AMD Speeds Up Development of "Zen 5" to Thwart Intel Xeon "Emerald Rapids"?

[btarunr]

In no mood to cede its market-share growth to Intel, AMD has reportedly decided to accelerate the development of its next-generation "Zen 5" microarchitecture for debut within 2023. In its mid-2022 presentations, AMD had publicly given "Zen 5" a 2024 release date. This is part of a reading-in-between the lines for a recent GIGABYTE press release announcing server platforms powered by relatively low-cost Ryzen desktop processors. The specific sentence from that release reads "The next generation of AMD Ryzen desktop processors that will come out later this year will also be supported on this AM5 platform, so customers who purchase these servers today have the opportunity to upgrade to the Ryzen 7000 series successor."

While the GIGABYTE press release speaks of a next-generation Ryzen desktop processor, it stands to reason that it is referencing an early release of "Zen 5," and since AMD shares the CPU complex dies (CCDs) between its Ryzen client and EPYC server processors, the company is looking at a two-pronged upgrade to its processor lineup, with its next-generation EPYC "Turin" processor competing with Xeon Scalable "Emerald Rapids," and Ryzen "Granite Ridge" desktop processors taking on Intel's Core "Raptor Lake Refresh" and "Meteor Lake-S" desktop processors. It is rumored that "Zen 5" is being designed for the TSMC 3 nm node, and could see an increase in CPU core count per CCD, up from the present 8. TSMC 3 nm node goes into commercial mass-production in the first half of 2023 as the TSMC N3 node, with a refined N3E node slated for the second half of the year.



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[ratirt]

Is AMD worried about the Intel Emerald? It would seem they have some concerns otherwise why speed things up.

 

[dragontamer5788]

My guess is that Apple had a smaller run of TSMC 3nm than AMD expected, so AMD is getting their chips earlier.

 

[kondamin]

That is going to further damage the 2023 market for both tsmc and amd

 

[Minus Infinity]

If true they are going to see Zen 4 sales further decline. Why buy Zen 4 if Zen 5 is launching in less than 9 months. I certainly will be holding off for either Zen 5 or Arrow Lake to upgrade my 3700X system. Zen 4 has me underwhelmed as has Raptor lake's insane power.

 

[Chaitanya]

My guess is that Apple had a smaller run of TSMC 3nm than AMD expected, so AMD is getting their chips earlier.

For last quite a few years Apple had smaller nodes before other TSMC clients.

 

[konga]

It is a pretty massive leap to conclude that Gigabyte's press release was specifically referring to Zen 5. AMD has done ryzen generations before without using a new Zen generation, see the Ryzen 2000 series. They also had Ryzen 4000 APUs that used Zen 2. If everything from AMD's mouth suggests a 2024 release date for Zen 5, then I think it's ridiculous to suggest that this one gigabyte press release changes all of that. I also don't really get why this is a front page news story, this is comment-section-tier speculation here.

 

[Kapone33]

Just give me an APU like the 5700G with Zen 4 and RDNA2.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

for debut within 2023

Impossible and pointless. Clearly a misinterpretation of a clickbait article from somewhere in internet. AMD is not far behind Intel as performance and number of cores. It's the exact opposite.

 

[pavle]

So they are rushing things, eh? That's going to be really good.

 

[Mysteoa]

My guess is that Apple had a smaller run of TSMC 3nm than AMD expected, so AMD is getting their chips earlier.

You can't quite compare them like. They still are suing different variation of the same node. Apple is on the power-efficient version and AMD is on the performance version.

 

[mama]

Glad I paused before 3D. Let's see what an 8000 series CPU has to offer.

 

[Mysteoa]

Is AMD worried about the Intel Emerald? It would seem they have some concerns otherwise why speed things up.

They need to keep punching Intel and to not let them breath. Last time AMD took a slight break, we got 10 years of Intel.

 

[Super XP]

AMD should have always planned ahead when competing with a giant such as Intel.

They need to keep punching Intel and to not let them breath. Last time AMD took a slight break, we got 10 years of Intel.

Oh my I remember, its a mix of the Good OL Days and the Bad OL Days lol

If true they are going to see Zen 4 sales further decline. Why buy Zen 4 if Zen 5 is launching in less than 9 months. I certainly will be holding off for either Zen 5 or Arrow Lake to upgrade my 3700X system. Zen 4 has me underwhelmed as has Raptor lake's insane power.

Zen 4 sales are exploding. AMD isn't just going to abandon it, they are going to be on Zen 4 for as long as they've been on Zen 3. Ramping up Zen 5 is speak, by the time its market ready, it will be 2+ years from now, both Zen 4 & Zen 5 can go at it quite comfortably.

 

[ymdhis]

I'd rather have them do it right than fast. Zen4 is good enough for now, and they still haven't released the APU versions for desktop.

 

[hsew]

Zen 4 has been kind of a flop imo. At this point it’s hard to dissociate it with high platform costs, long boot times, and high temps, which is a shame because even the slightest bit of tweaking makes it so much more efficient. That and Raptor Lake has been even worse on power and temps... its only saving grace is cost of entry.

 

[tfdsaf]

AMD are clearly on the back foot again and need to gain ground, but an early 2023 release for Zen 5 is out of the question. We are looking at a very late 2023 or early 2024 launch.

Heck they haven't even released the 7800x3d and we are talking about Zen 5. I also don't think its likely for them to change the core count per CCD, though if they do introduce "small" cores then we might see them develop smaller CCD's with 4 small cores and then add however many CCD's they want, if they need 12 cores, add one of the weaker CCD's, or they can even do 16 big cores with 1CCD of 4 smaller cores for a total of 20 cores. Use just the big cores for gaming and use all cores for applications!

 

[bob3002]

The Gigabyte press release could be referring to upcoming Zen4 desktop APUs with powerful IGPs, not the basic ones inside the current Ryzen 7000 series.

 

[Denver]

I believe that only EPYC zen5 would arrive this year, AMD wants to continue advancing in the most lucrative segment, Desktop CPUs will arrive in 2024. My two cents.

 

[hs4]

It is rumored that "Zen 5" is being designed for the TSMC 3 nm node

N3E was announced in Q4 2021, and the design rules are incompatible with N3, so even if the design had been done before then, it would have to be redone; it is highly unlikely that an N3E CPU will be available in 2023 (A17 is manufactured in N3B).
In general, CPUs require about 3 years from the start of design to shipment. Even Rocket Lake took two years to port from 10nm to 14nm, and if a newly designed CPU is ready to ship within two years of the publish of the design rules, that would be unprecedented record speed.

If anything will be released this year, it will be the Bergamo with Zen 4c. This is already announced to launch in 2023 in the AMD Accelerated Data Center Premiere (Q4 2021), which is needed to compete with Neoverse and Sierra Forrest in a market that needs MT performance over ST performance and integers over floating point.

 

[Jism]

Development of a CPU will take some time, but they have to (stay) ahead of the game here. Rapid is a danger. Intel's single core thing is still on par compared to AMD, while AMD wins phat and square based on efficiency.

 

[Chry]

I already bought a Ryzen 7600x with the anticipation of an 8000 series upgrade once it's released.
Upgrading one component is so much financially easier compared to the whole system.

That being said, I do not believe whatsoever that the 'reading between the lines' implies Zen5 specifically.

 

[hs4]

I already bought a Ryzen 7600x with the anticipation of an 8000 series upgrade once it's released.
Upgrading one component is so much financially easier compared to the whole system.

That being said, I do not believe whatsoever that the 'reading between the lines' implies Zen5 specifically.

Based on the development cycle so far, I think Zen5 will be out in the first half of 2024, and if I believe AMD investor day 2022, Turin will be N4.

But since TSMC has stopped shrinking SRAM, it will be necessary to change the structure where cache occupies 70% of the CCD area. Currently, the best node to manufacture Zen5 is Intel 3, which is a joke.

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

AMD are clearly on the back foot again and need to gain ground, but an early 2023 release for Zen 5 is out of the question. We are looking at a very late 2023 or early 2024 launch.

Heck they haven't even released the 7800x3d and we are talking about Zen 5. I also don't think its likely for them to change the core count per CCD, though if they do introduce "small" cores then we might see them develop smaller CCD's with 4 small cores and then add however many CCD's they want, if they need 12 cores, add one of the weaker CCD's, or they can even do 16 big cores with 1CCD of 4 smaller cores for a total of 20 cores. Use just the big cores for gaming and use all cores for applications!

Is AMD clearly on "the back foot"? They have the best enterprise processors, the 3d v-cache chips have regained the gaming crown, Zen4 is way more efficient, the Zen4 mobile line seems to be better than Intel in both performance and efficiency....and all of this while AMD has an R&D budget less than a third of Intel's.....to me that would be considered to be performing pretty well, even "punching way above their weight class". I think the "back foot" perception is based upon the double standard people set on AMD....everyone expects AMD to not only deliver a superior product, but to do so at a much, much, much cheaper price...which is literally impossible. AMD can't win at performance AND charge less and all while competing against two companies that have access to way more financial resources than AMD.

As for as Zen4, prices have come down substantially on CPUs and now budget motherboard options are available. DDR5 has come down enough in price so that Zen4 not working with DDR4 isn't really an issue anymore either. Laid out like that, I dont see how AMD is on their back foot...they're simultaneously competing against two, much larger opponents and still offer some of the best products around and they continue to grab enterprise market share which is the most lucrative x86 segment.

***I've read multiple leaks from different sources that claim Zen5 will have 16 cores per CCD, and that Turin will have 256 cores...weather those are Zen5 or Zen5C cores, I'm not sure, but without a node shrinks and 16 cores per CCD, we're looking at at least 192 cores based on a 12 chiplet configuration like Genoa, although if they do got to 3nm like has been claimed, they might be able to fit 16 chiplets in the Turin package and there's your 256 cores....so Zen5C could be even more, maybe 384 cores, but that's pure speculation.

Let's also remember that Zen4 and Zen5 are developed by two different teams and that Zen5 was ALREADY in development long before Zen4 was even released. So, it very well could be that Zen5 could be available that soon after Zen4. It seems more likely that Zen5 originally being released in 2024 was probably a CHOICE by AMD to ensure enough Zen4 sales rather than a constraint dictated by development or TSMC availability.

 

[BArms]

I hope they just focus on IPC, I really don't want more than 8 or 16 cores in a consumer CPU, far too many games and apps aren't going to scale beyond 2 or 4 anyway.