Friday, January 26th 2024

More AMD Ryzen 9000 "Zen 5" Desktop Processor Details Emerge

AMD is looking to debut its Ryzen 9000 series "Granite Ridge" desktop processors based on the "Zen 5" microarchitecture some time around May-June 2024, according to High Yield YT, a reliable source with AMD leaks. These processors will be built in the existing Socket AM5 package, and be compatible with all existing AMD 600 series chipset motherboards. It remains to be seen if AMD debuts a new line of motherboard chipsets. Almost all Socket AM5 motherboards come with the USB BIOS flashback feature, which means motherboards from even the earliest production batches that are in the retail channel, should be able to easily support the new processors.

AMD is giving its next-gen desktop processors the Ryzen 9000 series processor model numbering, as it used the Ryzen 8000 series for its recently announced Socket AM5 desktop APUs based on the "Hawk Point" monolithic silicon. "Granite Ridge" will be a chiplet-based processor, much like the Ryzen 7000 series "Raphael." In fact, it will even retain the same 6 nm client I/O die (cIOD) as "Raphael," with some possible revisions made to increase its native DDR5 memory frequency (up from the current DDR5-5200), and improve its memory overclocking capabilities. It's being reported that DDR5-6400 could be the new "sweetspot" memory speed for these processors, up from the current DDR5-6000.
The "Granite Ridge" processor will feature one or two "Eldora" CPU complex dies (CCDs). Each CCD contains eight "Zen 5" CPU cores (aka "Nirvana" cores), each with 1 MB of L2 cache, and a yet undisclosed amount of on-die L3 cache. The "Zen 5" CCD will be built on the TSMC N4 (4 nm EUV) foundry node, the same node on which the company builds its "Hawk Point" monolithic silicon.

The "Zen 5" CPU core is expected by AMD to achieve a 10-15 percent IPC uplift over "Zen 4," which should put its gaming performance roughly comparable to those of Ryzen 7000X3D series processors, but without the 3D Vertical Cache, yielding higher headroom for clock speeds and overclocking. High Yield YT believes that a May-June launch of Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" could give AMD free reign over the DIY gaming desktop market until Intel comes around to launch its next-generation Core "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processor in the Socket LGA1851 package, some time in September-October 2024, setting the stage for Ryzen 9000X3D processors by CES (January 2025).

It was recently reported that "Zen 5" processors are already in mass production, although this could refer to the "Eldora" CCD that makes its way not just to the "Granite Ridge" desktop processors, but also EPYC "Turin" server processors.
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