New AMD Ryzen Zen 6 CPUs work on old AM5 motherboards, Asus appears to confirm

Asus has just seemingly revealed a crucial detail in the marketing materials for a new motherboard, which is that the BIOS for one of its new AM5 boards will support next-gen AMD Ryzen CPUs based on the new Zen 6 architecture. The new space-age Asus B850M AYW Gaming OC board is designed for overclockers looking to squeeze as much performance as possible out of their system, and a marketing image suggests it's going to support new AMD CPUs well into the future.

AMD is rumored to be making big changes to both core counts and clock speeds with Zen 6, with leaks circulating about a 24-core AMD CPU in the range, as well as 7GHz clock speeds. Importantly, it now looks as though you'll be able to simply flash the BIOS on your existing AM5 motherboard and pop in one of these new CPUs when you want to upgrade, without having to overhaul your whole system.

The marketing materials were spotted on Chinese retailer JD.com by tech site IT Home, and there's a section that clearly states "Zen6 64MB BIOS" in one of the images. That's a large capacity for a BIOS, suggesting that there will be wide CPU support across several generations, but it's the "Zen6" bit that really stands out - it means this motherboard not only supports today's AM5 CPUs, but will also support new ones based on the new Zen 6 architecture.

The long lifespans of AMD's CPU sockets have given the company a marked advantage over Intel when it comes to launching a new range of CPUs. The AM4 socket lasted through four generations, from first-gen Ryzen CPUs through to the 5000-series X3D CPUs still around today, and you could even flash the BIOS on an old first-gen Ryzen motherboard and put one of the new CPUs in it.

Comparatively, the LGA1851 socket used by current Intel Arrow Lake CPUs is expected to be retired for the company's new Nova Lake CPUs, not long after Intel had already ditched its LGA1700 socket. That means you'll probably need a whole new motherboard to upgrade to Nova Lake, while owners of existing AMD Ryzen 7000-series CPUs and upward may well be able to upgrade to a Zen 6 chip after simply buying a new CPU.

Zen 6 is still a long way off, though. If you're looking to upgrade your CPU now, take a look at our guide to buying the best gaming CPU, as well as our best gaming motherboard to find a home for it (and possibly future CPUs too). If you really want the best of the best, then check out our recent AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D review, as this chip handles both gaming and productivity extremely well.

Are you excited by the prospect of an easy Zen 6 CPU upgrade? Let us know your thoughts on our community Discord server.