AMD CEO Lisa Su and a host of other executives will take to the stage tonight at 7 PM ET to announce the Zen 4 family of Ryzen 7000 processors during the company's "together we advance_PCs" livestream. These new chips bring several big advancements, including support for DDR5 memory and the PCIe 5.0 interface, not to mention blisteringly-high clock speeds that are rumored to top out at 5.7 GHz. In addition, AMD has also added integrated graphics to its mainstream Ryzen lineup for the first time.
We expect AMD to make several key announcements, including pricing, availability, and the full specifications of the Ryzen 7000 lineup, along with other new details about the new Socket AM5 motherboard ecosystem. We added updates as the show progressed, but you can also watch the video yourself in the embed above.
You can also see our other coverage with the full lineup and details in the AMD Launches Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 CPUs article.
- $699 Ryzen 9 7950X, 16 cores, 32 threads, 4.5 / 5.7 GHz base/boost
- $549 Ryzen 9 7900X, 12 cores, 24 threads, 4.7 / 5.6 GHz base/boost
- $399 Ryzen 7 7700X, 8 cores, 16 threads, 4.5 / 5.4 GHz base/boost
- $299 Ryzen 5 7600X, 6 cores, 12 threads, 4.7 / 5.3 GHz base/boost
AMD CEO Lisa Su began the show by describing how the company touches billions of users' lives every day. That will continue with four new architectures that the company will launch over the next several quarters. That includes Zen 4, Zen 4C, RDNA3, and its XDNA architecture.
Lisa Su outlined the company's goals for its Ryzen 7000 processors, including support for PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 memory. AMD exceeded its goals for the Zen 4 core, so the company is revising its initial projection of up to 10% IPC improvement to 13%.
AMD has also increased peak clock speeds to 5.7 GHz, an 800 MHz improvement over the prior generation processors.
Lisa Su says the Ryzen 9 79750X is the fastest gaming CPU in the world and that it delivers up to 60% more compute performance.
Lisa Su demoed the Ryzen 9 7950X running the vray rendering benchmark 62% faster than Intel's flagship Core i9-12900K, but at 47% better performance per watt.
Su also announced three other processors: the Ryzen 9 7900X, Ryzen 7 7700X, and the Ryzen 5 7600X.
AMD says the Ryzen 5 7600X delivers up to 5% more gaming performance than the Core i9-12900K. Here we can also see the full lineup of Ryzen 7000 processors.
AMD CTO Mark Papermaster has taken to the stage.
Papermaster outlined several new improvements, including 13% IPC increase, new front-end design, support for AVX-512, and the 5nm process node.
AMD tuned the Zen 4 architecture to expose the higher frequencies available with the TSMC 5nm process node. AMD also worked with TSMC to develop a semi-custom N5 process node that delivers enhanced performance.
AMD measured the 13% IPC improvement with a wide range of workloads, including gaming. Naturally, the IPC improvement varies by workload, but it measures at 13% overall.
Zen 4 is an iterative improvement over Zen 3. AMD widened the front end and improved branch prediction, delivering up to 60% of the IPC gain. AMD also doubled the L2 cache and the op-caches.
AMD added support for AVX-512, but made special accommodations to prevent this from resulting in reduced frequencies. To combat that problem, AMD uses a 'double-pumped' AVX-256 implementation.
AMD worked closely with TSMC to tune its architecture for the TSMC 5nm node. The result is an N5 node that has several advantages, including a more robust 15-layer metal stack.
AMD also reduced the die area despite these enhancements.
AMD touted 62% lower power consumption gen-over-gen and 49% more performance at the same power.
AMD has improved performance and power efficiency significantly. The N5 process delivers even larger performance gains with the lower-power 65W models.
The AMD Zen 4 core is 54% smaller than Intel's Alder Lake chips. It is also 47% more efficient.
AMD will bring its 3D V-Cache models to market later this year. The company also has its stripped-down Zen 4c core coming to market for data centers early next year.
Zen 5 is a new ground-up redesign; it will arrive in 2024.
AMD says Zen 4 remains on schedule and proves the company can execute to schedule. Papermaster says there will be no letup in AMD's cadence of innovation.
AMD's David McAfee has come to the stage. He's here to talk about the AM5 platform, but started by recapping the successes of the AM4 ecosystem.
AM4 has supported five CPU architectures across four nodes. Overall, it has supported 125 processors and 500 had different motherboard designs.
The AM5 platform takes over with its 1718-pin LGA socket. AMD has increased power delivery to 230W to deliver improved performance in threaded applications. It also supports PCIe 5.0 and DDR5.
The X-series motherboards arrive in September, while the value-centric B-series boards arrive in October. AMD also announced new B650 Extreme motherboards that have more PCIe 5.0 connectivity than the standard B650 models.
PCIe 5.0 SSDs will come to market in October.
AMD is moving to DDR5 with AM5, and it will no longer support DDR4. AMD feels that the higher performance and capacity are worth the upgrade.
EXPO DDR5 modules have new profiles that enable one-click overclocking. This is much like XMP. There will be 15 kits available at launch. Speeds top out at DDR5-6400.
Motherboards will start at $125. AMD will support the AM5 platform through at least 2025. That means it will be long-lived like AM4.
Lisa Su is back on stage, giving an overview of the performance claims. But there's more...
Lisa shared pricing for the Ryzen 7000 processors, ranging from $699 to $299. The chips are available on September 27.
Lisa Su teased a GPU with the RDNA 3 architecture. The GPU has 5nm chiplets and delivers 50% more performance per watt than the existing Radeon GPUs.
Su showed a demo of the RDNA 3 GPU running with a Ryzen 9 7950X. There are no performance metrics, but the demo shows the GPU running the highly anticipated title Lies of P from Neowiz.
Lisa Su wrapped up the livestream and thanked the audience.