AMD Ryzen 7000 CPU shows off 5.5GHz clockspeed, requires AM5 motherboard

AMD revealed on Monday at Computex 2022 the details of its next generation Ryzen 7000 desktop chips with Zen 4 architecture, and it requires a brand-new motherboard type for the new AM5 socket.

The Ryzen 7000 will be the first desktop CPUs based on a 5nm process, while the AM5 platform is designed to support DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 right off the bat.

During AMD’s Computex presentation, the new chip was able to boost clockspeed as fast as 5.5GHz while playing Ghostwire: Tokyo, going on par with the 5.5GHz turbo of 12th-gen Intel Core i9.

Higher clockspeeds doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re faster at handling tasks than lower-clocked desktop CPU, and besides, both Intel and AMD have laptop chips that can turbo to 5GHz as well.

Its Zen 4 architecture will have “greater than 15 percent” faster single-threaded performance over Zen 3, though the new chips may consume higher power, thus AM5 motherboards can now supply chips up to 170W of power.

The PCIe 5.0 NVMe slot will be standard on every AM5 motherboard, but the PCIe Gen 5.0 graphics depends on the motherboard tier that includes the new X670 Extreme, X670, and the affordable B650 will likely not support PCIe Gen 5.0 graphics.

These new motherboards will offer 24 lanes of PCIe 5.0, up to 14 unspecified USB 3.x ports—some will support 20Gbps and USB-C, and up to four display outputs through HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.