I think Zen 6 is going to be limeted by AM5 but they are also talking about quad channel memory support, so they may be brewing up some HEDC kung-fu beyond AM5 but they also intend to support AM5. Certainly the 9950X is hampered by the socket. I assume it could dominate every benchmark over Intel, if it had quad channel memory. As it is, Intel beats AMD in a small handful of benchmarks that are memory constrained. AM6 will move to 24 cores, 20% higher clock, predicted 10% IPC uplift. That is going to be a problem for AM5.
Lots of people applaud AMD for being so faithful to its sockets over time, but this is a consequence of that. As someone who always buys a new board with a new CPU, I find it to be a hinderance to progress.
I will point out, AMD is the CPU leader so whatever they are doing can't be all bad. Perhaps not worthy of mentioning is they have an RX 9080 product coming out in the next couple of months that should compete with the RTX 5080. It won't be the most relevant product, as it won't be large volume and it won't establish any sort of leadership but AMD is a lot closer to the front of the pack than nVidia fan boys will admit. It sounds like there will be a Zen 5 refresh in the middle of this year. It will include mostly or exclusively laptop parts, from what I can tell.
The Zen 5 refresh is now in question. If it happens, it will almost certainly use Strix chiplets which have advantages over current Zen 5 desktop parts. Zen 6 is now looking like the end of 2026 or the start of 2027. Anything AMD releases in 2025 will be products on the Zen 5 product roadmap. There are a ton of web articles saying TSMC N2 is ahead of schedule but AMD is moving back N2X product. I believe the more pessimistic thoughts and have no trouble believing every web report is inaccurate. To be precise, I don't believe TSMC N2 is in any danger, other than being late. I have no reason to suspect N2 will be discontinued, like Intel 20A was. Further, there are rumors AMD is considering a Zen 6 chiplet on N1.2x. I suspect this node will be used for Zen 6 Strix but doubt it will be used in any Zen 6 desktop. Of course, the projected release date of Zen 6 N1.2X parts is late 2027.
Zen 5 has carried initial pricing for six months. It's just starting to come down. AMD has done well. I suspect AMD demand is not entirely satiated but I also doubt they are as under supplied as they have been. At some point, AMD plans to release a 9080 GPU there is a very small chance they will announce it at Computex in two weeks. The reason I link the 9080 GPU and AMD supply is because I suspect the 9080 will be a two die part. That's not something they will want to do while they are so heavily wafer constrained. Any thoughts on what and if we will see at Computex in Taipai?
That's news to me. I have not been following RDNA 4 that much. I'd love to see them do it and gain revenue. With the way things have been going with Nvidia lately, gamers would flock to AMD if the price was right.
I don't think people understand what's coming with Zen 6. When people hear of boost clocks to 6.5GHz and above, 24 performance compute units, a new rev of RDNA with 4 CUs, possibly double the v-cache (v-cache chiplets can be stacked, now), lower latency memory controller, more memory channels, etc.... that sounds like a workstation and a pretty decent one, at that. A lot of people seem to assume they will be able to jam that CPU into their AM5 socket for $599. That's not going to happen. I expect the popular AM5 CPU will feature 12 cores and may not have v-cache. It should continue to provide a reasonable price option. It sounds like there is going to be a third, midrange, socket to go with AM5 and SP6. They have been showing ECC features so maybe that will come into the midrange. AM5 can support ECC RAM but only in the module. There is no end to end ECC. Will the market be OK with $8000~15000 PCs? Oddly, I think so. We are beyond the 5 year upgrade cycle. A contemporary PC can be expected to last 10 years. I think that makes a $10K PC decision a lot easier for a niche market. Whoever gets there first will take the cash, and it won't be Intel. To be clear, the CPUs won't cost that much. It will be a whole system with GPU, etc.
This is probably what we should have expected. It's an extremely strong result. The retail pipeline is long so we aren't seeing a lot of post RTX 5K announcement and the driver bed wetting from nVidia. AMD is selling every GPU they can put in the channel but that's only been a few weeks. The next result will be even a bit better. The question is, will AMD bring Epyc to Computex? RDNA 4? More laptop and desktop Zen 5 part announcements? Tune in next week when we find out if our hero can get himself unstuck from the caramel machine using a Coke and a Jujyfruit box!
I've been thinking about AMD x86 leadership for a while. They haven't been in this position before and they aren't there now but they need to start thinking about picking up the mantle. Intel has been developing the platform, mostly successfully, since the beginning. It's worth mentioning, if AMD doesn't pick up x86 leadership with design ideas, that won't be a big problem. At least, not at the moment. At this point, if Intel comes out with a new instruction set and AMD doesn't implement, that instruction set is dead unless it is absolutely world beating. Meanwhile, if AMD comes out with a new instruction set and Intel doesn't implement, that will accelerate Intel's decline. Hence, thougths on when, how, and in what way, AMD will take the lead on x86. I think one of these will have to go: AVX2, AVX512, AMX There are several other Intel ideas that are either not or barely used that should go.
And that brings me to vertical CPU stacking. Apparently, AMD plans to achieve high core count with Zen7 by lithographing a large number of cores onto a single silicon substrate, vertically stacked. They must have an amazing thermal game, to be considering this. This makes me think TSMC N1.4 must be an efficiency game changer. For what it's worth, I understand TSMC is sampling N1.4. I'm sure it is nowhere close to ready but that is the next step after N2. Meanwhile, Intel continues to work on 18A. I'm quite hopeful for Intel 18A. If they can get it production ready this year, Intel will be in a far, far stronger position than they are right now. Also, Intel has confirmed they are working on 14A. BTW, it looks like Zen 6 will be here around the start of 2026. That's not all that far away. AMD expects to bring Zen 7 to market around the start of 2027.
