You’ll need a 500-series motherboard for AMD Ryzen 4000 CPUs

AMD announced that new Ryzen 4000 desktop CPUs based on the Zen 3 architecture will require 500-series motherboards with an AM4 socket. This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, given that Ryzen 3000 processors cannot be used with 300-series motherboards, and as such we’re about due another bump in chipset requirements.

It does mark the first time 400-series motherboards will need to be replaced, given that they could be used with current Ryzen 3000 CPUs with nothing but a BIOS flash. Interestingly, AMD is sticking with the AM4 socket, which has been around since “Excavator.” Flagship X570 motherboards remain pretty pricey compared to mid-tier or budget offerings, but we should start to see some price reductions soon.