Wanting to upgrade to AM5

My AM4 build is starting to become nothing but issues lately. I am solving them left and right but it feels like I'm putting bandaids over a bullet hole. Like a car that got t-boned hard and repaired. Just doesn't drive the same. Y'know?

Anywho, I'm running a 5950x paired with an Aorus Master X570S.
64gigs neo trident Z 4000mhz xmp enabled.
7900xtx reference model.
4 NvMe drives
2 SSD drives.
Thermaltake 1050 watt.

What I need to know is what would be the AM5 equivalent when it comes to performance? What motherboard has 4 M.2 slots?

Hi @GetTheClicker

What do you use your computer for? Is it general usage? What apps do you typically use and are you a gamer? If so which games do you run on the PC?

Marcus Vinicus said:

Hi @GetTheClicker

What do you use your computer for? Is it general usage? What apps do you typically use and are you a gamer? If so which games do you run on the PC?

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On a typical day I am running 3 screens all day.
One screen I watch movies or tv shows.
2nd screen I'm playing a game, typically Once Human or Stalker 2.
On the 3rd screen I'm monitoring temps or watching YouTube videos about where to find a secret weapon or car in the game im playing.

I do not stream or make content.
I tried to run a rereleased 5800x3d and the system kept crashing. It couldn't handle me and my habits I guess

I feel your pain, had a really dreadful year in 2026 with my desktop computer, had a major spectacular component failure. Lots of issues with Windows as well.

Marcus Vinicus said:

I feel your pain, had a really dreadful year in 2026 with my desktop computer, had a major spectacular component failure. Lots of issues with Windows as well.

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I was window shopping on Amazon and I was getting pretty excited about the upgrade until I saw the price of ram. I knew it was going to be high but not $1,200 high!

You did not say how much of you old hardware you wanted to reuse in the new build. I'm not a hardware guru but from what I found, AM5 does not run the same CPUs or RAM as AM4. Per co-pilot,

• AM4 supports Ryzen 1000 → 5000 series CPUs
• Uses PGA (pins on the CPU)
• AM5 supports Ryzen 7000, 9000, and newer CPUs
• Uses LGA1718 (pins in the socket), so AM5 CPUs physically cannot fit in AM4 boards

Regarding ram, RAM is also completely incompatible between the two platforms.

• AM4 = DDR4 only
• AM5 = DDR5 only (no DDR4 support at all)

CPU coolers. AM5 keeps the same mounting hole spacing as AM4, so most AM4 coolers work on AM5 without new brackets.

So from what I can see, to go to AM5, the only hardware you can carry over would be GPU, NVMEs, PSU, and cooler. Many X670E boards have 4 M.2 slots, which matches your current Aorus Master X570S.

GetTheClicker said:

What I need to know is what would be the AM5 equivalent when it comes to performance? What motherboard has 4 M.2 slots? I would upgrade the CPU later down the road.

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No you would have to upgrade the CPU for a rebuild to AM5.

Ryzen 9 7900​

This is the closest AM5 equivalent to your 5950X in real‑world workloads.

Why the 7900 is the “same performance” match​

• 16 cores / 32 threads — same core count as your 5950X
• Similar multi‑threaded throughput (within ~5–10%)
• Better single‑thread performance due to Zen 4 IPC
• Lower power draw than the 7950X
• Much cheaper than the 7950X or 7950X3D
• No gaming uplift needed because your 7900 XTX already maxes out GPU‑bound workloads

If you want “same performance,” the 7900 is the correct target.If you want “better,” then we move up to 7950X or 9950X — but that’s not what you asked.

The best overall AMD CPU is the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D for top-tier performance combining gaming and productivity, while the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the best choice for pure gaming.

Ryzen 7 7800X3D remains a massive favorite in the community for offering near top-tier gaming performance at a reduced cost compared to newer generations.

glasskuter said:

You did not say how much of you old hardware you wanted to reuse in the new build. I'm not a hardware guru but from what I found, AM5 does not run the same CPUs or RAM as AM4. Per co-pilot,

• AM4 supports Ryzen 1000 → 5000 series CPUs
• Uses PGA (pins on the CPU)
• AM5 supports Ryzen 7000, 9000, and newer CPUs
• Uses LGA1718 (pins in the socket), so AM5 CPUs physically cannot fit in AM4 boards

Regarding ram, RAM is also completely incompatible between the two platforms.

• AM4 = DDR4 only
• AM5 = DDR5 only (no DDR4 support at all)

CPU coolers. AM5 keeps the same mounting hole spacing as AM4, so most AM4 coolers work on AM5 without new brackets.

So from what I can see, to go to AM5, the only hardware you can carry over would be GPU, NVMEs, PSU, and cooler. Many X670E boards have 4 M.2 slots, which matches your current Aorus Master X570S.


No you would have to upgrade the CPU for a rebuild to AM5.

Ryzen 9 7900​

This is the closest AM5 equivalent to your 5950X in real‑world workloads.

Why the 7900 is the “same performance” match​

• 16 cores / 32 threads — same core count as your 5950X
• Similar multi‑threaded throughput (within ~5–10%)
• Better single‑thread performance due to Zen 4 IPC
• Lower power draw than the 7950X
• Much cheaper than the 7950X or 7950X3D
• No gaming uplift needed because your 7900 XTX already maxes out GPU‑bound workloads

If you want “same performance,” the 7900 is the correct target.If you want “better,” then we move up to 7950X or 9950X — but that’s not what you asked.

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I didn't word that correctly my fault. I know the CPUs are different I meant if I go AM5 I'd get a 5950x equivalent such as the 7900 but then later down the road upgrade to a 9950. I know the ram also isn't compatible, wish it was though. $1200 for ram is insane!

I was going to swap over my 7900xtx, storage drives, power supply, and Arctic II AIO.

In my shopping list up there I was looking at a 9070xt to have a backup GPU as suspect it might be time to have my 7900xtx serviced. I don't want my PC to be down while it is out.

GetTheClicker said:

I was window shopping on Amazon and I was getting pretty excited about the upgrade until I saw the price of ram. I knew it was going to be high but not $1,200 high!

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It's likely that you will be disappointed by an upgrade. The 5950X is a good processor, and the potential performance gains of DDR5 with high clock rates may not be much for many purposes.

It's possible that RAM prices will remain high for years, rather than months. But you can try for sympathy from an AI companion.

GetTheClicker said:

I was window shopping on Amazon and I was getting pretty excited about the upgrade until I saw the price of ram. I knew it was going to be high but not $1,200 high!

Click to expand...

Yeah, the prices are making computer upgrades a no-go for me. Lot's of people I think are re-thinking how much RAM they need. For awhile, people were over speccing on RAM because it was relatively cheap and they always wanted more than they had before. But like you noticed, $1,200 for 64GB of RAM is pretty eye-watering. Heck, you probably even though, well maybe I'll just bump up to 128GB, why not...especially if you hadn't been paying attention to price.

I think lots of people are now like, well the faster CPU and faster GPU will noticeably increase my game performance, maybe I can just stick with 32GB of RAM.

pparks1 said:

Yeah, the prices are making computer upgrades a no-go for me. Lot's of people I think are re-thinking how much RAM they need. For awhile, people were over speccing on RAM because it was relatively cheap and they always wanted more than they had before. But like you noticed, $1,200 for 64GB of RAM is pretty eye-watering. Heck, you probably even though, well maybe I'll just bump up to 128GB, why not...especially if you hadn't been paying attention to price.

I think lots of people are now like, well the faster CPU and faster GPU will noticeably increase my game performance, maybe I can just stick with 32GB of RAM.

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On a typical day I'm already using 30-40% of my 64gb. I'm afraid if I drop down to 32gb I won't have near as much headroom. I could afford the CPU and Motherboard on a good pay day but that ram, holy crap, that's like tax income season. Might have to have the wife pop out another kid for the extra income credit bump.

GetTheClicker said:

On a typical day I'm already using 30-40% of my 64gb. I'm afraid if I drop down to 32gb I won't have near as much headroom. I could afford the CPU and Motherboard on a good pay day but that ram, holy crap, that's like tax income season. Might have to have the wife pop out another kid for the extra income credit bump.

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Well, keep in mind that if memory is available, Windows is going to try to use it. I have 64GB on my work laptop and i'm sitting at 42% utilization just running a few small tasks. It's in your best interest to have as much in RAM as possible and ready to go. But Windows will free up that RAM in the event that something else really needs it..

In the case of my setup, it shows 25.4GB of memory in use. However, 16.4GB of that is cached. Anything cached is proactively read off the data drive and put into memory as Windows thinks it may be needed and it will be way faster from RAM than any storage drive you may have. And Windows will free that cached RAM instantly in the event that something comes along with actually needs it. Therefore, I am really only using 9GB of my 64GB of RAM. That's only 14% used.

So, a casual glance at my system might indicate that I am also using 40%+ of my RAM. But in actuality, it's really closer to 15%.

GetTheClicker said:

I tried to run a rereleased 5800x3d and the system kept crashing. It couldn't handle me and my habits I guess

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Thats a very strong cpu still, and the 5700 equivalent I am running is as well.

It should have definitely handled what your doing just fine. Something else is going on there. You dont need an upgrade to AM5.

You need to figure out whats wrong with your system. I am guessing a failing nvme or something.

What resolution are you playing at?

When it was crashing what was happening? How was it crashing?

andrew129260 said:

Thats a very strong cpu still, and the 5700 equivalent I am running is as well.

It should have definitely handled what your doing just fine. Something else is going on there. You dont need an upgrade to AM5.

You need to figure out whats wrong with your system. I am guessing a failing nvme or something.

What resolution are you playing at?

When it was crashing what was happening? How was it crashing?

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Audio pops at random which I thought I solved but only managed to make them a lot less frequent tweaking with power settings within windows and the bios.

I run 2 screens at 3200x1800 60hz with the main 3rd screen at 3840x2160 144hz. Games are set at 3840 x 2160 144hz.

If I set my min/max processor power to 100% I will get hard reboots at idle with event viewer showing hardware errors on different cores. Most commonly 0, 1, and 2. Setting min/max to 99% and I'm good. Right now I'm testing 5% min / 100% max with Processor Boost mode set to Efficient Enabled. It seems to be running stable. Scratch that, it hard rebooted again. WHEA Fatal Hardware Error Cache Heirarchy Error Processor APIC ID: 1. Dialing it back to 99% max.

My 7900xtx is having trouble running some games even with fresh drivers. It's bad with Stalker 2. Kernell and NTLL errors.
Once Human has become very stuttery and lags hard when you first start the game. It never used to do that.
The most concerning issue is my gpu temps run in the 80's but the hotspot will reach 105c at the same time causing the card to throttle down. I can solve that by setting the default fan curve to a more aggressive scale. Temps will now be 78c gpu and 98c hotspot. Memory temps are around 96c sometimes 100c. If the computer crashes or the GPU crashes those fan settings revert to default and I have to reload my custom fan curve.

Crystal Disk says all my drives are good with my C: Drive at 86% with 11,583 hours on it while D, E, F, G, and H are 96% and above.

I just replaced the PSU because it was dropping power to my GPU, it was only 8 months old. LianLi Edge 1000 Gold. That took a minute to solve.
A few months ago my original 5950x died, it wasn't giving me the same problems this replacement 5950x is. It worked flawlessy until one day it didn't work at all. Pretty sure this one didn't win the silicon lottery.

The worst thing about all of this is I can't get any of these remaining issues to fail on command. It's 100% random now.
I normally upgrade every 3 years. Never had this kind of trouble but here I am in year 4 with the same hardware.