Introduction
During a Computex 2022 Keynote on May 23, 2022, AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su revealed some interesting new AMD Ryzen 7000 processor information. Here is her presentation:
Unfortunately, Dr. Su was frustratingly vague about many details about the Ryzen 7000 desktop processor family. I think this is because AMD is trying to keep Intel guessing about these details before Intel releases their Raptor Lake desktop processors.
The 5nm AMD Ryzen 7000 Series will use the 5nm Zen 4 architecture, which will have both DDR5 memory support and PCIe 5.0 I/O support. It is due to release “this fall”.
There was no mention of SKUs or most specifications that hardware enthusiasts (and industry competitors) are usually interested in.
AMD Ryzen 7000 Processor Information
Here is what we know so far.
- Up to 16C/32T with two 5nm Zen 4 core chiplets
- Single-core boost clocks of 5.5GHz
- >15% single threaded CPU performance uplift
- 1MB per core L2 cache (double the size of Zen 3)
- AI hardware acceleration features
- New 6nm I/O Die
- Integrated AMD RDNA 2 graphics
- 24 PCIe 5.0 lanes
- DDR5-6000 memory support
- Up to fourteen USB ports including 20Gbps Type-C ports
- New Socket AM5 motherboards with 170W PPT power limits
- 1718 pin LGA socket
- Compatible with Socket AM4 CPU coolers
- New X670 Extreme, X670 and B650 chipsets
- All chipsets have Wi-Fi 6E and BT 5.2 LE support
- PCIe 5.0 storage support in all chipsets
One thing that this means is that you will need a new motherboard and new DDR5 RAM for a Ryzen 7000 processor system. The old days of just dropping a new CPU in your existing AM4 motherboard with your existing DDR4 RAM are over.
How Does This Compare to Intel?
Right now, Intel has their 12th Generation Core “Alder Lake” processors which also have DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 support. Alder Lake can support up to 20 PCIe 5.0 lanes from the CPU and up to four 20Gbps USB Type-C ports.
The total I/O capacity with an Alder Lake Z690 chipset motherboard beats current AMD Zen 3 processors in X570 chipset motherboards. AMD Zen 4 processors in X670E and X670 chipset motherboards should beat Alder Lake in that department.
For single-threaded CPU performance, Intel Alder Lake currently beats AMD Zen 3 in most benchmarks. It looks like AMD Zen 4 will beat Alder Lake, but it is unclear by how much. I think it is a pretty safe bet that a 16C/32T AMD “Ryzen 7950X” will beat an Intel Core i9-12900K for multi-threaded CPU performance.
Final Words
Based on these limited details, it looks like the single-threaded CPU performance increase with Zen 4 may not be quite high as many people were hoping for. On the other hand, there are some indications that AMD is sandbagging a little here. There was also no mention of 3D-VCache in Zen 4. I suspect some Ryzen 7000 SKUs will have that feature.
The big advance here is having a LOT more total I/O capacity from the processor and chipset, especially when PCIe 5.0 storage devices are available later this year.
BTW, I have a popular post that covers AMD processor naming here:
If you have any questions about this post, please ask me here in the comments or on Twitter. I am pretty active on Twitter as GlennAlanBerry. Thanks for reading!
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