Zen 5 in April?
AMD still hasn’t officially said anything about when Zen 5 processors might hit the market. But it looks like it could be surprisingly soon. Usually, if something is supposed to come out “in 2024”, it’s more likely to come out towards the end of it, but according to rumors, the Ryzen 9000 desktop processors (as Zen 5 might be called) could come out in just a few months at an early date, similar to the release of Ryzen 2000.
According to Kepler_L2, one of the leakers active on Twitter, the desktop version of Zen 5 is already in volume production which has been running for an unspecified period of time, so AMD is likely already preparing an initial stock of processors for the launch. These first Zen 5 architecture processors are expected to be chiplet-based desktop CPUs (codenamed Granite Ridge) succeeding the current Ryzen 7000X models. However, since AMD will be releasing the desktop Ryzen 8000G series of APUs in the meantime, it’s likely that Zen 5 will get the Ryzen 9000 (9000X) name for differentiation.
“Granite Ridge” is supposed to still use the same 6nm IO chipset (and the AM5 socket, naturally) as the Ryzen 7000 CPUs. This means there won’t be changes to the connectivity (24 PCIe 5.0 lanes) and the basic integrated GPU with 128 shaders won’t change as well. The officially supported DDR5 memory clock speeds probably won’t change much either. If there is any change at all, we’d expect perhaps a small step up to DDR5-5600 from the current DDR5-5200 (although you can use significantly better clock speeds via XMP or EXPO profiles).
Similarly to how it was with Ryzen 3000X/XT and Ryzen 5000X, the changes should only be happening in the new CPU (or CCD) chiplets containing Zen 5 cores that are reportedly manufactured on 4nm process node. The architecture should significantly improve single-threaded performance. While it’s likely that the clock speeds could drop a bit, the core has reportedly expanded execution units to as many as six parallel ALUs, and the company is projecting an IPC increase of at least 10–15% based on a leak of internal documents that seem to be fairly likely to be legitimate. For example, Kepler_L2 expects this to be the biggest intergenerational improvement since the first Zen. Personally I expect the final value could be something like an 18% IPC improvement over Zen 4.
More: Official AMD documents: Zen 5 has 10–15+% IPC improvement, 6 ALUs and 512-bit SIMD
AMD is also reportedly not planning to release a new chipset for the processors at least during the release, so the AM5 platform will continue to be ruled by the B650(E), X670(E) and the cheap A620 based on ASMedia’s Promontory 21 chip. Before the end of the year, information surfaced that AMD might release a new platform in the second half of the year, but that might not come until some time after the new processors. Or maybe it wasn’t accurate information and it will be more of a refresh or a new wave of boards with updated features, but not directly based on new chipset silicon.
April release?
As we hinted at the beginning, according to Kepler_L2, Granite Ridge is believed to currently be in volume production, which he stated in response to a question on Twitter. This information was then picked up by techPowerUp and at least some media outlets. Of course, this statement should be taken with a grain of salt, as it wasn’t specified exactly what sources this information came from.
Kepler_L2 has commented on this before, on January 10, when he wrote that Granite Ridge / Ryzen 9000 processors with Zen 5 will probably show up in April. This is said to be an information from multiple sources, but it’s not yet clear if it is talking about date when the processors will physically appear for sale and shippig in stores, or if the April date only means a paper introduction. AMD will probably spread the introduction of these processors into two events as is usual now – first there will be a reveal event, then there will be some gap to give enough time to the generated buzz, and the real release and reviews will happen a bit later. So the first opportunity to buy Ryzen 9000 could end up being in May (maybe).
So, if this information is true, Zen 5 could be on the market in maybe three to four months. For now, however, this leak must be taken with a grain of salt, as is always the way with unofficial future-forecasting rumors.
English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš
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