AMD’s Socket AM5 – mounting, technical details for cooler manufacturers and the matching boxed cooler | Exclusive

Sure, some details about AMD’s new socket AM5 have already been leaked or published and are therefore no longer entirely fresh. Therefore, today I have completed the whole thing with additional content and drawings and show you, for example, which boxed coolers AMD is planning for the three performance classes. Because up to 105 watts you will also get models with three enclosed cooler variations that are better than some think and each fit one of the three watt classes.

Important preliminary remark

It’s always that kind of thing with certain leaks and you have to carefully weigh up the desire for information and certain unwritten rules. Even though I have a lot of much more detailed information, which mainly relates to the electrical and thermal properties of the upcoming CPUs, today’s article will only deal with the subject areas that have already been leaked or at least largely made public. I therefore use this article to correct the content or to deepen what I already know. But out of respect for the work of the engineers, I will not disclose things that one does not want to see publicly in this depth and form. In the end, this is also a question of decency and years of cooperation, which has always benefited both sides.

For this reason and given the occasion, I also forbid posting links to various leaks in our forum, for example with content that was stolen from Gigabyte. I removed that immediately today and will continue to do so if I try again. You can certainly “let through” certain information in a controlled manner, but the dissemination of engineering tools and other programs simply goes a step too far. Here the moderators are also instructed to react immediately.

A brief portrait of the AM5 base

It is well known that AMD is now back on an LGA socket (Land Grid Array), so that the days of CPUs glued on and pulled out together with the cooler should be a thing of the past. In addition, the problem with the contact surfaces is shifted to the socket manufacturers, which significantly simplifies the production and handling of the CPUs. Switching from PGA to LGA also brings a significantly higher number of contacts. Current AM4 CPUs use a total of 1,331 contact pins on the underside, while AM5 CPUs will initially have 1,718 contact surfaces instead of pins.

The top view shows that the design hardly differs optically from the solution that Intel has been using for years. The hole pattern for the backplate and the dimensions of the holes (diameter) remain identical to the AM4 socket, as well as the dimensions of the backplate, the design of which, however, changes slightly. AMD shows a distance of 7.98 mm between the upper side of the board and the upper edge of the IHS, whereby one works with a tolerance of 0.6 mm each, which makes a total of 1.2 mm. For the cooler, however, only the lower area is relevant, so that the 0.6 mm for the appropriate stopper has to be measured correctly, otherwise the pressure may be missing. However, it is also an indicator of the curvature of the IHS that may have to be expected.

The following exploded view shows the basic structure again, whereby AMD also provides the information that a second version of the socket is to appear in December 2021. After the boxed coolers in the picture gallery in the appendix, I also added the appropriate drawings, which also show the new areas for both sockets and in which the upcoming version of the AM5 socket has already been incorporated.

Because even if the dimensions remain the same, the so-called “Keep Out Areas”, the “No Routing Zone” and the specifications for the heatsinks could differ slightly from the AM4 socket. Older backplates in particular must be checked more closely here. You can already see on the drawing that besides the opening in the middle there are other recesses that did not exist in this form before. One can only advise the cooler manufacturers to at least use AMD’s new backplate.

The six TDP classes of the new CPUs

As before, the portfolio of upcoming CPUs is divided into various watt classes for the TDP, with an expansion and slight modification being made here. Up to 105 watt TDP, AMD will also offer its own cooling solutions (see “Heat Sink Class”), which I would like to introduce on the next page. For the TDP class with 120 watts, we recommend an air cooler from the medium performance segment and from 170 watts even water cooling with a radiator size from 280 mm. This is of course exaggerated for normal operation, but it also shows what peak performance can be expected in different situations (AVX 512, PBO).

I will deliberately omit this part for the time being and it will be the task of later on, when the time comes, to really prove such constellations with a physically available CPU in the launch review. Speculation about the power consumption does not lead to anything at this point and for the rest of the data what I have already written in the foreword applies.