You don't need me to tell you the memory crisis is looking bleak, but, well, the memory crisis is looking bleak. So bleak, in fact, that Gigabyte has just unveiled a new series of AM4 motherboards. Yes, the socket we thought we'd be done with by now.
The B550 X Series, as Gigabyte calls it, is "engineered to be the most powerful refresh of the AM4 platform motherboard."
Gigabyte says it is perfect for the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D, which was a reasonably beefy chip back when it launched in 2022. Gigabyte claims the 5800X3D is "widely regarded as the best cost-to-performance processor on the market" and that the motherboard is purpose-built to handle its 8 cores, 16 threads, and 96 MB of L3 cache.
AMD decided to bring back the 5800X3D this year, which AMD claims was "very hard, actually, very, very hard" to do. When stacked up against the best CPUs right now, like the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, both chips have 8 cores, 16 threads and 96 MB of L3 cache. But the 5800X3D base clock of 3.4 GHz is outpaced by the 9800X3D's superior 4.7 GHz. That, and its newer architecture, translates to a performance uplift of around 30%.
The new B550 X series comes equipped with Wi-Fi 7 connectivity and comes with a 10-phase, 60A DrMPS VRM design. It's also got Gigabyte's own EZ PCIe latch and EZ-plug. It seems like it has some decent engineering features, but there's an elephant in the room here.
The reason PC builders are going back to AM4 is that the DDR5 memory needed to work with an AM5 motherboard is simply too expensive. Unfortunately, with DDR4 also seeing price increases, you will be overpaying no matter what build you make now.
Giving consumers more options is a decent way of handling some of the price increases, but ultimately it's a bandage on a much deeper wound. AI's growth has outpaced the hardware available, and it seems unlikely the memory crisis will be ending soon.
Even Samsung, one of the big three memory manufacturers, warns there will be a "severe" memory supply crisis next year and that "beyond 2029, it is hard to say because of more limited visibility."
So, if you want a rig that is anyway reasonably priced, you will either have to wait for a sale, or shop around for old parts, using old sockets and fitting in old memory. Naturally, an AM4 rig isn't the end of the world, and you will still get some good gaming on it, but it's a sign of just how big the memory crisis has become.
1. Best CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
2. Best motherboard: MSI MAG X870 Tomahawk WiFi
3. Best RAM: G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB 32 GB DDR5-7200
4. Best SSD: WD_Black SN7100
5. Best graphics card: AMD Radeon RX 9070
