Rumor | Ryzen 4000 and X670 to launch in late 2020, Socket AM5 to debut with Ryzen 5000

AMD had earlier said that Zen 3 based on the 7nm+ process is "design complete" and if all goes per plan, we could see the Ryzen 4000 processors launch sometime in late 2020 along with the X670 chipset. A new report by Chinese site MyDrivers offers some insider information about the Ryzen 4000 and X670 launch. 

According to MyDrivers, the X670 chipset will not be designed by AMD but will be outsourced to ASMedia or Via. AMD had to develop the X570 chipset in-house as the traditional vendors did not have the expertise to design a PCI Express 4-compatible chipset. With AMD showing how it's done, this is not going to be a problem next year and once again, partners will be taking over X670 production. This should also benefit AMD as apparently, selling chipsets does not really help with the company's profits. The exact features of X670 are still unknown, but it is expected to improve PCIe Gen4 implementation and offer more connectivity for NVMe, SATA, and USB 3.2. Thunderbolt 3 integration is still not on the cards as per the report. 

Besides X670 late next year, we also expect to see motherboards based on the B550 chipset for midrange builds sometime during January or February 2020, possibly around CES. B550 will continue to be based on PCIe 3.0 and will be made by AMD's partners.

Zen 3-based Ryzen 4000 is touted to offer anywhere between 8 to 15% IPC gains and moderately higher clocks over the current Ryzen 3000 lineup. However, Ryzen 4000 is most likely to be the last Socket AM4-compatible generation, according to a insider information obtained by RedGamingTech. Ryzen 5000 based on Zen 4 could very well transition to Socket AM5 as the DDR5 and PCIe Gen5 standards that are expected to debut around late 2021 or early 2022 could make retaining the current AM4 socket difficult.