AMD has revealed that its next-generation Zen 3 core architecture that would power it's latest Ryzen 4000 "Vermeer" CPUs is going to be an absolute beast of a chip. This much was revealed during the Deutsche Bank 2020 conference call with AMD's Senior Vice President, Forrest Norrod.
AMD Says Zen 3 Is A Tremendously Powerful Architecture, Official Next-Gen Ryzen 4000 CPU Unveil Coming 8th October
Update: Recent leaks suggest that the next-generation Vermeer family will be branded as the Ryzen 5000 series with AMD skipping the Ryzen 4000 series branding.
During the conference call, Forrest was asked about some of the architectural and design decisions that AMD has made for its Zen lineup. Replying to the question, Forrest states that AMD's Zen CPU roadmap is absolutely critical for the company, and it's entirely based on architectural gains rather than the respective process node or products.
He also mentions that AMD is following a regular cadence of new CPU cores and building a next-gen CPU roadmap that's both high-performance and highly competitive for the long haul. AMD's original Zen and the existing Zen 2 were great but Zen 3 is going to be the heart of AMD's next-gen CPU lineup for a while and that's going to be one powerful architecture.
So you know that first Zen 1 Core was great and hugely cored, but Zen2 was as well. And Zen 3, that's at the heart of our next-generation products is also a tremendously powerful architecture and you know right on the trajectory that we needed to be on. via Seeking Alpha
Calling Zen 3 "Tremendously" powerful just shows how confident AMD is with their upcoming core architecture that aims to power its next-generation Ryzen 4000 CPU lineup codenamed Vermeer. It looks like we are in for a treat when AMD announces its lineup in the coming month. We do know a lot about the Zen 3 core design, in fact, we did a recent article that revealed some high-level details of the upcoming products which you can read about over here.
Here's Everything We Know About The AMD's Zen 3 Based Ryzen 4000 'Vermeer' Desktop CPUs
The AMD Zen 3 architecture is said to be the greatest CPU design since the original Zen. It is a chip that has been completely revamped from the group up and focuses on three key features of which include significant IPC gains, faster clocks, and higher efficiency.
AMD has so far confirmed themselves that Zen 3 brings a brand new CPU architecture, which helps deliver significant IPC gains, faster clocks, and even higher core counts than before. Some rumors have even pointed to a 17% increase in IPC and a 50% increase in Zen 3's floating-point operations along with a major cache redesign.
We also got to see a major change to the cache design in an EPYC presentation, which showed that Zen 3 would be offering a unified cache design which should essentially double the cache that each Zen 3 core could have access compared to Zen 2.
The CPUs are also expected to get up to 200-300 MHz clock boost, which should bring Zen 3 based Ryzen processors close to the 10th Generation Intel Core offerings. That, along with the massive IPC increase and general changes to the architecture, would result in much faster performance than existing Ryzen 3000 processors, which already made a huge jump over Ryzen 2000 and Ryzen 1000 processors while being an evolutionary product rather than revolutionary, as AMD unveiled very recently.
The key thing to consider is that we will get to see the return of the chiplet architecture and AMD will retain support on the existing AM4 socket. The AM4 socket was to last until 2020 so it is likely that the Zen 3 based Ryzen 4000 CPUs would be the last family to utilize the socket before AMD goes to AM5 which would be designed around the future technologies such as DDR5 and USB 4.0. AMD's X670 chipset was also hinted as to arrive by the end of this year and will feature enhanced PCIe Gen 4.0 support and increased I/O in the form of more M.2, SATA, and USB 3.2 ports.
It was recently confirmed by AMD that Ryzen 4000 Desktop CPUs will only be supported by 400 & 500-series chipsets while 300-series support would be left out.
AMD had also recently confirmed that Zen 3 based Ryzen 4000 desktop processors would mark the continuation of its high-performance journey. The Zen 3 architecture would be first available on the consumer desktop platform with the launch of the Vermeer family of CPUs that will replace the 3rd Gen Ryzen 3000 Matisse family of CPUs.
So, what’s next for AMD in the PC space? Well, I cannot share too much, but I can say our high-performance journey continues with our first “Zen 3” Client processor on-track to launch later this year. I will wrap by saying you haven’t seen the best of us yet.
AMD Executive Vice President of Computing & Graphics - Rick Bergman
As of now, the competitive advantage that AMD has with its Zen 2 based Ryzen 3000 is just way too big compared to whatever Intel has in their sleeves for this year, and Zen 3 based Ryzen 4000 CPUs are going to push that envelope even further. Expect AMD to unveil its next-generation Ryzen CPUs and the underlying Zen 3 core architecture on 8th October.
AMD CPU Roadmap (2017-2022)
| Year | 2024 | 2023 | 2021-2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Zen (4) / Zen (5) | Zen (4) / Zen (4C) | Zen (4) / Zen 3 (+) | Zen (3) / Zen 3 (+) | Zen (3) / Zen 2 | Zen (2) / Zen+ | Zen (1) / Zen+ | Zen (1) |
| Process Node | 5nm / 3nm? | 5nm | 5nm / 6nm | 7nm | 7nm | 7nm | 14nm / 12nm | 14nm |
| Server | EPYC Turin | EPYC Bergamo | EPYC 'Genoa' | EPYC 'Milan' | EPYC 'Rome' | EPYC 'Rome' | EPYC 'Naples' | EPYC 'Naples' |
| Max Server Cores / Threads | 256/512 | 128/256 | 96/192 | 64/128 | 64/128 | 64/128 | 32/64 | 32/64 |
| High End Desktop | Ryzen Threadripper 8000 Series | Ryzen Threadripper 7000 Series | Ryzen Threadripper 6000 Series (TBD) | Ryzen Threadripper 5000 Series (Chagall) | Ryzen Threadripper 3000 Series (Castle Peak) | Ryzen Threadripper 3000 Series (Castle Peak) | Ryzen Threadripper 2000 Series (Coflax) | Ryzen Threadripper 1000 Series (White Haven) |
| Ryzen Family | Ryzen 8000 Series | Ryzen 7000 Series | Ryzen 6000 Series | Ryzen 5000 Series | Ryzen 4000/5000 Series | Ryzen 3000 Series | Ryzen 2000 Series | Ryzen 1000 Series |
| Max HEDT Cores / Threads | TBD | TBD | TBD | 64/128 | 64/128 | 64/128 | 32/64 | 16/32 |
| Mainstream Desktop | Ryzen 8000 Series (Granite Ridge) | TBD | Ryzen 7000 Series (Raphael) | Ryzen 5000 Series (Vermeer-X) | Ryzen 5000 Series (Vermeer) | Ryzen 3000 Series (Matisse) | Ryzen 2000 Series (Pinnacle Ridge) | Ryzen 1000 Series (Summit Ridge) |
| Max Mainstream Cores / Threads | TBD | TBD | 16/32 | 16/32 | 16/32 | 16/32 | 8/16 | 8/16 |
| Budget APU | Ryzen 8000 (Strix Point Zen 5) | Ryzen 7000 Series (Phoenix Zen 4) | Ryzen 6000 Series (Rembrandt Zen 3+) | Ryzen 5000 Series (Cezanne Zen 3) | Ryzen 4000 Series (Renoir Zen 2) | Ryzen 3000 Series (Picasso Zen+) | Ryzen 2000 Series (Raven Ridge) | N/A |
