RYZEN 7000 SERIES
IN A NUTSHELL In September 2022, AMD unveils the overarching features
that make up the Zen 4 microarchitecture based on TSMC's N5 5nm process technology that will be adopted by the new AMD Ryzen 7000 series processors, replete with the new features like DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 delivered via a new AM5 socket-based platform. Here are the new processors debuting from the 27th September; like previous launches, you'll note that the first salvo of new processors is aimed at the enthusiasts before newer lower stack models arrive in the future.
WHAT'S NEW FOR RYZEN 7000 SERIES AND ZEN 4 MICROARCHITECTURE?
→ Ryzen has been on a winning momentum ever since its debut in 2017, and it has only been gaining traction ever since. It's hard to see how AMD could do better than the Ryzen 5900X and the 3D V-Cache variety via the Ryzen 5800X3D, but these are only great now and AMD needs something to mow the competition for the near future too. To that extent, Ryzen 7000's design goals were to deliver the fastest core for gamers and the most compute for creators via a leadership core design in a next-gen enthusiast desktop platform.
AMD took the already capable Zen 3 architecture and focused on improving
In terms of gaming performance, AMD sort of chose games that scale really easily which delivered good gains. These games are tested at Full HD resolution and using a Radeon RX 6950XT GPU; expect these gains to thin out at higher resolutions and with a mixed set of games genres.
how fast the processor can be fed with new instructions. For this, they enhance the processor's front-end via a larger L2 cache, increasing the micro-ops cache (a trick they've taken advantage of twice previously in the Ryzen journey) to increase micro-ops processing, better branch prediction and others to upgrade the frontend of the processor. These improvements along with other internal enhancements allowed the new Zen 4 to deliver up to 13% higher instructions per cycle (IPC), an important indicator of performance expectations when all else on the platform/ system level are at a constant. WHAT CAN YOU ACTUALLY EXPECT IN TERMS OF PERFORMANCE?
→ Pitting Intel's best, the Core i9-12900K against AMD's newest and fastest Ryzen 9 7950X, on average, AMD registers over 40% performance gain in creator applications, though these are based on render applications, but the entire swathe of tools used by a creator is quite wide. Watch out for our detailed assessment as we'll soon be getting kits to put AMD's new kid on the block to the test.
In terms of gaming performance, AMD sort of chose games that scale really easily and that has given it a pretty glowing first impression that it could deliver good gains. These games are tested at Full HD resolution and using a Radeon RX 6950XT GPU; expect these gains to thin out at higher resolutions and with a mixed set of games genres.
Now, where it gets really interesting is when
AMD touts its US$299 Ryzen 5 7600X to easily beat out Intel's best at gaming, which could possibly make it the ideal gaming CPU for most of us. This allows one to allocate a larger budget for the GPU or really bring down the totally cost of a really credible gaming machine.
WHAT'S NEW ON THE SOCKET AM5 PLATFORM? →
First and foremost, AMD's Ryzen 7000 series will be the first AMD consumer processor to ditch the PGA socket for an LGA socket, similar to Intel's processors (though big Blue made that switch more than a decade ago). To be exact, the AM5 socket will utilize a 1718-pin land grid array to facilitate easier processor installation and to keep the upgrade process a little leaner, it will work with current AM4 certified coolers. The choice of adopting the LGA socket alone erases any hopes of the AM5 processor being compatible with any existing AMD motherboards.
Despite the processor having zero-backwards compatibility, it must be noted that AMD has cho
sen to incorporate the very latest technology it can get its hands on such as DDR5 ad PCIe 5.0 support and to do that meaningfully and designing for the future (the AM5 is designed with up to 230W socket power delivery), AMD has also chosen to drop support for old memory technologies such as DDR4 that has been around for a decade. This allows AMD to maximize the performance potential of the processor without holding on to old technology and its limitations. With far more pinouts on this new processor to uphold its design parameters, it's
Like Intel's evolving XMP memory standards, AMD too has taken this platform overhaul to its advantage to debut AMD's EXPO technology, which is a memory overclocking profile to fast track DDR5 memory overclocking with its latest Ryzen 7000 series processors. AMD also shared that Intel's XMP-certified memory will work fine on AMD's platform, but as can be expected, the most optimal overclocking can only be achieved with AMD EXPO-labelled memory. Up to 15 memory kits with speeds up to DDR5-6400 will impractical to deliver it via PGA format which was already at its limits. be available at launch.
All in all, AMD cites that the new AM5 socket platform is expected to serve them well through 2025 and beyond.
Expect new enthusiast X670 chipset-based motherboards and mainstream B650 counterparts to flood the market when the AMD Ryzen 7000 series hit retail on 27th September 2022. This time around, AMD is offering both chipset models with an Extreme option. The Extreme option of both chipsets will support PCIe 5.0 for storage products (coming in November 2022) and for next-gen PCIe 5.0 graphics cards. The non-Extreme variants will only support PCI 5.0 storalso