Are there others stuck with AMD AM4 who don’t want to upgrade to AM5 due to the memory shortage problem?
Are there others stuck with AMD AM4 who don’t want to upgrade to AM5 due to the memory shortage problem?
I understand the situation is intense lately. The used market for old AM4 chips is really surging. It's hard to ignore what's happening. It seems natural that AMD might reintroduce the 5800X3D again—maybe even a new version like the 5850X3D? It looks like a great chance they're missing out. I'd definitely be interested in one! What do you think?
They are already outperforming DDR5/AM5 models. I just came across an article this morning about a sudden increase in sales of DDR3 systems in Asian markets. https://wccftech.com/am4-cpus-see-a-sudd...-in-sales/ https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-chief-con...rocessors/ https://www.techpowerup.com/345177/ddr3-...-shortages
The updates from the second article are really encouraging. Even though I’m not a specialist in chip manufacturing, it seems they still have the ability to produce Zen 3. It’ll be interesting to see how fast they can restart that supply chain. I guess I’ll keep my Ryzen 5 5600 for a while longer. Lol
There's a gap between "looking at" and actually doing anything. If they're still looking right now, consider lead times before they could get anything to a store. One scenario is do they have more unused but already produced chips that didn't make it to existing products already? I've lost track of the more newer AM4 releases but that was likely to help consume them. Do they have still more held back? If anyone is still on Zen 1 or Zen+, they could see significant gains going to Zen 2 or Zen 3 even if not a high end or X3D chip. If they are serious about getting more chips out of the fab, do they have fab allocation for it any time soon? Or could take it away from something else? Ok, say they get the wafer start. To get it out the other end is still on the order of months. Assemble/package into a product, test/bin, retail pack, ship it through distribution. This is not a short term thing to turn on and see in the shops quickly. They'll have to see this situation lasting long enough and deep enough to be worth doing this. I don't have the numbers, but my instinct says it is highly questionable if they take this route. Consider how many chips are going into new systems, vs upgrading existing ones? If upgrading, I guess it doesn't drain DDR4 supplies, but I do wonder how big that market really is. New systems means DDR4 consumption. If demand continues, at some point, that price will rise too and you're not better off than going AM5 anyway. Going back even further to DDR3, I think there is limited impact from that since everything that era is pretty old now. I've kept my Broadwell desktop system with 2x 8GB DDR3-2400. That's over 10 years old now. Some early Intel DDR4 systems could still use DDR3, but same question applies. Just how much supply is there to feed it? I think the last Intel consumer desktop CPU that officially supported DDR3 might be Kaby Lake. Hope you only need 4 cores. Seen suggestion Coffee Lake might still support it unofficially.
I’d really think about moving to a 5000X3D chip if they made it available again, but right now my setup feels fine with just one memory lane, so I’m worried I’ll hit a speed bump with my single RAM stick. I’m leaning toward keeping the 5600 and 2070 Super until the AM6 era, or maybe longer until the PS6 comes out and I switch back to console for big games.
Right now I’m running on a 5800X3D with 32GB of RAM—plenty for my current tasks. I don’t feel the urge to overhaul the setup or invest heavily in an AM5 board at this stage. On my laptop, things are different. I’m using an 11th gen FW13 with a somewhat unreliable motherboard that loses power quickly after a few charges. That’s why I considered switching to older AMD boards, but that would also require new RAM. With today’s prices, even getting a last-gen motherboard with DDR5 seems out of reach. I mostly use the laptop only during trips or visits, mainly in the evenings for streaming or browsing. Even then it’s not a big deal, and plugging it in to start up is just an annoyance.
I'm on AM4 and have the equivalent of a 5950x and 64GB RAM. I debated going AM5 and decided to wait until Zen 6 was out. At this time, while I want and can afford AM5, I can't justify an upgrade as there's no "unlock" from the upgrade - it doesn't enable anything new or experience changing. --- FWIW, I have a Zen 5 laptop (Strix Point) with 24GB RAM. It's more than good enough for general use.
Upgrading to a new motherboard is likely the top choice since having only one channel of RAM limits performance significantly, and you don’t have to spend a lot on a new board.