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AMD’s new 5nm processors with Zen 4 cores are said to be coming out sooner than we hoped. Under pressure from Intel, the premiere of the Ryzens 7000 is said to be postponed to the summer.
That finally introduced a new architecture to the desktop (and finally used a modern manufacturing process) has now clearly revived Intel processors. It looks like AMD has really come under pressure now because it has decided to take a step that doesn’t happen often: its long-awaited new generation of processors with 5nm technology and Zen 4 architecture may be coming to market well sooner than originally planned. Probably to respond to the strengthening of Intel.
The information so far has said that the release of the Ryzen 7000, which will be the first processors with Zen 4 cores, as well as their platforms with the new AM5 socket, will not occur until the last quarter of this year. The proven leak source Greymon55, however, has now come up with the news that AMD is changing the news and earlier deadlines no longer apply. It is said that it is not yet clear whether the plan for the release of new ones has changed in any way Radeon RX 7000 graphics with RDNA 3 architecturebut where the change is said to be for sure, are desktop processors.
ZEN4 Q4 ❌
— Greymon55 (@greymon55) February 11, 2022
According to Greymon55, it is no longer the case that the Ryzen 7000 release is to be in the fourth quarter, AMD now wants to release it in the third quarter, ie in the summer. It is said that the issue may not even be at the end of it (in September), but a little earlier, although of course all this is probably a good thing to take with a grain of salt. But if this is true, AMD is likely to unveil these processors at Computex 2022 at the turn of May and June, or at subsequent exhibitions such as E3. It is probably a bit too much to wait for the physical release in July, but perhaps the optimistic scenario could be that Zen 4 will be available in August (for Slovak readers: August).
Earlier than that.
— Greymon55 (@greymon55) February 11, 2022
AM5 platform boards come out logically with processors. They are said to be reaching the sample stage soon, and this month there should be roughly “production samples”. According to Greymon55, after a 5nm Ryzenech 7000, a 6nm APU could also go on the market Ryzen 6000 “Rembradnt” for the AM5 platform with Zen 3 cores and RDNA 2 graphics. However, it is not clear whether their arrival has also been accelerated or will not be released until the end of the year in Q4 2022.
What to expect from the Ryzens 7000
Ryzen 7000 processors with Zen 4 architecture should have significantly improved energy efficiency thanks to the 5nm process, which could excel over 7nm Intel Alder Lake processors in multi-threaded applications and future Raptor Lake. Because perhaps a newer process for the IO chiplet is to be used, perhaps worse inactivity and low load could be improved even now. The AM5 platform will also already provide PCI Express 5.0 and use DDR5 memory, so it equals a move where Intel’s higher throughput is now helping against Zen 3.
Performance is expected to improve with the higher IPC (1 MHz performance) of the Zen 4 architecture, but it is probably good to meet expectations so far – it is uncertain whether AMD will catch up, let alone overtake the single-core performance of Intel’s highly clocked processors (where for example The core i9-12900KS should run up to 5.5 GHz). If you have already seen any projections of the expected high IPC increases for Zen 4, they are probably unsubstantiated, some really relevant leaks have not yet occurred.
The current knowledge of the Zen 4 architecture says that it is in fact an evolution of Zen 3 and will not make any drastic changes. For example, the number of computing units in the backend does not seem to change (still four ALUs). From these characteristics, we would expect an increase in IPC, for example, as was the case with Zen 2, which was also the evolution of Zen 1 – let’s say an increase of 8-15%. Hoping for more (an increase in IPC of 20-30%, for example) would be appropriate if the processor core were significantly overwhelmed and we knew, for example, that it was extended by additional instruction decoders and ALU / AGU, which Zen 4 does not seem to do.
What we know will change on Zen 4 is the L2 cache, which will grow from 512 KB for each kernel to 1 MB. And there is a lot of evidence that AMD will bring support for the AVX-512 instructions to Zen 4 for the first time (ironically at a time when Intel itself is quite contradictory to them). However, they will probably still use the same 256-bit SIMD units, so this may not bring much extra power on the Zen 4. The importance of this support may be mainly in application compatibility, while performance could then increase with Zen 5.
Will the earlier release be fine-tuned?
Successing plans does not have to have only positive aspects. Hopefully, the earlier release will not present any more serious issues and unfinished features during the release. Earlier generations of Ryzens had a reputation for completing the BIOS of the boards and the AGESA firmware months after the release.
Because AM5 will be a new platform with a new type of memory, debugging it will probably be more difficult than, for example, releasing the latest generation of Ryzen 5000 on the existing AM4 platform. Hopefully, a speedy release will not bring much of these negatives.
There could also be a problem with earlier release with worse availability and less inventory of in-store processors.
Gallery: Demo of AMD Ryzen 7000 processors with Zen 4 architecture and AM5 socket at CES 2022
Sources: Greymon55 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
AMD reportedly changed the plan, Zen 4 / Ryzen 7000 processors will be released sooner. Maybe before the end of September
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