AMD’s AM5 future
Is it worth waiting for the new generation of Ryzen processors, due later this year? The answer isn’t straightforward
With the current set of Ryzen chips now over a year old, AMD is getting ready to launch its successors, based on the Zen 4 architecture. The company has announced the first set of Ryzen 7000 chips. Unlike Intel, AMD hasn’t gone for P-cores and E-cores, and its processors will use all high-performance cores.
As with the previous generation, the maximum core count tops out at 16. This core count will still be delivered across two chiplets, although the fabrication process has dropped to 5nm from 7nm. That should make the processors even more power-efficient, as well as reducing package sizes.
There are some significant differences between new and old. For starters, the new chips double the amount of L2 cache per core to 1MB. Next, the chips are designed to break the 5GHz barrier on boost. As a result of these changes and additional efficiencies, AMD has said that each core on Ryzen 7000 will be 15% faster than on the previous generation.
AMD has also promised that every chip will have a GPU built in, although these will be targeted at people that want basic graphics for work tasks rather than gaming.
AMD is moving with the times, and all-new processors will use DDR5 only; that’s a little different to Intel, which supports both DDR4 and DD5. There’s also a shift to PCI-E 5 with 24 lanes for storage and graphics.
All of these changes mean that the old socket AM4 has come to an end, and the new processors will work with AM5 instead. For the first time, AMD is moving to a Land-Grid Array (LGA) socket, as Intel uses, where the pins are in the socket, not on the CPU. A new socket means a new motherboard, with three new chipsets announced: X670 Extreme, X670 and B670, each catering to different price points and requirements. Products are due to ship in the autumn, with no dates or prices yet announced.
Is it worth the wait? The trouble with processors is that you could wait forever, and we suspect the chips will be in short supply even if they are officially put on sale before the end of the year. Still, if you’re a keen upgrader the switch to a new platform effectively makes that decision for you.