AM5 socket and Ryzen 7000 shown. Zen 4 capable of 5 GHz all-core

First picture and a demo of the next-gen Ryzen with Zen 4 architecture and AM5 socket. 5.0GHz on all-cores ingame

AMD has announced the release of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU with 3D V-Cache technology bound for spring and also talked its desktop CPU successors with Zen 4 architecture, planned to arrive this year. The company has shared the first pictures of the Ryzen 7000 CPUs and their AM5 sockets. AMD has further shown a demo, according to which the Zen 4 should be able to reach 5 GHz clocks on all cores, a great news for the 5nm technology.

The first information about AMD’s new desktop platform with an AM5 socket introducing DDR5 and eventually supporting Zen 4 and 5 architecture CPUs has leaked last year. Even some unofficial 3D visualisations of the CPU have emerged. On Tuesday’s CES 2022 those rumors have been fully confirmed, since AMD has physically shown the Ryzen 7000 CPU together with its AM5 socket, being the first mainstream CPU from AMD that uses LGA package with pins placed on mainboard (this makes CPU more damage-proof, but at the cost of making the mainboard more vulnerable to damage and somewhat more expensive).

Ryzen 7000 sample shown na CES 2022 Source: AMD

CPUs for the AM5 socket are square-shaped with two cut-outs at the sides designed to prevent an incorrect installation. As opposed to Intel’s design, the bottom side is fully covered by contacts and does not contain any SMD components. These are all located on the top side of the substrate, atypically around the edges. The metal heat spreader therefore does not have a continuous edge, but is placed on the CPU substrate via eight legs with gaps in between, which allows for component placement in these gaps. This provides the AM5 socket CPUs with an unique characteristic look, distinguishable at first glance.

Zen 4 to be released „in the second half of the year“

Ryzen 7000 CPUs, displayed in the images (whether they are fully functional samples, or dummy mockups, is unknown) will have a Zen 4 architecture and will be produced using the 5 nm process. They have been given the code name „Raphael“ and should include a basic integrated GPU, this is not yet officially confirmed by AMD however. The CPU die will for the first time be made on 5 nm.

AMD has also shared the approximate date of the release of the CPU. This is currently only defined as the second half of the year. So we only know that they are planned for this year, potentially closer to the end of it.

Ryzen 7000 with 5nm CPU and Zen 4 architecture are slated for release in the second half of 2022 Source: AMD

A release prior to July is thereby ruled out, even though this likely never has been a likely possibility. AMD president Lisa Su has also confirmed that the AM5 platform itself will also debut in the second half of the year. This in turn rules out a hypothetical scenario that AM5 mainboards would be released in for example May, or June, for some times limited to serving „Rembrandt“ 6 nm Ryzen APUs.

More: AMD introduces Ryzen 6000: 6nm Zen 3+ with superfast iGPU RDNA 2

AM5 will feature PCI Express 5.0 support

In addition to the CPU, AMD has also shown the AM5 socket during its presentation, so you can see the metal retention mechanism in the picture below. The slides have confirmed that it includes 1718 pins and that it will use DDR5 memory as expected. There has been no mention of DDR4, it is therefore likely that the socket will be exclusively tied with new memory type, similar to how AM4 only comes with DDR4 memory. However, older coolers supporting AM4 will also be compatible with AM5, so these will be able to be carried over to the new platform.

The AM5 socket will support DDR5 as well as PCI Express 5.0 Source: AMD

Another thing stated in the slides is PCI Express 5.0 support being present on the AM5. This is good news, since previously leaked information has claimed that the platform will only have PCI Express 4.0. As AMD has officially promised PCIe 5.0 now, there seems to be no need to worry about that anymore. It is however possible, that the Ryzen 7000 Raphael will only feature PCIe 4.0 support, with PCIe 5.0 only being introduced with some following CPU generation. AMD has not directly confirmed PCIe 5.0 support for Ryzen 7000, however it has not directly denied it either.

The AM5 socket on a mainboard along with mounting holes for the cooler. AM5 is compatible with coolers for the AM4 socket (Source: AMD)

All-core boost 5 GHz on Zen 4

At the CES 2022, AMD has not shown live footage of Ryzen 7000 running (and Zen 4 server CPUs were not demoed either), but a pre-recorded video capture of the Zen 4 sample running a game has been played back. This might or might not indicate the current state of polish and reliability of the Zen 4 samples AMD now has on hand.

The mentioned video demo has shown the game Halo Infinite played on a pre-production sample of 5 nm Ryzen (7000/Zen 4 generation). The game was running with a resolution of 1920 × 1080, allegedly with very high FPS, but no exact numbers have been given and the footage does not include an FPS indicator.

Zen 4 demo in Halo Infinity at CES 2022 Soucre: AMD

The crucial information however is the fact that, according to what was said in the keynote, the CPU is hitting a frequency of 5.0 GHz on all cores during this game. This is something you will not achieve with today’s Ryzen 5000. A 5.0 GHz clock is only achieved by Ryzen 5950X on its preferred core during single-thread loads. So it seems that the Zen 4 will bring a general increase of clocks, despite the fact that it will use the advanced 5nm process note, which has given rise to some worries that the frequencies will actually decrease (since the technology has been originally developed for mobile use). But it looks that it will achieve both great power efficiency for multi-thread loads (or GPUs), as well as high maximum performance during single-threads boosts.

Setup of the PC build running the Ryzen 7000 demo (Source: AMD)

How many cores does this “all-core” boost mean, has not been stated, we don’t know hoe many cores the chip used had. It is most likely that it has been a single CPU chiplet sample, thereby containing a maximum of eight Zen 4 cores.

This demo might be some kind of response to Intel announcing Core i9-12900KS, an Alder Lake SKU that will feature 5.2 GHz boost on all eight P-Core cores (and even achieving 5.5 GHz on one preferred core during single-thread loads).

As already mentioned, AMD will likely not have this response available until the end of the year, unless a big surprise happens and the Ryzen 7000 CPUs land in the marekt already in e.g. August or September. Bu we do not expect this to happen, frankly.

Source: AMD (1, 2)

English translation and edit by Karol Démuth, original text by Jan Olšan, editor for Cnews.cz


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