Rumor: AMD moves to LGA sockets for AM5 platform

AMD’s upcoming AM5 platform, which should succeed socket AM4, is rumored to have an LGA socket. The pins of the next generation of AMD CPUs would therefore no longer be on the CPU, but on the motherboard.

The information comes from Twitter users ExecutableFix, which more often shares accurate information about unannounced AMD products. According to the leaker the AM5 platform gets one LGAsocket with 1718 pins, compared to 1331 pins with current AM4 CPUs. It is striking that the leaker states that the AM5 socket the same size 40x40mm, despite the increased number of pins.

ExecutableFix further reports that future AM5 consumer CPUs will receive support for dual-channel DDR5 memory. PCIe 5.0 support remains the next generation exclusive to AMD’s EPYC processors based on Zen 4, meaning the first AM5 processors will keep support for PCIe 4.0. Intel’s upcoming consumer Alder Lake processors are rumored to be getting PCIe 5.0 in addition to DDR5 support.

Furthermore, the leaker states that the AM5 platform will be introduced with a 600 series chipsets. Presumably the platform will be released with AMD’s Zen 4 processors, which are produced on TSMC’s 5nm node. AMD’s EPYC Genoa processors with Zen 4 cores are expected next year. It is not clear when it will come companies with Zen 4 processors for consumers. Zen 3+ processors are still expected this year, but they are expected to use an AM4 socket.

AMD’s alleged switch to LGA comes as no surprise. The company has been using such sockets for its server processors for some time. The company has been doing this since Socket-F for Opteron processors, which came out in 2006. AMD’s Threadripper and EPYC processors also already use LGA sockets.