not viable.

Well, as it turns out, AMD is supporting AM4 through 2025, let alone AM5. I just read that they released another AM4 GT-series APU. That blows my mind because it means that AM4 will have lasted for EIGHT YEARS! (2017-2025). I came across this little nugget:
Guaranteed software updates for AM4 CPUs until at least 2025

I don't regret getting the 7800X3D, either. It's very efficient, easy to cool, and plenty fast. It's only that I'm never in any scenario when I'm CPU-limited enough to actually use it. Maybe if I also had a 4090, but I don't.

I would totally get that CPU if I didn't already have a 5800X3D on my AM4 platform. Its performance and efficiency are out of this world. I would go so far as to say that the 7800X3D the greatest gaming CPU that I've ever seen. These charts just say it all:

Gaming performance:

Power Use:

Compared to Intel's fastest gaming CPU, it's 6% faster on average and it uses less than 25% of the power. This is why I laugh when I see someone talking about how GeForce uses less power than Radeon but there they are with an Intel 13/14700K(S)/900K(S) CPU. It just destroys their credibility to me.