AMD’s upcoming Ryzen 7000 chips will be another major milestone for the company: They will be the first desktop processors with 5-nanometer cores. During her Computex keynote presentation today, AMD CEO Lisa Su confirmed that Ryzen 7000 chips will launch this fall. Under the hood, they will feature dual 5nm Zen 4 cores, as well as a redesigned 6nm I/O core (with RDNA2 graphics, DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 controllers, and a power-efficient architecture). Earlier this month, the company teased its plans for high-end “Dragon Range” Ryzen 7000 laptop chips, which are expected to launch in 2023.
Since this is just a glimpse of Computex, AMD isn’t giving us many other details about the Ryzen 7000 just yet. The company says it will offer a 15 percent performance jump in Cinebench’s single-threaded benchmark compared to the Ryzen 5950X. Still, it would be more interesting to hear about multi-threaded performance, especially given the progress Intel has made with its 12th-generation CPUs. You can expect 1MB of L2 cache per core, as well as maximum boost speeds above 5GHz and better hardware acceleration for AI tasks.
AMD is also introducing Socket AM5 motherboards alongside its new flagship processor. The company is moving towards a 1718-pin LGA socket, but it will still support AM4 coolers. That is a big problem if you have already invested a lot in your cooling installation. The new motherboards offer up to 24 channels of PCIe 5.0 across storage and graphics, up to 14 USB SuperSpeed ports at 20 Gbps, and up to 4 HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2 ports. You’ll find them in three different flavors: B650 for mainstream systems, X650 for enthusiasts who want PCIe 5.0 for storage and graphics, and X650 Extreme for the most demanding people.
Since Intel won’t have a 7nm desktop chip until next year (barring additional delays), AMD looks poised to once again be the performance leader for a new generation. But given how well Intel’s hybrid process has worked for its 12th-generation chips, it’ll be interesting to see how it plans to respond. In any case, it’s nice to see some real competition in the CPU space again.
While Ryzen 7000 will be AMD’s main focus for the rest of the year, the company is also throwing a bot at mainstream laptops in Q4 with its upcoming 6nm “Mendocino” CPUs. They will feature four 6nm Zen 2 cores, as well as RDNA 2 graphics, making them ideal for systems priced between $399 and $699. Sure, that’s not much to get excited about, but even basic machines like Lenovo’s Ideapad 1 deserve decent performance. And for many office drones, it can mean they have work-issued machines that finally don’t stink.
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