Alleged AMD Zen 5 Specs Leak: Twice the Cores, 15% Increased IPC Over Ryzen 7000

AMD
(Image credit: AMD)

YouTube channel Moore's Law Is Dead leaked two new allegedly official AMD slides detailing key specifications and IPC targets for Zen 5 and Zen 6. The new slides report that Zen 5 will be a significant architectural overhaul over Zen 4, targeting 10 to 15% IPC improvements or more. Zen 5 will also reportedly incorporate 16 core CCXs for the first time. Before we go much further, we'll need to sprinkle a healthy amount of salt on this report.

The list of improvements going into the Zen 5 core is quite extensive. The biggest gains surround the L1 cache, branch predictor, execution window, and core processing throughput. The branch predictor has received zero bubble conditional branches, high accuracy and larger BTB. Zen 5's L1 cache size has grown from 32KB on Zen 4 to 48KB now on Zen 5.

(Image credit: YouTube - Moore's Law Is Dead)

(Image credit: YouTube - Moore's Law Is Dead)

The chip's throughput has reportedly been extensively improved, featuring 2 basic block fetch units, 8 wide-dispatch/rename, 6 ALUs, 4 load and 2 store units, and more. The scheduler reportedly now has a larger structure size, and the integer scheduler is larger and more unified than previous designs. The slide also lists additional data prefetch improvements along with ISA and Security enhancements but doesn't go into any specific details.

Another considerable improvement revealed from the leaked slides is the core configuration of Zen 5's CCXs (core complexes), which have been doubled from 8 to 16. The new change marks the first time since Zen 2 that AMD has bothered to increase the core count of its CCXs, which means that we could see a 32-core "Ryzen 9 8950X" in the future.

We don't know yet what types of cores these new Zen 5 core clusters will have. Half of Zen 5's core count could be dedicated entirely to Zen 5c efficiency cores, or the entire stack could be vanilla Zen 5 performance cores. It could be a mix of both since AMD's slides suggest that there will be different models featuring FP-512 support and some models with low-power cores.

It's worth mentioning that these slides are strictly targeted toward AMD's enterprise server chips (EYPC) and aren't focused on its mainstream consumer desktop CPUs. So don't expect every detail to make its way into Ryzen 8000 chips next year, like FP-512 support. But, in general, the underlying architectural specs could make their way into Ryzen 8000.

The leaked slides also show additional projections regarding AMD's Zen 6 architecture. The slide shows that Zen 6 will have an estimated IPC target of at least 10% at the very minimum, FP16 for AI/machine learning, and a new memory profiler. Finally, the last bullet point mentions that AMD will double core counts again per CCD, jumping from 16 to 32 cores. There's a good chance this second core count doubling will include slower/more compact Zen 6 efficiency cores, but the fact that AMD could be quadrupling core counts in under three generations is impressive nonetheless.

Zen 5 is AMD's next-generation CPU architecture, expected to debut in 2024 with AMD's Ryzen 8000-series desktop and mobile chips. And remember, we must take all of this information with a heavy dose of salt, given how far away we are from an official launch.

Aaron Klotz
Contributing Writer

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

  • Order 66
    A 32 core 64 thread 8950x running at 4+ GHz base clock would be a beast. It would probably make most of the existing Threadripper lineup obsolete considering a 2990wx scores 30,000 pts in cinebench r23 and I would expect this to crush it in cinebench.
    Reply
  • Makaveli
    I'm going to go from Zen 3 to Zen 5 so looks like that will be a 25-30% IPC increase going to be real nice.
    Reply
  • suryasans
    Finally, AMD will have a dedicated full width 512 bit Vector Floating Point on its CPU cores.
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    jaydenmiller1 said:
    A 32 core 64 thread 8950x
    Unless TSMC is going to start giving out cores for free I don't see this happening, it would be way too expensive to make them (AMD) money, and that's if there even are enough people that would buy such a cpu in the mainstream market.

    Also if it will have 4nm which is a refinement of 5nm and not a new node, it will either need a lot more power (can current mobos provide more than the ppt? ) or they will run extremely slow if they are all loaded which will not look good.

    For server these things all make total sense, for the mainstream market they don't make any sense at all.
    Reply
  • AgentBirdnest
    If they double the core count per CCX, I am betting half would be efficiency cores.
    That was my initial thought when I saw the headline... then I opened the article to see the source, and immediately disregarded this leak.
    Reply
  • Order 66
    TerryLaze said:
    Unless TSMC is going to start giving out cores for free I don't see this happening, it would be way too expensive to make them (AMD) money, and that's if there even are enough people that would buy such a cpu in the mainstream market.

    Also if it will have 4nm which is a refinement of 5nm and not a new node, it will either need a lot more power (can current mobos provide more than the ppt? ) or they will run extremely slow if they are all loaded which will not look good.

    For server these things all make total sense, for the mainstream market they don't make any sense at all.
    There is an intel motherboard that can provide 400w (I know it's an intel board but what is stopping motherboard manufacturers from doing a similar power delivery system) so I don't think power would be an issue, but as the chip doesn't exist yet it is impossible to know. Yes, most people wouldn't buy these but I bet enthusiasts and people who love to overclock would love to get this thing to 5GHz on all (potential) 32 cores. this would probably be some threadripper replacement.
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    jaydenmiller1 said:
    There is an intel motherboard that can provide 400w (I know it's an intel board but what is stopping motherboard manufacturers from doing a similar power delivery system) so I don't think power would be an issue,
    Since AMD promised a long life cycle on mobos, having to get a new mobo to really use the new CPUs would be terrible PR. The crowd would probably get more angry about that then about slow CPUs.
    Reply
  • Order 66
    TerryLaze said:
    Since AMD promised a long life cycle on mobos, having to get a new mobo to really use the new CPUs would be terrible PR. The crowd would probably get more angry about that then about slow CPUs.
    That's I good point, however if you are upgrading from Zen 3 then you will have to buy a new mobo anyway. I highly doubt that a lot of people will upgrade from zen 4 to zen 5. I am not planning to at least.
    Reply
  • hotaru251
    jaydenmiller1 said:
    A 32 core 64 thread 8950x running at 4+ GHz base clock would be a beast
    the article said the leaks were for the EPYC lineup. not the mainstream lineup.

    Intel might as well just stop competing for server if its true...they can barely keep up as is.
    Reply
  • AgentBirdnest
    hotaru251 said:
    the article said the leaks were for the EPYC lineup. not the mainstream lineup.
    No, the article says it is for "EYPC" CPUs. A new series, perhaps? : P
    Reply