A matching socket is not enought though, the motherboard has to support it too. If it's an older one it might not get a BIOS update for the newest generation, and/or the VRMs on cheaper boards might not be able to handle a 16 core chip.
So I can run the latest 3000 series with my current first gen AM4 board which is great. As you point out though the 16 and 32 core chips might be too power hungry for some boards.