Hi folks,
planning on changing my Motherboard + CPU combo when Ryzen 4000 hits the market, but keeping most of everything else (1080, nvme SSD, 144hz g-sync 1440p monitor).
I'm currently on a i7 4790k CPU on an ASRock Z97 Pro motherboard with 16GB of DDR2 RAM.
I assume that switching to a new motherboard + CPU combo would also mean changing the RAM for good performance?
Question 1: wait for new motherboards to hit or are there already announced ones (or released ones) I should look out for in terms of pricing?
Question 2: do we already know what to expect in terms of RAM speeds with the new CPUs from AMD? or can I safely grab some DDR4-3200 (DIMM 288, from Corsair for example) and take advantage from nice promos?
You don't really have a choice. Z97 is DDR3, and the entire market is DDR4 now. Ryzen 4000 is the last AMD generation before DDR5, in fact.
In terms of RAM to buy, ideal is DDR4-3600 CL16, but there are a few products right now with excellent headroom if you want to overclock it instead.
If you're waiting to buy a CPU I would wait on all of the components. You don't want to have a dud in the closet for a month after the return date. But yes, current boards will work. It's just that they will need BIOS updates, and not every board out there can do a BIOS update without an already working CPU first.