All technology has a disruptive point where there is no turning back and, above all, which ends up being quickly forgotten by the news in the PC sector. In the case of AMD, those of Lisa Su are so clear that they have allowed Intel to roam freely at a time when only the blue giant can assume leadership: with DDR5 memory. Therefore, AMD is going to take a step forward and forget the past: its Ryzen 7000 will only support DDR5.
You don’t have to be very smart to understand that a disaster like the one that Intel is suffering with its Core 12 with regard to the implementation of DDR5 can only be assumed by a company like Pat Gelsinger’s. Unfortunately, AMD cannot assume the leadership of such a jump at present and this represents an opportunity that is now confirmed. Why limit your processors in user options?
The Ryzen 7000 only with DDR5: prepare the pocket
Prices continue to skyrocket when it comes to new DDR5 memory. There is a shortage of PMIC chips and this is raising the price too much, but not the NAND Flash that is going down slightly to balance the stock and supply and demand. The problem is that this fact of high prices does not have an end date, but the presentation of the Ryzen 7000 is approaching and if there are no changes, AMD can enter a dangerous game with Intel.
Alder Lake and Raptor Lake are Intel’s commitment to reach all market segments by offering chipsets that support DDR4 or DDR5, while their CPUs have support for both, thus giving the user the possibility of buying the board that suits their pocket depending on of memory to acquire. But AMD won’t play that game and jumps to DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 with no turning back.
That is, the X670 and B650 chipsets will not have support for DDR4 and there is speculation behind the scenes that it is directly “fault” of the Ryzen 7000 processors for not including support in their IMC .
Chiplet-based chipset, bet on the future?
It is not that we are going back to the days of northbridge and southbridge, at least not technically as such, but the truth is that there are more than rumors about the fact that X670 as a chipset will be at least a set of two chiplets . In fact, there is a lot of controversy about this since there is talk that some models will come with two chips instead of one.
We do not know if this leaked information refers to the fact that X670 is a dual chipset or that there are two versions of it depending on its performance, or simply the first one is dual and B650 is the monolithic chip that has been manufactured so far.
In any case, and if AMD is smart, it will wait for the price drop in DDR5 to launch its processors, which is expected in the second half of the year given that manufacturers are trying to balance supply and demand with the PMICs and VRMs that they include these new RAM memories, because if AMD has effectively eliminated DDR4 support in its I/O Die, then we are facing a platform that is not going to be cheap at all and is also a disruptive change towards the premium segment. Will AMD get it right with this new market approach?