 5 things you need to know about AMD's new AM5 CPUs. One, they're generally more expensive than the competition. AMD's new CPUs are by themselves already pricey. But you also need to buy into an expensive ecosystem. New motherboards and new DDR5 RAM. One thing you don't need to shell out more for is cooling. If you already have an AM4 cooler, it will most likely be compatible with AM5. Three, but you might want to get new cooling anyway. A substandard cooler won't be able to keep up and you'll get less than the advertised CPU speed. There's a lot of hope that AMD will support AM5 over multiple generations, just like it did with AM4, which would make upgrades cheaper and less complicated down the line. AM5 supports DDR5 and PCIe Gen5, but you might not want the future just yet. DDR5 RAM is still more expensive compared to DDR4. PCIe 5 GPUs are not even out yet, and PCIe 5 SSDs have been announced, but good luck finding them in the wild.