In Q1 2025, AMD is expected to expand its Ryzen 9000 series "Granite Ridge" desktop processor family with new 65 W processor models, alongside the introduction of the new cost-effective AMD B850 motherboard chipset. The B850 is expected to be a single-chip solution, just like the X870, but makes PCIe Gen 5 optional for the x16 PEG slot. You still get at least one Gen 5 M.2 NVMe slot. USB4 is made optional for this chipset model, too. The B850, hence, is essentially a rebadged B650. CPU and memory overclocking are supported, so you can expect features like "X3D Boost" to carry over from the X870 series motherboards. Videocardz scored clear images of one of the first production AMD B850 chipset motherboards, the GIGABYTE B850M AORUS Elite Ice. This particular variant comes with integrated Wi-Fi 6E, and the "Ice" denotes a white PCB, along with white slots and connectors. You can expect variations of this board with black PCB, and other wireless networking solutions, or lacking one altogether.

The Micro-ATX board appears feature-packed, including an easy ejection lever for the PCIe x16 slot. It draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS power connectors. Expansion slots include what is very likely a Gen 4 PCI-Express x16 slot, a Gen 4 x4 (physical x16) PCIe slot, and the space between them being dominated by an M.2 SSD heatsink that very likely conceals a Gen 5 M.2 slot wired to the CPU, and a Gen 4 M.2 slot that's either wired to the CPU (since there's no discrete USB4 controller), or the FCH. USB connectivity consists of 20 Gbps USB 3.2 for a few type-C ports (including a type-C header), and a combination of 10 Gbps and 5 Gbps USB 3.x ports.

AMD Ryzen AI MAX 300-series processors, codenamed "Strix Halo," have been on in the news for close to a year now. These mobile processors combine "Zen 5" CPU cores with an oversized iGPU that offers performance rivaling discrete GPUs, with the idea behind these chips being to rival the Apple M3 Pro and M3 Max processors powering MacBook Pros. The "Strix Halo" mobile processor is an MCM that combines one or two "Zen 5" CCDs (some ones featured on "Granite Ridge" desktop processors and "Turin" server processors), with a large SoC die. This die is built either on the 5 nm (TSMC N5) or 4 nm (TSMC N4P) node. It packs a large iGPU based on the RDNA 3.5 graphics architecture, with 40 compute units (CU), and a 50 TOPS-class XDNA 2 NPU carried over from "Strix Point." The memory interface is a 256-bit wide LPDDR5X-8000 for sufficient memory bandwidth for the up to 16 "Zen 5" CPU cores, the 50 TOPS NPU, and the large 40 CU iGPU.

Golden Pig Upgrade leaked what looks like a company slide from a notebook OEM, which reveals the iGPU model names for the various Ryzen AI MAX 300-series SKUs. Leading the pack is the Ryzen AI MAX+ 395. This is a maxed out SKU with a 16-core/32-thread "Zen 5" CPU that uses two CCDs. All 16 cores are full-sized "Zen 5." The CPU has 64 MB of L3 cache (32 MB per CCD), each of the 16 cores has 1 MB of dedicated L2 cache. The iGPU is branded Radeon 8060S, it comes with all 40 CU (2,560 stream processors) enabled, besides 80 AI accelerators, and 40 Ray accelerators. The Ryzen AI MAX 390 is the next processor SKU, it comes with a 12-core/24-thread "Zen 5" CPU. Like the 395, the 390 is a dual-CCD processor, all 12 cores are full-sized "Zen 5." There's 64 MB of L3 cache, and 1 MB of L2 cache per core. The Radeon 8060S graphics solution is the same as the one on the Ryzen AI MAX+ 395, it comes with all 40 CU enabled.

Much of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D teaser material from AMD had the recurring buzzwords "X3D Reimagined," causing us to speculate what it could be. 9550pro, a reliable source with hardware leaks, says that AMD has redesigned the way the CPU complex die (CCD) and 3D V-cache die (L3D) are stacked together. In past generations of X3D processors, such as the 5800X3D "Vermeer-X" and the 7800X3D "Raphael-X," the L3D is stacked on top of the CCD. It would stack above the central region of the CCD that has the on-die 32 MB L3 cache, while blocks of structural silicon would be placed on top of the edges of the CCD that have the CPU cores, with these structural silicon blocks performing the crucial task of transferring heat from the CPU cores to the IHS above. This is about to change.

If the leaks are right, AMD has inverted the CCD-L3D stack with the 9000X3D series such that the "Zen 5" CCD is now on top, the L3D is below it, under the central region of the CCD. The CPU cores now dissipate heat to the IHS as they do on regular 9000 series processors without the 3D V-cache technology. The way we imagine they achieved this is by enlarging the L3D to align with the size of the CCD, and serve as a kind of "base tile." The L3D would have to be peppered with TSVs that connect the CCD to the fiberglass substrate below. We know where AMD is going with this in the future. Right now, the L3D "base tile" contains the 64 MB 3D V-cache that gets appended to the 32 MB on-die L3 cache, but in the future (probably with "Zen 6"), AMD could design the CCDs with TSVs even for the per-core L2 caches.

FinalWire Ltd. today announced the immediate availability of AIDA64 Extreme 7.40 software, a streamlined diagnostic and benchmarking tool for home users; the immediate availability of AIDA64 Engineer 7.40 software, a professional diagnostic and benchmarking solution for corporate IT technicians and engineers; the immediate availability of AIDA64 Business 7.40 software, an essential network management solution for small and medium scale enterprises; and the immediate availability of AIDA64 Network Audit 7.40 software, a dedicated network audit toolset to collect and manage corporate network inventories.

The latest AIDA64 update introduces an enhanced SHA3 benchmark, AVX-512 accelerated benchmarks for AMD Ryzen 9000 processors, and supports the latest graphics and GPGPU computing technologies by AMD, Intel and NVIDIA.

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AMD today lifted the covers off its Ryzen 7 9800X3D Socket AM5 processor powered by the "Zen 5" microarchitecture and 3D V-cache technology. The company did not put out any product specs or other details, except announcing November 7, 2024, as the product availability date for this chip. This would put its launch exactly two weeks from that of Intel's Core Ultra Series 2 "Arrow Lake-S" processors, and give reviewers time to include the performance results of the new Intel chips in reviews of the 9800X3D. AMD is looking to extend its gaming performance leadership which it held with the 7800X3D. The switch to the newer "Zen 5" microarchitecture and higher clock speeds could push gaming performance up beyond the 7800X3D by a few percentage points. The 7800X3D is already faster than the Core i9-14900K in gaming workloads, so we're being set up for an exciting clash between the Core Ultra 9 285K and the Ryzen 7 9800X3D for gaming performance.

Next up, AMD announced official price cuts for all four current models in its Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" desktop processor family. Buyers in the retail channel should be able to find the flagship Ryzen 9 9950X 16-core/32-thread processor up to $50 cheaper than its launch price, which should bring it down to $600. The Ryzen 9 9900X (12-core/24-thread), the Ryzen 7 9700X (8-core/16-thread), and the Ryzen 5 9600X (6-core/12-thread), each get a haircut of up to $30. You should be able to find the 9900X for as little as $470. The 9700X should be down to as low as $330. The 9600X, the most affordable "Zen 5" part, should go for as low as $250. The price-cuts should be effective immediately. Although all pre-launch info points to this being an 9800X3D-only launch, our AMD PR contacts used the plural term ("X3D processors") when referring to the November 7 date. Could we see more than one X3D processor model launch, especially given the $50 price cut given to the 9950X? Watch this space.

High-resolution die-shots of the AMD "Zen 5" 8-core CCD were released and annotated by Nemez, Fitzchens Fitz, and HighYieldYT. These provide a detailed view of how the silicon and its various components appear, particularly the new "Zen 5" CPU core with its 512-bit FPU. The "Granite Ridge" package looks similar to "Raphael," with up to two 8-core CPU complex dies (CCDs) depending on the processor model, and a centrally located client I/O die (cIOD). This cIOD is carried over from "Raphael," which minimizes product development costs for AMD at least for the uncore portion of the processor. The "Zen 5" CCD is built on the TSMC N4P (4 nm) foundry node.

The "Granite Ridge" package sees the up to two "Zen 5" CCDs snuck up closer to each other than the "Zen 4" CCDs on "Raphael." In the picture above, you can see the pad of the absent CCD behind the solder mask of the fiberglass substrate, close to the present CCD. The CCD contains 8 full-sized "Zen 5" CPU cores, each with 1 MB of L2 cache, and a centrally located 32 MB L3 cache that's shared among all eight cores. The only other components are an SMU (system management unit), and the Infinity Fabric over Package (IFoP) PHYs, which connect the CCD to the cIOD.

AMD today made four key announcements for its Ryzen 9000 series "Granite Ridge" desktop processors based on the "Zen 5" microarchitecture. These mainly aim to improve upon the products as originally launched in August. To begin with, AMD announced a 105 W cTDP (configurable TDP) mode for the Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 7 9600X processors, with full warranty coverage. This setting can be enabled in the UEFI setup program of a motherboard running its latest version of UEFI firmware, which encapsulates the AGESA ComboAM5 PI 1.2.0.2 microcode. The setting raises the PPT (package power tracking) value of the 9700X and 9600X to 140 W, and treats them as if they were 105 W TDP processors. These chips were originally launched by AMD with 65 W (88 W PPT), and as reviewers quickly found out, unlocking power improves performance at stock clock speeds, as it improves boost frequency residence of these chips.

Next up, is the AGESA PI 1.2.0.2 microcode itself, which introduces the 105 W cTDP mode for the 9700X and 9600X along with warranty coverage, which we just talked about; plus works to improve the core-to-core latency on the Ryzen 9 9900X and Ryzen 9 9950X. These are processors with two CPU complex dies (CCDs), each with either 8 or 6 cores enabled. To the software, this is still a single-socket (1P) CPU with 12 or 16 cores. Although some awareness of the dual-CCD architecture is added to the OS scheduler to help it localize certain kinds of workloads (such as games) to a single CCD, reviewers noted that core-to-core latency on the dual-CCD chips was still too high, which should affect performance when a software's threads are migrating between cores, or if a workload is multithreaded, such as media encoding. AMD addressed exactly this with the new AGESA PI 1.2.0.2 update.

In case you missed it, AMD's new madcap enthusiast silicon engineering effort, the "Strix Halo," is real, and comes with the Ryzen AI Max 300 series branding. These are chiplet-based mobile processors with one or two "Zen 5" CCDs—same ones found in "Granite Ridge" desktop processors—paired with a large SoC die that has an oversized iGPU. This arrangement lets AMD give the processor up to 16 full-sized "Zen 5" CPU cores, and an iGPU with as many as 40 RDNA 3.5 compute units (2,560 stream processors), and a 256-bit LPDDR5/x memory interface for UMA.

"Strix Halo" is designed for ultraportable gaming notebooks or mobile workstations where low PCB footprint is of the essence, and discrete GPU is not an option. For enthusiast gaming notebooks with discrete GPUs, AMD is designing the "Fire Range" processor, which is essentially a mobile BGA version of "Granite Ridge," and a successor to the Ryzen 7045 series "Dragon Range." The Ryzen AI Max series has three models based on CPU and iGPU CU counts—the Ryzen AI Max 395+ (16-core/32-thread with 40 CU), the Ryzen AI Max 390 (12-core/24-thread with 40 CU), and the Ryzen AI Max 385 (8-core/16-thread, 32 CU). An alleged Ryzen AI Max 390 engineering sample surfaced on the Geekbench AI benchmark online database.

MSI today launched its first wave of Socket AM5 motherboards based on the new AMD X870E and AMD X870 chipsets, which come with drop-in support for the new Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" processors, and new platform I/O. The company debuted products across its four key consumer motherboard brands—MEG, MPG, MAG, and PRO. Leading the pack is the flagship MEG X870E GODLIKE, followed by the performance segment MPG X870E Carbon WIFI, the mid-range MAG X870 Tomahawk WIFI, and the mainstream PRO X870-P WIFI.

The MEG X870E GODLIKE isn't just a flagship motherboard with no feature spared, but designed to be a piece of jewelry. It is shrouded almost entirely in heatsinks. Almost all its onboard I/O faces the front-end, including a 24-pin ATX, and two optional 8-pin PCIe power inputs. The two 8-pin EPS power inputs are exposed near the CPU socket area. A 27-phase VRM powers the CPU, with an active fan-heatsink solution that uses a series of aluminium fin-stack heatsinks with heat-pipes spreading heat among them. The CPU is wired to four DDR5 DIMM slots, supporting over DDR5-8000, with preparation for higher memory OC speeds that may come up in the future. Expansion slots include a PCI-Express 5.0 x16, a second x16 (electrical Gen 4), and a x4. There are four M.2 NVMe slots, three of these are Gen 5, and one Gen 4.

GIGABYTE today debuted its AMD 800-series motherboards with the launch of the premium X870E AORUS Master. This will go on to be the company's second most premium product on this chipset, as the company is also planning the X870E AORUS Xtreme. The AORUS Master is still packed to the gills with everything this chipset has to offer, along with high-end onboard devices. The board is built in the ATX form-factor, and draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and two 8-pin EPS power connectors. It offers a 16+2+2 phase digital VRM featuring 110 A power stages. The board is laid out on a premium 8-layer PCB. You get tall extruded aluminium heatsinks for the CPU VRM, and the topmost M.2 NVMe Gen 5 slot.

The AMD Socket AM5 is wired to four DDR5 DIMM slots that support up to 192 GB of dual-channel DDR5, at speeds of over DDR5-8000. It also puts out no less than three M.2 NVMe Gen 5 slots. Two of these are wired to the dedicated x4 interfaces from the AMD "Raphael" or "Granite Ridge" processor, while one of them subtracts 4 lanes from the board's PCI-Express 5.0 x16 PEG slot. The board's fourth M.2 NVMe slot is Gen 4, and wired to the chipset. The only other expansion slots are a couple of PCI-Express 4.0 x16 (electrical Gen 4 x1). Besides the M.2 slots, you get four SATA 6 Gbps ports completing the board's storage connectivity.

AMD Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" desktop processors have been out for a couple of weeks now, and the "Zen 5" based processors have fallen short of gaming performance expectations, set mainly by some of the numbers AMD put out in its Computex 2024 reveal for the processors. The consensus among the tech press is that these processors are roughly 3-5% faster than Ryzen 7000 series "Raphael," but with noteworthy improvements in energy efficiency. AMD set out to study why there are such vast deltas in performance between its numbers and those of reviews, and arrived a few possible explanations. The company also stated that it is working with Microsoft to fix this in the next major update to Windows 11.

One of them is that AMD's testing was done on Windows 11 23H2 with Admin mode (i.e. a local system administrator account was used), while some reviewers tested with a regular user account that has some admin privileges. Apparently this affects the way the branch prediction units of "Zen 5" processors work. "Our automated test methodology was run in "Admin" mode which produced results that reflect branch prediction code optimizations not present in the version of Windows reviewers used to test Ryzen 9000 Series," AMD said in a statement.

AMD, with a post on X confirmed the pricing and availability of its new Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" desktop processor models. These were supposed to launch on July 31, but faced a delay, and are now facing a staggered launch. The 8-core Ryzen 7 9700X and 6-core Ryzen 5 9600X will be available from tomorrow, August 8, 2024. The flagship 16-core Ryzen 9 9950X and 12-core Ryzen 9 9900X follow a week later, on August 15. The company also confirmed pricing of the four chips in USD SEP. The Ryzen 9 9950X is confirmed with a $650 price, followed by the Ryzen 9 9900X at $500, the Ryzen 7 9700X at $360, and the Ryzen 5 9600X at $280. These are slightly cheaper than their predecessors, with the 7950X, 7900X, 7700X, and 7600X, launching at $700, $550, $400, and $300, respectively.

AMD is readying a successor to its Ryzen 7045 series "Dragon Range" mobile processor for gaming notebooks and portable workstations. While we don't know its processor model naming yet, the chip is codenamed "Fire Range." We are learning that it will retain the FL1 package as "Dragon Range," which means it will be pin-compatible. This would significantly reduce development costs for notebook OEMs, as they can simply carry over their mainboard designs from their notebooks based on "Dragon Range."

"Fire Range" is essentially a mobile BGA version of the upcoming Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" desktop processor. The FL1 package measures 40 mm x 40 mm in size, and has substrate for two CCDs and a cIOD, just like the desktop chip. "Fire Range" hence features one or two 4 nm "Zen 5" CCDs, depending on the processor model, and the 6 nm client I/O die. Much like "Dragon Range," the "Fire Range" chip will lack support for LPDDR5, and rely on conventional PC DDR5 memory in the SO-DIMM or CAMM2 form-factors. Besides the CPU core count consisting exclusively of full-sized "Zen 5" cores, the main flex for "Fire Range" over "Strix Point" will be its 28-lane PCIe Gen 5 root-complex, which can wire out the fastest discrete mobile GPUs, as well as drive multiple M.2 NVMe slots with Gen 5 wiring, and other high-bandwidth devices, such as Thunderbolt 4, USB4, or Wi-Fi 7 controllers wired directly to the processor.

AMD in its architecture deep-dive Q&A session with the press, confirmed that the "Zen 5" and "Zen 5c" cores on the "Strix Point" silicon only feature 256-bit wide FPU data-paths, unlike the "Zen 5" cores in the "Granite Ridge" Ryzen 9000 desktop processors. "The Zen 5c used in Strix has a 256-bit data-path, and so does the Zen 5 used inside of Strix," said Mike Clark, AMD corporate fellow and chief architecture of the "Zen" CPU cores. "So there's no delta as you move back and forth [thread migration between the Zen 5 and Zen 5c complexes] in vector throughput," he added.

It doesn't seem like AMD disabled a physically available feature, but rather, the company developed a variant of both the "Zen 5" and "Zen 5c" cores that physically lack the 512-bit data-paths. "And you get the area advantage to be able to scale out a little bit more," Clark continued. This suggests that the "Zen 5" and "Zen 5c" cores on "Strix Point" are physically smaller than the ones on the 4 nm "Eldora" 8-core CCD that is featured in "Granite Ridge" and some of the key models of the upcoming 5th Gen EPYC "Turin" server processors.

AMD "Granite Ridge" is codename for the four new Ryzen 9000 series desktop processors the company plans to launch on July 31, 2024. The processor is built in the Socket AM5 package, and is meant to be backwards compatible with AMD 600-series chipset motherboards, besides the new 800-series chipset ones that will launch alongside. "Granite Ridge" is a chiplet-based processor, much like the Ryzen 7000 "Raphael," Ryzen 5000 "Vermeer," and Ryzen 3000 "Matisse." AMD is carrying over the 6 nm client I/O die over from "Raphael" in an effort to minimize development costs, much in the same way it carried over the 12 nm cIOD for "Vermeer" from "Matisse."

The SoC I/O features of "Granite Ridge" are contemporary, with its awesome 28-lane PCI-Express Gen 5 root complex that allows a PCI-Express 5.0 x16, two CPU-attached M.2 Gen 5 slots, and a Gen 5 x4 chipset bus. There's also a basic integrated graphics solution based on the older RDNA 2 graphics architecture; which should make these processors fit for all use-cases that don't need discrete graphics. The iGPU even has multimedia accelerators, an audio coprocessor, a display controller, and USB 3.2 interfaces from the processor.

FinalWire Ltd. today announced the immediate availability of AIDA64 Extreme 7.35 software, a streamlined diagnostic and benchmarking tool for home users; the immediate availability of AIDA64 Engineer 7.35 software, a professional diagnostic and benchmarking solution for corporate IT technicians and engineers; the immediate availability of AIDA64 Business 7.35 software, an essential network management solution for small and medium scale enterprises; and the immediate availability of AIDA64 Network Audit 7.35 software, a dedicated network audit toolset to collect and manage corporate network inventories. The new AIDA64 update introduces a new 64-bit CheckMate benchmark, AVX-512 accelerated benchmarks for AMD Ryzen AI APU, and supports the latest graphics and GPGPU computing technologies by AMD, Intel and NVIDIA.

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AMD's upcoming "Strix Halo" mobile processor that features up to 16 "Zen 5" CPU cores and a powerful iGPU with 40 compute units, is beginning to surface in online benchmark databases. We've gone into the juicy technical bits about the processor in our older articles, but put simply, it is a powerful mobile processor meant to square off against the likes of the Apple M3 Pro and M3 Max. A chiplet-based processor, much like the upcoming "Granite Ridge" desktop processor and "Fire Range" mobile processor, "Strix Halo" features up to 16 full-sized "Zen 5" cores, as it uses up to two of the same "Eldora" CCDs as them; but wired to a large I/O die that contains the oversized iGPU, and an NPU, besides the memory controllers. The iGPU has 40 compute units (2,560 stream processors), and is based on the RDNA 3.5 graphics architecture, while the NPU is the same 50 TOPS-class unit carried over from "Strix Point."

A prototype HP laptop powered by a "Strix Halo" processor that uses a single 8-core "Zen 5" CCD, was spied on the web. This chip has eight full-sized "Zen 5" cores that share a 32 MB L3 cache. The iGPU on the I/O die has its own 32 MB Infinity Cache memory that cushions memory transfers. In our older reports, we speculated as to what the memory interface of "Strix Halo" would be. It turns out that the chip exclusively features a 256-bit wide LPDDR5X memory interface, which is double the bus width of "Strix Point." This is essentially what a "quad-channel DDR5" memory interface would be, and AMD is using a memory speed standard of at least LPDDR5X-8000. From the machine's point of view, this would be just a couple of hardwired LPDDR5X chips, or a pair of LPCAMM 2 modules. Back to the benchmarks, and we are shown a single-thread CPU score of 2099 to 2177 points, and a multithreaded score ranging between 5477 points to 13993 points. The laptop was tested with an unknown version and distribution of Linux. The CPU cores are shown boosting up to 5.35 GHz.

AMD is about give the new "Zen 5" microarchitecture a near-simultaneous launch across both its client segments—desktop and mobile. The desktop front is held by the Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" Socket AM5 processors; while Ryzen AI 300 "Strix Point" powers the company's crucial effort to capture Microsoft Copilot+ AI PC market share. We recently did a technical deep-dive on the two. HardwareLuxx.de scored two important bits of specs for both processors in its Q&A interaction with AMD—die sizes and transistor counts.

To begin with, "Strix Point" is a monolithic silicon, which is confirmed to be built on the TSMC N4P foundry node (4 nm). This is a slight upgrade over the N4 node that the company built its previous generation "Phoenix" and "Hawk Point" processors on. The "Strix Point" silicon measures 232.5 mm² in area, which is significantly larger than the 178 mm² of "Hawk Point" and "Phoenix." The added die area comes from there being 12 CPU cores instead of 8, and 16 iGPU compute units instead of 12; and a larger NPU. There are many other factors, such as the larger 24 MB CPU L3 cache; and the sizes of the "Zen 5" and "Zen 5c" cores themselves.

Apparently the AMD "Strix Halo" processor is real, and it's large. The chip is designed to square off against the likes of the Apple M3 Pro and M3 Max, in letting ultraportable notebooks have powerful graphics performance. A chiplet-based processor, not unlike the desktop socketed "Raphael," and mobile BGA "Dragon Range," the "Strix Halo" processor consists of one or two CCDs containing CPU cores, wired to a large die, that's technically the cIOD (client I/O die), but containing an oversized iGPU, and an NPU. The point behind "Strix Halo" is to eliminate the need for a performance-segment discrete GPU, and conserve its PCB footprint.

According to leaks by Harukaze5719, a reliable source with AMD leaks, "Strix Halo" comes in a BGA package dubbed FP11, measuring 37.5 mm x 45 mm, which is significantly larger than the 25 mm x 40 mm size of the FP8 BGA package that the regular "Strix Point," "Hawk Point," and "Phoenix" mobile processors are built on. It is larger in area than the 40 mm x 40 mm FL1 BGA package of "Dragon Range" and upcoming "Fire Range" gaming notebook processors. "Strix Halo" features one or two of the same 4 nm "Zen 5" CCDs featured on the "Granite Ridge" desktop and "Fire Range" mobile processors, but connected to a much larger I/O die, as we mentioned.

AMD's upcoming Ryzen 9000 series "Granite Ridge" desktop processors based on the "Zen 5" microarchitecture will see a slight improvement in memory overclocking capabilities. A chiplet-based processor, just like the Ryzen 7000 "Raphael," "Granite Ridge" combines one or two "Zen 5" CCDs, each built on the TSMC 4 nm process, with a client I/O die (cIOD) built on the 6 nm node. The cIOD of "Granite Ridge" appears to be almost identical to that of "Raphael." This is the chiplet that contains the processor's DDR5 memory controllers.

As part of the update, Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" should be able to run DDR5-6400 with a 1:1 ratio between the MCLK and FCLK domains. This is a slight increase from the DDR5-6000 sweetspot speed of Ryzen 7000 "Raphael" processors. AMD is reportedly making it possible for motherboard manufacturers and prebuilt OEMs to enable a 1:2 ratio, making it possible to run high memory speeds such as DDR5-8000, although performance returns with memory speeds would begin to diminish beyond the DDR5-6400 @ 1:1 setting. Memory manufacturers should launch a new wave of DDR5 memory kits with AMD EXPO profiles for DDR5-6400.

AMD's Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" family of Socket AM5 desktop processors based on the "Zen 5" microarchitecture arrive in July, with four processor models in the lead—the 9950X 16-core, the 9900X 12-core, the 9700X 8-core, and the 9600X 6-core. AMD is building the CCDs (CPU core dies) of these processors on the slightly newer 4 nm foundry node, compared to the 5 nm node that the Ryzen 7000 series "Raphael" processors based on "Zen 4" are built on; and generally lowered the TDP values of all but the top 16-core part. The company is reportedly reconsidering these changes, particularly in wake of company statements that the 9000X series may not beat the 7000X3D series in gaming performance, which may have sullied the launch, particularly for gamers.

From the company's Computex 2024 announcement of the Ryzen 9000 series, the 9950X has the same 170 W TDP as its predecessor, the 7950X. The 9900X 12-core part, however, comes with a lower 120 W TDP compared to the 170 W of the 7900X. Things get interesting with the 8-core and 6-core parts. Both the 9700X 8-core, and the 9600X 6-core chips come with 65 W TDP. The 9700X succeeds the 7700X, which came with a 105 W TDP, while the 9600X succeeds the 7600X that enjoys the same 105 W TDP. The TDP and package power tracing (PPT) values of an AMD processor are known to affect CPU boost frequency residence, particularly in some of the higher core-count SKUs. Wccftech reports that AMD is planning to revise the specifications of at least the Ryzen 7 9700X.

AMD's Zen 5 Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" series desktop processors are expected to be released on July 31st. The Ryzen AI 300 "Strix Point" series notebooks will hit stores earlier, on July 15th. This information comes from product listings on various e-commerce sites, as reported by ITHome and Videocardz. Additionally, a BestBuy listing shows one ASUS laptop with a Ryzen AI 300 "Strix Point" CPU launching on July 15th, ahead of the desktop processor release.

ITHome also reported potential retail prices for the AMD Ryzen 9 series CPUs, at least for the Philippine market. Worldwide prices may be lower or higher depending on taxes in each region.

• Ryzen 9 9950X: $648
• Ryzen 9 9900X: $597
• Ryzen 7 9700X: $409
• Ryzen 5 9600X: $315

AMD's upcoming Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" desktop processors based on the "Zen 5" microarchitecture won't beat the Ryzen 7000X3D series at gaming workloads, said Donny Woligroski, the company's senior technical marketing manager, in an interview with Tom's Hardware. The new "Zen 5" chips, such as the Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 9 9950X, will come close to the gaming performance of the 7800X3D and 7950X3D, but won't quite beat it. The new processors, however, will offer significant generational performance uplifts in productivity workloads, particularly multithreaded workloads that use vector extensions such as VNNI and AVX512. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D remains the fastest gaming desktop processor you can buy, it edges out even Intel's Core i9-14900KS, in our testing.

Given this, we expect the gaming performance of processors like the Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 9 9950X to end up closer to those of the Intel Core i9-13900K or i9-14900K. Gamers with a 7000X3D series chip or even a 14th Gen Core i7 or Core i9 chip don't have much to look forward to. AMD confirmed that it's already working on a Ryzen 9000X3D series—that's "Zen 5" with 3D V-cache technology, and is sounds confident of holding on to the title of having the fastest gaming processors. This doesn't seem implausible.

AMD today announced its much awaited Ryzen 9000 series desktop processors. Built in the Socket AM5 package, and drop-in compatible with all current AM5 motherboards with a BIOS update, the processors are based on the new "Zen 5" CPU microarchitecture. The operational part of the processor, the CPU complex dies (CCDs), are built on the 4 nm process, wired to a 6 nm I/O die. AMD didn't get down into the nuts and bolts of the microarchitecture, but briefly mentioned an impressive 16% IPC increase over "Zen 4." Coupled with the fact that the first wave of processors lack 3D V-cache and can sustain higher boost frequencies and TDP, processors in the series should beat the Ryzen 7 7800X3D in gaming performance, which also means that AMD has beaten the 14th Gen Core "Raptor Lake Refresh" processor series by a significant margin.

The 16% IPC increase over "Zen 4" is backed by branch prediction improvements, wider pipelines and vectors, and deeper window sizes across the core design, for more parallelism. The core also features doubling in instruction bandwidth for front-end instructions, FPU to L1, and L1 to L2 data bandwidth, and a redesigned FPU to double AI performance and AVX512 throughput. The company hasn't put out a block design for "Zen 5," and we'll learn more about it in the run-up to the market availability of these chips some time in July 2024.

AMD today launched its Ryzen AI 300 series mobile processors, codenamed "Strix Point." These chips implement a combination of the AMD "Zen 5" microarchitecture for the CPU cores, the XDNA 2 architecture for its powerful new NPU, and the RDNA 3+ graphics architecture for its 33% faster iGPU. The new "Zen 5" microarchitecture provides a 16% generational IPC uplift over "Zen 4" on the backs of several front-end enhancements, wider execution pipelines, more intra core bandwidth, and a revamped FPU that doubles performance of AI and AVX-512 workloads. AMD didn't go in-depth with the microarchitecture, but the broad points of "Zen 5" are detailed in our article for the Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" desktop processors. Not only is AMD using these faster "Zen 5" CPU cores, but also increased the CPU core count by 50%, for a maximum of 12-core/24-thread.

The "Strix Point" monolithic silicon is built on the 4 nm foundry node, and packs a CPU core complex (CCX) with 12 CPU cores, four of these are "Zen 5," which can achieve the highest possible boost frequencies, the other eight are "Zen 5c" cores that feature an identical IPC and the full ISA, including support for SMT; but don't boost as high as the "Zen 5" cores. AMD is claiming a productivity performance increase ranging between 4% and 73% for its top model based in the series, when compared to Intel's Core Ultra 9 185H "Meteor Lake" processor. The iGPU sees its compute unit (CU) count go all the way up to 16 from 12 in the previous generation, and this yields a claimed 33% increase in iGPU gaming performance compared to the integrated Arc graphics of the Core Ultra 9 185H. Lastly, the XDNA 2 NPU sees more that triple the AI inference performance to 50 AI TOPS, compared to the 16 TOPS of the Ryzen 8040 "Hawk Point" processor, and 12 TOPS of Core Ultra "Meteor Lake." This makes the processor meet Microsoft's Copilot+ AI PC requirements.