Deep dives into AMD Zen 5, Nvidia Blackwell, and Intel Lunar Lake architectures coming at Hot Chips 2024

(Image credit: AMD)

The Hot Chips 2024 conference posted a detailed schedule for all the presentations that are set to happen at the event. Across three days, in-person and virtual attendees will be able to soak up tutorials, presentations, and keynotes from representatives of many of the biggest companies in tech. As is traditional, Hot Chips will be the place where deep technical dives into new architectures are delivered, and this year will cover important milestones including AMD Zen 5, Nvidia Blackwell, and Intel Lunar Lake.

AMD’s next-generation Zen 5 core presentation takes place on Tuesday, August 27, 2024Permalink. It's fronted by Brad Cohen and Mike Clark from AMD. In recent weeks and months, we've seen quite a few Zen 5 leaks. There's been unofficial Zen 5 information from Linux patches, compiler releases, and PC partner listings, but the Hot Chips 2024 presentation is set to deliver the full details behind Zen 5 with important insights into the new architecture. Will we already have Zen 5 CPUs available before Hot Chips, though? That remains to be seen.

We already have a lot of information on Nvidia's data center Blackwell B200 family, plus a lot of rumors and speculation on the consumer side of the Blackwell RTX 50-series GPUs. Nvidia generally doesn't use Hot Chips to spill the beans on new information, so presumably its presentation will cover the AI and HPC GB200 (again) rather than revealing details on the consumer GPUs. We might hear more rumors at Computex as well, but that's a bit early unless Nvidia plans on releasing new GPUs this summer.

Intel has a presentation dubbed ‘Lunar Lake: 16th Gen Intel Core processor’ scheduled for the Monday, August 26. That's an interesting name considering Intel has dropped the "xxx Gen Core" naming convention on its most recent processors. Just yesterday, Intel offered some new details concerning Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake. Its hand was probably forced by the flurry of Microsoft / Qualcomm Copilot+ PC launches. Even though we already have quite a lot of information regarding Lunar Lake, Hot Chips will likely provide some additional insights.

That's only a brief smattering of some of the topic slated for Hot Chips 2024. There's also a presentation on the Snapdragon X Elite architecture by Qualcomm. Intel also plans presentations on Granite Rapids D, AI systems, and optical interconnects. Other tasty tech news nuggets are likely to come from presentations by companies including IBM, Microsoft, SK hynix, Meta, Tesla, Frore, and OpenAI.

Hot Chips 2024 runs from Sunday, August 25 to Tuesday, August 27, 2024. The conference is in a hybrid format this year with in-person attendance at the Memorial Auditorium at Stanford University. Registrations are now open, with fees from $65 (student, single day) to $750 for non-IEEE-members attending all three days.

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Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

6 Comments Comment from the forums

Will we already have Zen 5 CPUs available before Hot Chips, though? That remains to be seen.

Nah, not possible, because it makes little sense to release them this early. Even AMD have themselves stated that Zen 5 chips are slated for late 2H 2024.

Also, giving architecture deep dive details after releasing the chips on the market also sounds like a bit odd strategy, IMO.
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Makaveli

Metal Messiah. said:
Nah, not possible, because it makes little sense to release them this early. Even AMD have themselves stated that Zen 5 chips are slated for late 2H 2024.

Also, giving architecture deep dive details after releasing the chips on the market also sounds like a bit odd strategy, IMO.
i'm expecting june launch at computex and market availability in the fall.
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Makaveli said:
i'm expecting june launch at computex and market availability in the fall.

Basically they only announce and officially confirm/unveil consumer products at computex. The launch usually takes place 2-3 months later.

AMD did the same during Computex 2022 where the Ryzen 7000 "Zen 4" CPUs and the subsequent AM5 platforms were revealed to the public, but they were launched 3 months later, with market/retail availability.
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Makaveli

Metal Messiah. said:
Basically they only announce and officially confirm/unveil consumer products at computex. The launch usually takes place 2-3 months later.

AMD did the same during Computex 2022 where the Ryzen 7000 "Zen 4" CPUs and the subsequent AM5 platforms were revealed to the public, but they were launched 3 months later, with market/retail availability.
you are right I choose the wrong word there should have been announced not launch.
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eX_Arkangel

they didnt do that with Zen 2, they announced it at computex and released it in july 7, its all about the market situation, are they in any rush to release it? or can they take their time... from the latest Intel's shenanigans (this was bound to happen everyone knew it), i dont see AMD in any rush to launch Zen 5 early..er, they have the luxury of taking an extra month or 2 to fine tune Bioses and chips (they need that proper tuning on bioses and properly oversee implementation by the AIB's).
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bit_user

Metal Messiah. said:
Also, giving architecture deep dive details after releasing the chips on the market also sounds like a bit odd strategy, IMO.
I've seen plenty such examples. Keep in mind that Hot Chips is an academic conference, first and foremost. I think it's only become known to the general public in recent years.

Obviously, companies can use it for their own PR purposes, but I don't know how deliberate they are about doing so. I doubt anything covered at Hot Chips has any direct commercial impact for these firms. The commercially-relevant details would be things like power & performance claims, which companies can and do reveal in presentations made in other contexts.
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