Tuesday, October 12th 2021
AMD Confirms "Zen 3" with 64 MB 3DV Cache for Q1-2022, "Zen 4" Later, PCIe Gen5 + DDR5
AMD today celebrated 5 Years of Ryzen, with a special video presentation by John Taylor, AMD Chief Marketing Officer, and Robert Hallock, Director of Technical Marketing. The company confirmed that its next Ryzen processors will come out only in Q1-2022. These processors will feature updated CPU core complex dies (CCDs) that combine the existing "Zen 3" microarchitecture with 64 MB of additional 3D Vertical Cache memory. AMD claims that this change improves performance by anywhere between 4% to 25% for games, amounting to the kind of performance uplifts you'd expect from a new processor generation.
AMD did not reveal whether the updated processors will be branded within the existing Ryzen 5000 series, or newer Ryzen 6000 series. If you remember, the "Zen+" microarchitecture enabled AMD to come up with a whole new generation, the Ryzen 2000 series, despite modest 4% IPC uplifts, albeit significant improvements to the boosting behavior, resulting in improved multi-threaded performance. What remains unclear is whether the updated "Zen 3" chips with 3DV Cache will herald a new platform, or whether these chips will be built on the existing Socket AM4 with DDR4 memory and PCI-Express Gen 4.
AMD's next truly next-generation Ryzen processor will come out within 2022, the company confirmed. Based on the new "Zen 4" microarchitecture, the company is targeting significant IPC uplifts, that will help it compete with Intel; but more importantly, introduce the new Socket AM5. An LGA package with 1,718 pins, AM5 will enable next-gen I/O. The "Zen 4" based next-gen Ryzen will indeed feature the combination of DDR5 memory and PCI-Express Gen 5, letting AMD level up to Intel on that front.
AMD's 2022 roadmap for desktop Ryzen processors looks quite similar to its 2020 roadmap. The company had initially refreshed its Ryzen 3000 series with a trio of Ryzen 3000XT SKUs that missed the mark of being viable stopgaps; but followed it up with the groundbreaking Ryzen 5000 "Zen 3" series toward the end of the year. 2021 will go down as an year without any new Ryzen processor generation.
Another aspect of Socket AM5 confirmed by AMD in the presentation was backwards compatibility of coolers with Socket AM4. You'll be able to retain your AM4-compatible coolers for AM5, without needing any adapters or upgrades to your coolers' retention modules.
As for a concrete response to Intel's Hybrid CPU core designs that the company will be pioneering on the desktop PC with "Alder Lake," AMD doesn't appear to be having a hybrid core design of its own, but hinted at the possibility that it is working on a new power-management solution built from the ground up, which will probably run a homogeneous set of CPU cores across very different performance/Watt bands, while retaining a consistent ISA. AMD has given this a rather uninteresting name—Power Management Framework.
Find the AMD presentation here:
AMD did not reveal whether the updated processors will be branded within the existing Ryzen 5000 series, or newer Ryzen 6000 series. If you remember, the "Zen+" microarchitecture enabled AMD to come up with a whole new generation, the Ryzen 2000 series, despite modest 4% IPC uplifts, albeit significant improvements to the boosting behavior, resulting in improved multi-threaded performance. What remains unclear is whether the updated "Zen 3" chips with 3DV Cache will herald a new platform, or whether these chips will be built on the existing Socket AM4 with DDR4 memory and PCI-Express Gen 4.
AMD's 2022 roadmap for desktop Ryzen processors looks quite similar to its 2020 roadmap. The company had initially refreshed its Ryzen 3000 series with a trio of Ryzen 3000XT SKUs that missed the mark of being viable stopgaps; but followed it up with the groundbreaking Ryzen 5000 "Zen 3" series toward the end of the year. 2021 will go down as an year without any new Ryzen processor generation.
Another aspect of Socket AM5 confirmed by AMD in the presentation was backwards compatibility of coolers with Socket AM4. You'll be able to retain your AM4-compatible coolers for AM5, without needing any adapters or upgrades to your coolers' retention modules.
As for a concrete response to Intel's Hybrid CPU core designs that the company will be pioneering on the desktop PC with "Alder Lake," AMD doesn't appear to be having a hybrid core design of its own, but hinted at the possibility that it is working on a new power-management solution built from the ground up, which will probably run a homogeneous set of CPU cores across very different performance/Watt bands, while retaining a consistent ISA. AMD has given this a rather uninteresting name—Power Management Framework.
Find the AMD presentation here:
136 Comments on AMD Confirms "Zen 3" with 64 MB 3DV Cache for Q1-2022, "Zen 4" Later, PCIe Gen5 + DDR5
Adding 64MB of extra cache to Zen3 should be a difficult thing to screw up; Zen architecture and motherboards already handle CPUs with a huge range of different cache sizes, this shouldn't be any different.
I dunno, maybe I'm being too cynical and this time Intel won't screw up the launch....
Let's see what happens. Not because my 5950X will go on sale after launch. But in a few years it's nice to know I can maybe habe that possibility. Cheaper than replacing and converting to a new socket.
Now i can have the best possible for this platform while i wait for the new platform's prices to "descend to reality".
I usually sit on a CPU/MB/RAM combo for 5-6 years before moving on. However, that was during the 4core days and now that I've got a 5900x, maybe it'll last me even longer? Personally, I'm in no rush to upgrade, but I do like seeing how tech progresses.
That's impressive, just think about what Zen4 will be.
Actually, why would they put it on a different socket, say AM5? Wouldn't they have to change the... socket-facing circuitry (for want of a better way to describe it) of Zen 3 for starters, maybe even other parts of the chip design?
I still see a lot of people complaining about the E cores, saying they are worthless, when in fact a well multithreaded application will perform better than the only P core cpu, because the E cores are much better in a die size/energy efficiency ratio. 4 E cores take as much die size as 1 P core, though perform about 50%ish better in restricted power environment.
Only question I have now is what frequency they will be able to run at. The benchmark slide shows a fixed 4GHz. They will need to at least match current core clocks to hit that average 15% improvement in games.
I can still see AMD gaining market share on laptops , a lot of them are not used portably and you can get a day of work based battery use on an AMD lapy now already Soo I dunno, we will see.
And as for higher end laptops, they're not run on battery often and Intel won't compete so well here either.
Finally tangential argument that, the OP isn't about laptops.
They will be named 6xxxx series, so they can unify next gen cpu and gpu with same 7xxxx.
They will be priced above competitors rival offerings.
They will be slightly more power consuming.
They will offer slight performance increase at same clocks.
They will make AMD stock holders happy.
That is all folks.
Ohh and ...
They will not offer 4 core 8 threads parts again as it is just eating through their limited chips to maximise profits.
Their CPU being chiplet, I don't see anything blocking them from releasing an io die for DDR5 sooner than the cpu chiplet, especially considering the IO die will probably use an older/cheaper process.
They should even be able to release zen 4 on both AM4 and 5 if they go that way, although at this point it's way overly optimistic.
But maybe it's a pain in the ass to make a fabric that's retro-compatible so we'll never see this :(
And ofcourse AM4 coolers will be AM5 compatible.
And AMD has hybrid architecture in the works. Its slated for Zen 5. They wont confirm this yet for obvious reasons.
Apple is currently Eating the 5nm supply that AMD needs. Delaying 3 means delaying Zen4's 5nm launch.
AMD has been enjoying refined processes being a fast follower to Apple's bleeding edge fabbed chips.
Hopefully the 12 and 16 core variants will adopt the 6900 and 6950 naming.
Why?
Because I'm immature.