I was genuinely surprised by the re-release of the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D earlier this year. A chip I thought long dead was back in 10th Anniversary form, after a resurrection process AMD's David McAfee described as "very hard, actually" to our Dave at Computex 2026.
Now AMD's Travis Kirsch has spoken to Japanese outlet Tech+ about more of the thinking behind the re-release, and it seems the idea started at the very top. "Originally, several years ago, I believe Lisa [Su, AMD CEO] was one of the people who suggested reviving the Ryzen 7 5800X3D."
"It was like a final gift to our loyal users who had used our AM4 for almost 10 years, giving them one last chance to upgrade their PCs using DDR4 systems," Kirsch continues. "However, this required restarting the production lines, which took some time. In short, this was planned before the changes in the memory market occurred, and it was not considered as a solution to the DDR5 shortage."
That may be the case, but the timing still worked out pretty well for AMD. DDR5 prices had been surging since October 2025, while the chip's eventual release date of June 25, 2026 put it right in the middle of a difficult year for PC gamers. Many of whom may well have been looking to upgrade older, AM4 rigs without making the switch to the DDR5-only AM5 socket.
Kirsch was also asked about the current shipment ratio of AM4 to AM5 processors. "I cannot give you the exact ratio," he says. "But I can say that AM4, which supports DDR4, remains very strong."
"As you know, AM4 shipments were very stable until we started to see fluctuations in memory prices, while AM5, which supports DDR5, continued to grow," says Kirsch. "In terms of AM4, it continues to perform well. As for AM5, recently we have seen growth in models equipped with 3D V-Cache."
Well, you didn't expect actual figures, did you? And as for future platforms, Kirsch remains similarly cagey about any talk around the AM5 socket's eventual replacement:
"I cannot answer when AM6 will be released, or whether it will even be released at all. However, I would like to explain our strategy. Platform lifespan is paramount for end users. It is important to have the option to simply upgrade the processor three years after purchasing a platform.
"We understand that constantly refreshing the platform is not good for our partners or end users," says Kirsch. "So, when that time comes in the future, we will introduce a new platform, but we don't know when that will be."
AMD's next-generation Zen 6-based CPUs will use the existing AM5 socket, and rumours suggest they'll be pushing clockspeeds to new heights later this year. And as for the chips after that? We're probably looking at 2029 or later. So, there's plenty of time for AM5 to stick around, and who knows—maybe it'll be just as long-lasting as AM4 in the end.