Your AMD Ryzen motherboard will support not one but two more CPU gens, says leak

You won't need to upgrade your motherboard or DDR5 memory if you want to upgrade to the next generation of AMD Ryzen gaming CPUs, or even the generation after that, according to the latest leak. The latest rumor is that AMD Zen 7 CPUs, which aren't due for years yet, will continue to use Socket AM5 and will be compatible with motherboards that are now several years old.

That's potentially good news for anyone who's paired their AMD CPU with the best gaming motherboard they can afford from our buying guide, as it means they'll be able to upgrade to a brand new CPU a few years down the line. In fact, according to the latest rumors, AMD Zen 7 is shaping up to offer up to 32 cores in a single CPU package, which would be a substantial upgrade over today's CPUs.

This rumor comes from YouTube tech leaker Moore's Law is Dead (MLID), as shown in the video below, so take it with the appropriate grain of salt for now, as this rumor definitely hasn't been confirmed by AMD. MLID claims that AMD was originally planning to move to a new socket for its Zen 7 CPUs, but has changed its strategy as recently as a month ago.

"Zen 7 will be supported on AM5, or at least those are the current plans," says MLID. "I've seen extensive documentation over the past couple of weeks now, and I want to be very clear about this - it directly says it in documentation for Zen 7 plans, like it just says 'on AM5 package,' so this is happening at least as of now."

This documentation isn't the only source that MLID uses to back up the claim. "I also talked to another source at AMD about this," he says. "This person said that it's kind of like Zen 3. Zen 3 originally was going to be on AM5, that was the plan, or at least whatever would have become AM5, and somewhere late in development they said, 'We can make it work on AM4.'"

This move would make sense for AMD, which has enjoyed a competitive advantage over Intel with the longevity of its AM4 socket, which lasted all the way from the first-gen Ryzen chips in 2017 to the Ryzen 5000-series (Zen 3) CPUs that are still being produced today, including the first X3D CPUs. This rumor also follows an Intel LGA1954 socket leak, which stated that Intel was planning to support four generations of CPUs with this new socket.

It's potentially great news for upgraders, as it means you can easily drop in the best gaming CPU from our buying guide in the future without having to buy new memory, as well as a whole new motherboard. MLID also claims that the new Zen 7 CPUs will continue to support DDR5, rather than moving to DDR6, which potentially limits bandwidth, but will also make for cheaper upgrades. After all, if DDR6 is anything like DDR5, the first modules will be in short supply and very costly too.

If you haven't made the jump to AM5 yet, then check out our Ryzen 7 9800X3D review to see why this gaming CPU is our current top recommendation, and our best gaming RAM guide to find the best memory to pair with it.

You can also chat about CPU and motherboard upgrades in our Discord server, so don't be afraid to say hello.