AMD Zen 5 Technical Deep Dive

[W1zzard]

AMD has finally shared technical details for their next-gen Zen 5 microarchitecture, which will power the new Ryzen 9000 desktop processors and the Ryzen AI 300 Series laptop CPUs. We detail all the technical innovations, including overclocking, and how AMD achieved +16% IPC.

Show full review

 

[londiste]

Lowering 9900X TDP is a clever marketing move. 7900X usually consumes somewhere around 180W, maybe 200W is worst case benchmarks. This is well below the 220W power limit. Officially giving it a lower TDP is an easy win

 

[BoggledBeagle]

Good to see that they reduced the thermal resistance of the desktop package with the thick IHS, did they say how did they do it? Some better TIM?

 

[Chaitanya]

Given Intel i9 and i7 K series chips are self destructing all AMD has to do is show up and not destroy themselves.

 

[W1zzard]

Good to see that they reduced the thermal resistance of the desktop package with the thick IHS, did they say how did they do it? Some better TIM?

It's literally written under the image?

https://imgur.com/cEfAFn4

 

[BoggledBeagle]

It's literally written under the image?

https://imgur.com/cEfAFn4

Oh, sorry, I saw that slide only in the last section with no commentary. So there is no real physical improvement, only better temperature reporting.

I would like to know how do they estimate the contributions of the four aspects of the architecture changes to the total IPC uplift. I wonder if they use some sophisticated calculation or just something simple.

 

[Sabotaged_Enigma]

Nice article!
Hi @W1zzard, did they talk about die size and transistor count? I'm quite curious about this lol

Given Intel i9 and i7 K series chips are self destructing all AMD has to do is show up and not destroy themselves.

Exactly. I really appreciate it that they reduce TDP on three lower SKUs, which is obviously the right way to go. In their slide they say they leave the option to users to choose between efficiency or performance. Everyone's gonna be happy.

 

[P4-630]

The Ryzen 9000 desktop processors are exciting, too, but we really wish it came with an NPU and beat the 7800X3D, because Arrow Lake-S will do both.

All we need to know

 

[mxthunder]

Looking good. Might finally be enough to sway me back to AMD after 14 years on intel. The X3D parts should be worth waiting for.
Its funny how they say "improved temps by 7*" but they didnt change IHS or TIM and just moved the sensor.
Reminds me of the Phenom II stuff back in the day, where the on substrate sensor "CPU sensor" was like 10* lower than the actual die temp.

 

[W1zzard]

did they talk about die size and transistor count?

Nope .. but die size seems similar to previous-gen if you go by my photos

 

[Rev_Pizzaguy]

Page 2 "Lastly, there's the Ryzen 5 7600X, the 6-core/12-thread part that boosts up to 5.4 GHz, has 38 MB of total cache, and 65 W TDP."

Think this is supposed to be Ryzen 5 9600X?

 

[Makaveli]

All we need to know

What do you plan to do with that NPU on a desktop?

 

[stimpy88]

Good to see that they reduced the thermal resistance of the desktop package with the thick IHS, did they say how did they do it? Some better TIM?

Liquid metal over using soldier would probably bring that improvement.

I find this a little underwhelming and disappointing, but great against Intel's from 3 years ago, I suppose. I wonder how it will cope with Intel in 6 months time... But looking forward to the real-world benchmarks.

 

[Frick]

Who's David McAfee (header on the last page)?

 

[BoggledBeagle]

Who's David McAfee (header on the last page)?

There are more people above each presentation... Perhaps they gave those presentations?

 

[TheLostSwede]

Who's David McAfee (header on the last page)?

David McAfee
Corporate VP and General Manager, Client Channel Business at AMD

David McAfee - AMD | LinkedIn

“Build great products” is one of AMD’s core values, as well as a passion that I have… · Experience: AMD · Location: Austin, Texas Metropolitan Area · 500+ connections on LinkedIn. View David McAfee’s profile on LinkedIn, a professional community of 1 billion members.

www.linkedin.com

 

[AnotherReader]

Who's David McAfee (header on the last page)?

According to LinkedIn, he's "Corporate VP and General Manager, Client Channel Business" at AMD.
Edit: Ninja'd by @TheLostSwede

 

[napata]

Based on those slides the 9700x seems to be quite power constrained. The gain in performance is only half of the 9950x while PBO shows a gain twice as big as the other Zen 5 CPUs.

 

[ikjadoon]

Intel created the NPU as a discrete component on the processor, with its Core Ultra Meteor Lake, AMD only played catch-up, and it now seems like AMD has a vital lead in go-to-market, if it can capitalize on it.

Huh?

This is a typo (and contradicted on the very next page).

AMD Ryzen 7840U
Launched May 2023
NPU: 10 TOPs

Intel Meteor Lake
Launched December 2023
NPU: 9.5 TOPs

AMD launched first and still has the fastest NPU in any x86 SoC. Intel is playing catch-up. And both Intel & AMD are playing catch up with Apple's ANE since the late 2020 M1.

 

[bug]

It's a little disappointing they had to bank on AVX512 to claim the 16% better IPC. TDP taking a nosedive is sweet, though.

 

[W1zzard]

I would like to know how do they estimate the contributions of the four aspects of the architecture changes to the total IPC uplift. I wonder if they use some sophisticated calculation or just something simple.

View attachment 355228

Since the IPC measurements themselves are heavily dependent on the test selection I'd just say they used an educated guess it and made a fancy chart

 

[AnotherReader]

Since the IPC measurements themselves are heavily dependent on the test selection I'd just say they used an educated guess it and made a fancy chart

They probably simulated the traces of the applications on cycle accurate simulators for Zen 4 and Zen 5. This would allow them to gauge the impact of each portion of the design.

 

[EatingDirt]

Based on those slides the 9700x seems to be quite power constrained. The gain in performance is only half of the 9950x while PBO shows a gain twice as big as the other Zen 5 CPUs.

I suspect this is where the 120W TDP rumors came from. I'm sure it can be boosted up to ~120W TDP, which puts it out of its efficiency curve, but improves performance quite a noticeable amount. The 9700X basically comes stock in ECO mode.

 

[rv8000]

It's a little disappointing they had to bank on AVX512 to claim the 16% better IPC. TDP taking a nosedive is sweet, though.

If you exclude anything with AVX512 in their slide/data set, the average IPC increase is ~14.3%. They aren’t really banking on AVX512 to claim much here.

 

[Daven]

Lower temps, lower TDPs (except 9950X), higher IPC. Very nice indeed!

Thanks for the write-up W1zzard!