AM5 now (7000 or 9000) or upgrade my 64GB AM4 machines to 5900XT and/or wait for Zen 6 and cheaper RAM ?
I have 2 64GB AM4 machines. I use for one for a general/development workstation and the other for a testing server, running VMs, etc.
I was running a 5900X in my development machine but the CPU failed, started throwing errors. I stole the 5700G I had in my testing machine to use in my development machine. Obviously this setup leaves a lot to be desired - I lost my testing machine and the 5700G is slooowww.
I have 3 options
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Update my AM4 machines to 5900XT processors. 2 5900XTs cost about the same as 32 GB of DDR5 ! Speed isn't as good as 7000 or 9000 machines but probably OK.
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Build 2 new AM5 machines with Ryzen 7000 or 9000 processors. Very expensive, mainly due to the cost of RAM. I could lessen the cost by building just one new machine, but a good portion of my work is done on the testing server so it would be nice to have 2 fast(er) machines. I'd probably buy a 5900XT for one of my AM4 machines if I only built one AM5 machine.
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Do nothing and wait for Zen 6 and hopefully lower cost RAM.
I'll reuse the case, PS, SSD, etc. from my current machines if I build AM5 machines. My AM5 builds would only need a MB, CPU and RAM.
My main heavy use case is mainly development work - mostly compiling but sometimes meshing 3D models, etc. I spend a lot of time waiting for things to build these days.
Thoughts ?
Posted Jun 12, 2026, 8:13 PM UTC