Is AM4 worth buying in 2024?

Steve and Tim discuss whether AM4 is worth investing in at any price point in 2024...

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Is AM4 worth buying in 2024?

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[Kiwing]

If you're on old AM4 just upgrade to 5800x3D and just sit out AM5 entirely and upgrade again when AM6 comes out. By then DDR5 prices should come down more. Currently I'm on intel i7-10700 going to wait and see how arrowlake performs or I'm going to wait till AM6 comes around.

[TheYuppiejr]

As someone who lives near a Micro Center I'm strongly biased in favor of the value prop the $250 Intel i5 12600kf combo (16 gb), $400 Ryzen 7 7700x combo (32 gb), and $500 Ryzen 7 7800x3D combo (32 gb) bring to the table. Somewhere in that mix lives the $350 Ryzen 7 5800x3D combo (16 gb) but I feel like it's pre-empted on performance/value by the 7700x combo for just $40 more... and that the 12600k combo is a better budget pick at the same general price a lot of people would otherwise go to the 4-core Intel i3 / 1x100 series or something used/AM4 to focus build budget on a faster GPU.

The issues I see with upgrading an AM4 machine are less about raw performance and more about considerations like chipset support for PCIe 4 (limiting modern budget GPU options in particular) and the general longevity of other system components like fans, PSU, mainboard VRM's, etc... that are more likely to fail 3+ years already in service. As much as I like the idea of drop-in upgrades, I almost always find it a better value and less disruptive to just replace, migrate and then sell an entire system with components all purchased at the same time before it's fully obsolete, assuming it was a good/balanced configuration to start. The use-cases where it might make sense to extend the life of a machine with a newer AM4 chip are probably limited to those specialized/focused use cases where 3D vcache has an outsized impact on performance in a specific game title that gets a lot of playtime, likely in the sim flight/racing or MMO category.

[donaldnemesis]

AM4 is super underrated, the strongest 5950x is currently cost only $375 and it's unknown if AM5 can last as long as AM4

[jumpman]

I recently migrated my 4 year old AM4 system to a newly acquired Mini-ITX chassis.
The 7800X3D would have been a great upgrade from my 5600X, but I just couldn’t justify spending another 600 dollars this time. So I ended up buying an AM4 board again.

[TheHangarHobbit]

If you want a 1080p or 1440p rig in 2024 I'd say AM4 is still the best choice because you are not going to bottleneck any of the popular mainstream GPUs with a 5600x or 5700X and you can use the savings to add more RAM and more GPU. And of course if your budget is tight as Tech Yes City showed in a recent video a 4500 can be had sub $80 and paired with a used 6600 or 1070 makes a hell of a budget baller.

[christophermullins]

$220 out the door in early 2023 for 5600 w/ DDR4 3600 cl16 on b450. Clocked to 4000cl18/4.7ghz all core going strong a year later 100% worth it even with a dead platform.

[TheGameBench]

At new prices? Not really. At used prices... absolutely.

[wolniacha_tv]

entry level 7500F+b650 hdv/m.2 for example is very competitive.

[cameronbosch]

Personally, I would say for users who have Ryzen 1000/2000/3000 CPUs that it is worth it to upgrade to a Ryzen 5000 CPU, as you just need to replace the CPU.

However, if you're building an entirely new PC, then I'd say no, because even the Ryzen 7 7700X is within the margin of error of performance to the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, and the former doesn't even have V-Cache! Personally, I would spend the extra $30 or so for AM5 because you're guaranteed to be getting the Ryzen 9000 CPUs and possibly more, whereas AM4 is pretty much a dead platform. And DDR5 has come down to just $20 more than comparable DDR4 RAM, not to mention Intel will be dropping DDR4 support with Arrow Lake on the desktop, and some games really don't do as well with DDR4, like Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered and Miles Morales.


TL;DR, unless you already have an AM4 system, I would just go for the newer AM5 platform, as you'll get more longevity out of it.

[EastyyBlogspot]

Would be an upgrade to my intel 8000 series and i could bring my ddr4 memory across....but would limit upgrade path but tbh i am always far behind lol

[ElladanKenet]

I think AM4 was worth buying... in January. With Zen 5 imminent, I think we will see some cost improvements and some major performance. More than enough to justify AM5 for new builders, without reservation.

AM4 was great. It had a long and fruitful reign. But that reign is ending, now that AM5 is coming of age.

[Aanonymous]

AM5 components is ridiculously expensive especially Mobos and Ram. Those saying cheaper components aint everywhere.

[COYG]

Moving to the am5 with 7600x was costing me around 460$ but i decided to stick to am4 by getting 5700x for 200$ not to mention i was on ryzen 2600 for a little over 5 years and it really started showing its age in modern games, i could've gone for 5800x3d but i was surprised to find out that it is still retailing for around 350$ in my country and 5700x3d for $254 was out of stock so yah i think i made the right call and the smoothness in games like alan wake 2 and horizon forbidden west is quite noticeable, i hope 5700x lasts for another 4 years lol.

[UltraJamZHD]

I need to sell my am4 build but i cant be arsed 😩

[hennermais]

Well, you can get a Ryzen 5 5600 (100€), decent B550 (80-90€) and 16GB DDR4 3200cl16 (35€), so a total of 220€. 100€ for psu and case, 50-60€ for storage. Less than 400€ and you've got a decent platform for a 1080p/1440p gaming gpu.

[stefans.]

Upgraded just recently from 3900X to 5950X for 260€ and added on this way 128 GB RAM for additional 240€. Of course sealed and brand new. And let’s be honest, that‘s enough CPU for the years to come. GPUs are the bottleneck, not the CPUs. To this so called Youtube Experts.

[scollins]

For most AM4 budget gamers you can sit out AM5 and just wait for AM6.

[fueledgti]

Dang fast forward to now, you can get a 7600, AM5 motherboard and ram for almost the same price of a 5800x3d. Time to go AM5

[eno]

5600, B550, 32gb 3200mhz $285

7600, B650, 32gb 6000MT $390

Basically $100 more to go AM5 socket which is basically avg performance of a 5800X3D in games. Yes AM5 budget build is worth it over budget AM4.

[lxtwin]

AM4 is still great and will satisfy many people. Especially as the 9 5950x is £260 on Amazon today.