Is AM3+ Dead?

[paulr02]

I'm looking at upgrading my 3 year old gaming PC and I realised I have a Gigabyte motherboard with an AM3+ socket, so my question is, should I look at buying a new CPU and motherboard in the very near future?

 

[xFeaRDom]

I guess you could say that AM3(+) is a dead socket as of now.

Soon AMD will release AM4 socket processors, AKA Zen, this will be in a couple of months when they finally release them.

You could wait till then and go ahead and upgrade to Zen if the payment is worth it, as nobody knows how Zen is going to be performance-wise against Intel's Skylake/Kabylake, then waiting would be the best option, as you can decide between the price to performance ratio on which would be the best purchase for you.

 

[CountMike]

It's "dead" in the form of "Not going to get any better performance processors" but it's still a contender in mid going to low performance systems.

 

[das_stig]

AM3+ is a dodo and AM4 is now being shipped, with desktop motherboards to appear in January.

 

[spdragoo]

I'm looking at upgrading my 3 year old gaming PC and I realised I have a Gigabyte motherboard with an AM3+ socket, so my question is, should I look at buying a new CPU and motherboard in the very near future?

AMD's Socket AM3+ is as "dead" as Intel's Socket LGA 1150 (the socket that Haswell processors use): that is, there aren't going to be any new CPUs to replace the current crop that runs on those boards, but they still have some mileage in them (& anyone that thinks "5-year-old CPUS" don't have gaming life in them hasn't been paying attention to how 5-year-old Sandy Bridge chips have been performing).

As to whether you need to start from scratch or can upgrade what you have...it depends...

1. Is your current system having issues? This is the #1, [most important consideration. And no, I'm not talking about, "well, my system is getting a bit old, so I think it's time to replace it", I'm talking about, "OMG, I just bought a game that came out a year ago, & my system's performance is so craptacular I might as well be using an old AMD Thunderbird system". Note that I'm not talking about random glitches or crashes, I'm talking about not having enough horsepower to run new games as well as you'd like.

2. Have you checked to see if there are any upgrades available for your platform? For example, not all AM3+ systems are created equal: a very old system running an FX-4120 with 4GB of RAM on a 5400RPM hard drive, for example, is going to sputter along compared to an overclocked FX-8370 with 16GB of RAM & the OS on an SSD. Same with a system running, for example, an old Radeon HD 5450 compared to one running an RX 480 or GTX 1060 (let alone a top-line GTX 1070 or 1080). If you can spend just a little bit of cash to improve your current build, it's a lot more cost-effective than chucking everything out the window.

3. Do you have a particular budget in mind? If you can only afford a few hundred dollars, then you won't be able to replace your system with any kind of "good" replacement (unless you're willing to settle for a Core i3 on a mATX board). OTOH, if you have $1,000US or so floating around, you might be at a prime time to switch to a Skylake build...although I would only recommend that if a) your system is at the end of its performance growth (including any upgrade possibilities), & b) you can't wait until Zen has been released & benchmarked.

 

[Zerk2012]

RIP 3+
All sockets die and the motherboard manufactures will stop making the boards.

 

[Vic 40]

All sockets die and the motherboard manufactures will stop making the boards.

He has the board already and probably wonders if upgrading the cpu only will be worth it. Maybe he can tell us which cpu he has now ...
And which motherboard as well ...

 

[kgt1182]

If you have no intention to change your board, (new platform requires new board, new cpu, maybe new ram), now is a good time to upgrade to the top end 125W CPU, the FX 8370, if you have any AM3 Phenom II X6 1100T or below, FX Bulldozer or any FX 6350 or lesser.
Now that the high end Ryzen is out, FX 8370 has prices has fallen to the point of less than US$150. The newegg deal has a free bundled game: AoTS Escalation for US$150 total. And if you are still using you stock cooler it comes with a better Wraith cooler.
FX 8370 seems to be binned like the FX 9370/9590 due to reluctance of people buying a 220W CPU, it is basically a downclocked version of the best AMD FX CPU.

 

[Vic 40]

Already an old thread dude ....

 

[The Paladin]

almost as old as the CPU