Sunday, December 8th 2019

AMD "Zen 4" 2021 Launch On Track as TSMC Optimistic About 5 nm

AMD's "Zen 4" CPU microarchitecture is on track for a 2021 launch as its principal foundry partner, TSMC, is optimistic about early yields of its 5 nm silicon fabrication node. TSMC supports the 5 nm product roadmaps of not just AMD, but also Apple and HiSilicon. "Zen 4" is particularly important for AMD, as it will release its next enterprise platform, codenamed "Genoa," along with the new SP5 socket. The new socket will present AMD with the opportunity to significantly change the processor's I/O, such as support for a new memory standard, a new PCIe generation, more memory channels, more PCIe lanes, etc. As early as 2019, the foundry is seeing yields of over 50 percent for the 5 nm node (possibly risk production designed to test the node), which is very encouraging for its customers.

AMD's roadmap for 2020 sees the introduction of "Zen 3" on the 7 nm EUV process (dubbed 7 nm+). AMD recently commented that the performance uplift of "Zen 3" versus "Zen 2" will be "right in line with what you would expect from an entirely new architecture." The 7 nm EUV node provides a significant 20 percent increase in transistor-density compared to the current 7 nm DUV node "Zen 2" chiplets and the company's "Navi" family of GPUs are built on. "Zen 3" could see the company do away with the CCX (quad-core CPU complex), and make chiplets monolithic blocks of CPU cores without sub-divisions. For the client-segment, 5 is a recurring number in 2021. It will see the introduction of the 5th generation Ryzen processors (5000-series), built on the 5 nm process, supporting DDR5 memory, PCI-Express gen 5, and the new AM5 client-segment CPU socket.
Sources: China Times, WCCFTech, MyDrivers
Add your own comment

44 Comments on AMD "Zen 4" 2021 Launch On Track as TSMC Optimistic About 5 nm

#26
Zach_01
AMD should take advantage of this, and solidify its place in the market. Show the users and market that can design chips that serves every segment. But I dont want to see becoming the new Intel, if you know what I mean. At least for the time beeing AMD actually offer CPUs that work well, and can be improved further. I expect Intel getting back in the game also at some point to benefit competition but for now deserves to be in the corner crying out. Should learn a lesson but I highly doubt it...
Posted on Reply
#27
Super XP
Zach_01AMD should take advantage of this, and solidify its place in the market. Show the users and market that can design chips that serves every segment. But I dont want to see becoming the new Intel, if you know what I mean. At least for the time beeing AMD actually offer CPUs that work well, and can be improved further. I expect Intel getting back in the game also at some point to benefit competition but for now deserves to be in the corner crying out. Should learn a lesson but I highly doubt it...
AGREED,
Posted on Reply
#28
InVasMani
7nm will probably the last AM4 node for that particular platform socket would be my assumption. Between switching to DDR5 in all likelyness and yet another node shrink with possibly a switch to PCIe 5.0 as well it's highly probably 5nm will just end up on a new socket.
Posted on Reply
#29
Super XP
InVasMani7nm will probably the last AM4 node for that particular platform socket would be my assumption. Between switching to DDR5 in all likelyness and yet another node shrink with possibly a switch to PCIe 5.0 as well it's highly probably 5nm will just end up on a new socket.
I believe you are correct. I can't remember where I read it but I think they mentioned ZEN3 will be the last to support Socket AM4. Starting from ZEN4 it's Socket AM5 which has several more Pins.

I think we had a great run with AM4 just like AM3+ back in the day.
Posted on Reply
#30
Zach_01
Yes... 3~4 years is a nice run for a single platform... Wasn't the best like AM2/AM3/AM3+ but considering the architectural changes that have been made/will be(ZEN3) and features added during 4gens of CPUs it is pretty impresive...
Posted on Reply
#31
InVasMani
Zach_01Yes... 3~4 years is a nice run for a single platform... Wasn't the best like AM2/AM3/AM3+ but considering the architectural changes that have been made/will be(ZEN3) and features added during 4gens of CPUs it is pretty impresive...
Yeah I agree I think AMD did well considering the sweeping changes they made and considering where they were prior to Ryzen it's impressive to see where they are today and ironic how fall Intel has fallen into a sinkhole with all it's security flaws from all the shortcuts to higher on paper performance in the design process they must have taken to get there. We haven't yet seen what 7nm EUV will do for Ryzen as well and we're still waiting for them to shrink their APU's down to 7nm/7nm EUV and if they shrink that I/O die down it'll free up room down the road to get further life out of the AM4 platform should they want to extend it further.
Posted on Reply
#32
Zach_01
From rumors... the IO die will get quiet a few upgrades in the future and not just a “simple” shrink and that would probably imply a new socket with it...
For me, the forthcoming ZEN3 is the last AM4 series CPUs and from 2021-22 we will see a new one.
Posted on Reply
#33
InVasMani
It would be really interesting if AMD just did away with the MB chipset and replaced it with a second socketed CPU and merge half the chipset features onto a I/O die on each CPU spread across them. The CPU itself might even differentiate those typical MB chipset options. Plus you could mix/match CPU's in a master/slave arrangement high frequency socketed CPU And a high multi-core socketed CPU best of both worlds. Could even do CF APU's as well of course. That with quad channel would be very interesting. I mean that won't happen right away, but 3-4 years down the road it actually seems very viable.
Posted on Reply
#34
Xajel
djisasBeen planing since Zen 1 and nvidea's gtx960. no luck upgrading yet...
Me too, Every time something comes and I postponed the upgrade. Still sticking with 3770k + GTX970.. the only upgrade I did was from 3570k to 3770k.
Posted on Reply
#35
Super XP
InVasManiIt would be really interesting if AMD just did away with the MB chipset and replaced it with a second socketed CPU and merge half the chipset features onto a I/O die on each CPU spread across them. The CPU itself might even differentiate those typical MB chipset options. Plus you could mix/match CPU's in a master/slave arrangement high frequency socketed CPU And a high multi-core socketed CPU best of both worlds. Could even do CF APU's as well of course. That with quad channel would be very interesting. I mean that won't happen right away, but 3-4 years down the road it actually seems very viable.
AMD already attempted mainstream Dual CPU motherboards way back. I don't remember the exact name of this interesting platform, but it was called Mega Tasking or something.

If for example they were to repeat such a thing with ZEN3 and 2x Dual-Channel memory interfaces all connected with Infinity Fabric and the price was right. That would further mess Intel up.
Posted on Reply
#36
Tsukiyomi91
also skipping Ryzen 3rd gen for Ryzen 4th gen. A little late to the party imo... At least I gotta experience a new platform when it comes out.
Posted on Reply
#37
Super XP
Tsukiyomi91also skipping Ryzen 3rd gen for Ryzen 4th gen. A little late to the party imo... At least I gotta experience a new platform when it comes out.
ZEN3 is based on a new Micro-Architecture. And is said to be faster than ZEN2 as you would expect by a new design. I would estimate a 18-30% IPC increase over ZEN2.

That's going to be my next upgrade coupled with a RDNA2 GPU.
Posted on Reply
#38
Tsukiyomi91
I reckon a 10-15% IPC gain over Ryzen 3rd gen, realistically.
Posted on Reply
#39
Super XP
Tsukiyomi91I reckon a 10-15% IPC gain over Ryzen 3rd gen, realistically.
I'll take that too.
Agreed.
Posted on Reply
#40
HTC
Tsukiyomi91I reckon a 10-15% IPC gain over Ryzen 3rd gen, realistically.
Personally, i figure even higher IPC gain BUT a clock regression (100 - 200 MHz, maybe??). In order for it to be an upgrade VS current offerings with clock regression, a significant IPC increase is required.

Why do i think there will be clock regression? Because of this (skip to 6:51):


I really suggest the whole video.

EDIT

Somehow, trying to link the video directly @ the time mentioned isn't working, so i added the "skip to 6:51" bit.
Posted on Reply
#41
InVasMani
Super XPAMD already attempted mainstream Dual CPU motherboards way back. I don't remember the exact name of this interesting platform, but it was called Mega Tasking or something.

If for example they were to repeat such a thing with ZEN3 and 2x Dual-Channel memory interfaces all connected with Infinity Fabric and the price was right. That would further mess Intel up.
I'm fully aware of dual CPU motherboards in fact they had quad socket ones as well for servers. My point is more that they divide like half of a chipset and integrate it onto a socketed CPU and just use two socketed CPU's in place of the chipset that has more Zen multi chip modules and the two socketed Zen chips could be arranged in a master/slave kind of manner and even differ from one another or be a bit more like a co-processor setup. It really provides AMD a lot of options if they can integrate more chipset functionality directly to the CPU and re-purpose that chipset PCB space.
Posted on Reply
#42
Super XP
InVasManiI'm fully aware of dual CPU motherboards in fact they had quad socket ones as well for servers. My point is more that they divide like half of a chipset and integrate it onto a socketed CPU and just use two socketed CPU's in place of the chipset that has more Zen multi chip modules and the two socketed Zen chips could be arranged in a master/slave kind of manner and even differ from one another or be a bit more like a co-processor setup. It really provides AMD a lot of options if they can integrate more chipset functionality directly to the CPU and re-purpose that chipset PCB space.
That sounds great 2 me. Lol
Nice,
Posted on Reply
#43
InVasMani
Ideally I'd like to see AMD eliminate the chipset all together. At that point they could just consolidate the PCB size and shrink it down further to make it even more compact for those people looking for that kind of ultra compact PC setup. They could even switch to SO-DIMM's to further shrink space or save energy. The PCB space saved could then be used for more NVMe/SATA ports or beefier MB components like VRM's/capacitors. Something interesting is you could make it quad channel and bios toggle how the bandwidth gets distributed between sockets like socket A and socket B dual channel setup or a socket A and Socket B triple/single channel arrangement. Now on top of that being very flexibly the CPU mix/match options would be very flexible high frequency socketed chip + highly parallel socketed chip or maybe two high frequency socket chips or two highly parallel socketed chips. In any case you'd have those same memory bandwidth configurable options to consider which is nice. One last thing about it to consider would be Crossfire APU's though that would probably be limited to matched socketed CPU's and load balanced memory bandwidth between both sockets. Just the same is if AMD could pull that off for it's replacement to AM4 after 7nm EUV where the road ends that would be a pretty great way forward and very flexible. I'd like to think it also would cut down on e-waste as well. I imagine the MB PCB is one of the biggest and most difficult to deal with e-waste component in a typical PC.

I've said it for awhile turning the chipset into kind of a high frequency single thread driven or just a low power energy saving co-processor CPU would be really great. I really think eliminating the chipset itself and going dual socket would be outstanding though. I think if you with with SO-DIMM's and remove the chipset a dual socket ATX board today of the past from like a decade or two back would be similar to today's ATX AM4 Ryzen MB's because the SO-DIMM's consolidates a bit of space along with eliminating the chipset does as well between the two it should be roughly the same PCB space. I know a socket occupies more space than a chipset, but by consolidating the the DIMM slot space and re-purposing the chipset space it would it would balance out roughly equivalent.
Posted on Reply
#44
EarthDog
Metroidtime to plan my next upgrade and I advise you to do the same.
Here's a tissue to wipe up that premature speculation. Easy big fella....eaasy.

On the serious, I'd like to see what both camps have to offer when the time comes. Eggs in one basket and all.
Posted on Reply
Add your own comment
Feb 1st, 2025 17:05 EST change timezone

New Forum Posts

Popular Reviews

Controversial News Posts