The launch of AMD’s Ryzen 7 5800X3D 10th Anniversary Edition came as a welcome surprise to AM4 system owners keen to stave off the price of DDR5 upgrades, but this processor was apparently never intended as a response to the ongoing memory shortage. Instead, we partly have AMD CEO Lisa Su’s desire to throw platform holders a bone for the chip’s re-release.
AMD director of client product management, Travis Kirsch, recently sat down for an interview with Japanese technology outlet Tech Plus. During their conversation, the site pressed Kirsch on the decisions that led up to the 5800X3D re-release.
Kirch said [machine translated], “It was originally a few years ago, but I think Lisa was actually one of the people who came up with the idea that the Ryzen 7 5800X3D should be revived. This is like a last gift to loyal users who have used our AM4 for almost 10 years, providing a last chance to upgrade a PC for systems that use DDR4.”
He highlights that bringing back the 5800X3D wasn’t simple, as production of the processor had already ended, requiring sufficient lead time to restart manufacturing. AMD has previously told us that this CPU required a degree of re-engineering too, as the original silicon bonding process was no longer available, further impacting the run-up before launch.
“In short, this was planned before the change in the memory market occurred, and was not considered as a countermeasure to the shortage of DDR5,” Kirch comments. Given the above context in mind, this seems entirely plausible. The RAM crisis only began to take hold towards the end of 2025, with the 5800X3D 10th Anniversary Edition launching in May 2026, which doesn’t seem like enough lead time.
While the ongoing memory shortage may not have inspired the return of the DDR4 people’s champion, this situation has certainly made its reappearance more valuable than a largely symbolic gesture. There’s no other processor we’d recommend running in an AM4 gaming system, and we’re glad our Ben’s cries for a 5800X3D re-release didn’t fall on deaf ears.
For more chip chatter, check out our picks of the best CPUs on the market today.
