AMD Socket AM5 will be LGA format, according to leak

by Mark Tyson on 24 May 2021, 10:11

Tags: AMD (NYSE:AMD)

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A Twitter based leakster by the name of Executable Fix released some outline specs of AMD's upcoming Socket AM5 this weekend. A usually reliable source, Executable Fix’s Twitter thread signals that some big changes are coming to the AMD platform to prepare for the arrival of 5nm Zen4 consumer desktop processors.

Above you can see the trio of Tweets chirped by Executable Fix on this important topic. The first change of note for AMD users will be the move to LGA format processors. In recent years AMD has been selling processors with pins (PGA), which makes them delicate, prone to deformations, and worrisome to transport, but now plans to fall in line with Intel and sell LGA processors, so motherboard makers will have to feature all the 1,718 pins in their sockets (which are easier to protect and less prone to damage overall).

From the name, LGA1718, you know that AM5 processors will connect to 1,718 pins – 18 more than the upcoming Intel Alder Lake-S processors with their LGA1700 sockets. All the extra pins will support the power and I/O demands of the platform, which is said to include dual-channel DDR5 memory support, but be limited to PCIe 4.0 (Alder Lake is expected to support PCIe 5.0). On the AMD platform it appears to be the case that PCIe 5.0 will debut with the Zen4-based Epyc 7004 'Genoa' server platform.

Executable Fix rounds off their first Tweet on this topic by saying that AM5 will arrive with the 600 series chipset. This implies that any desktop processor between now and then (including Zen3+ and 6nm products) will still cosy up to the AM4 socket. Last but not least, the leak source asserts that there will be no socket / CPU package size increase from AMD using LGA1718. This info contrasts with leaked Alder Lake-S processor photos, showing the elongated package of the next Intel hope for desktop.

As per usual with similarly sourced news bites, please take the above with a pinch of salt.



HEXUS Forums :: 18 Comments

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It is interesting about the PCIe 5.0 side of things for the desktop as they spearheaded PCIe 4.0 to the desktop and although I see no reason to double the bandwidth yet again just for the desktop. It will be a monkey see monkey marketing issue where people will see Intel and go “big numbah betterer” but that's just the way of the game I suppose.
Wonder how power hungry PCIe 5.0 is going to be?
Or even if anyone has an idea how much if any, for example, of the X570's extra power requirements is because of PCIe 4.0?
Bigger number headlines are still around: last week or so there was headlines about Seagate's Mach.2 HDDs with transfer rates of over 500MB/s going on about as being as fast as SSDs as if sequential transfer was important. But then burst and sequential speeds have been getting the headlines since SATA3/2/1 UDMA133/66/33 and so on.
I've got PCIe 4.0 on my x570 board and don't even have any PCIe 4.0 devices yet! I'll be honest I'm a little surprised to see 4.0 having so short a shelf life. Does this mean 4.0 will get little if any adoption?
Tabbykatze
It is interesting about the PCIe 5.0 side of things for the desktop as they spearheaded PCIe 4.0 to the desktop and although I see no reason to double the bandwidth yet again just for the desktop. It will be a monkey see monkey marketing issue where people will see Intel and go “big numbah betterer” but that's just the way of the game I suppose.

I think storage is driving it quite quickly - while GPUs are barely making use of PCIe 4.0 yet, SSDs have already just about hit the limit when using the x4 lanes of m.2 slots.

cheesemp
I've got PCIe 4.0 on my x570 board and don't even have any PCIe 4.0 devices yet! I'll be honest I'm a little surprised to see 4.0 having so short a shelf life. Does this mean 4.0 will get little if any adoption?

Backwards compatibility means you'll still get use of your 4.0 over say a 3.0 system, even if the device can use 5.0
LGA? Looks like AMD will be pushing AM5 above 24 cores support thanks to extra pins.