We've known since last week that AMD's upcoming desktop processor socket, AM5, will be a land-grid array (LGA), much like Intel's desktop sockets; and today we have a first-look at what the land-grid will look like, courtesy of ExecutableFix, who first broke news of AM5 being an LGA of 1,718 pins. Below is a render of the AM5 contact pad (the underside of the processor). The 1,718 contacts span across the fiberglass substrate, with no socket island in the middle for ancillaries. All electrical ancillaries are located on the obverse side of the substrate, surrounding the die(s). The substrate area will remain 40 mm x 40 mm, so the processor package will be roughly of the same size as AM4. In comparison, Intel's upcoming LGA1700 package is expected to measure 37.5 mm x 45 mm (a rectangular substrate).

ExecutableFix put out a handful more details about the I/O of this socket. Apparently, AM5 is a pure-DDR5 platform, with no backwards compatibility with DDR4. The socket features a dual-channel DDR5 memory interface. The PCI-Express interface is PCI-Express 4.0, with the socket putting out 28 lanes in total. 16 of these go to the PEG slot(s), four to an M.2 NVMe slot, and possibly the remaining eight as chipset bus. Considering these are Gen 4, the next-generation X670 (X570 successor) chipset could have double the chipset-bus bandwidth compared to Intel Z590. A typical Socket AM5 chip, such as "Rembrandt," could feature a TDP of 120 W, going up to 170 W, according to the source.

AMD's roadmap for notebook processors from 2020 - 2022 has recently been leaked and it reveals some interesting information for the launch of Zen 3+ and Navi 2. AMD will release the Rembrandt "H" series for mobile workstations in 2022 manufactured on the 6nm node with Navi 2 graphics and a Zen 3+ core design. These chips will include PCIe 4.0, LPDDR5/DDR5, and USB 4 support and will come with a power target of 45 W while a 15 W lineup of U series processors will also be released with identical specifications. The roadmap also shows the launch of Dragon Crest processors for tablets and handheld devices in 2022 with Navi 2 graphics and Zen 2 core designs. AMD is also set to launch the Barcelo "U" series for ultrathin laptops with very similar specifications to Cezanne "U".

A fresh rumor straight from the rumor mill paints AMD's next APU iterations as being updated to the latest and greatest architectures the company has to offer. The rumor comes from ExecutableFix via Twitter, a leaker who has a relatively proven track record on being right regarding upcoming hardware releases. This rumor can lay some credence to others, painting AMD's Ryzen 7000 series as being the first AMD APU-only release since they began their journey with the Zen architecture - it makes sense for the company to integrate their latest architectures in the mobile-geared Rembrandt first, working out some possible interaction quirks that might arise between the two architectures when deployed in the same package.

The leaker further affirms that the Rembrandt APUs will feature up to 12 RDNA2 CUs, which would amount to 768 stream processors on-chip - a marked increase from the current-generation 8 CUs based on the Vega architecture on their Ryzen 4000 mobile series. The leaker also discloses that AMD's Warhol seems to be MIA in recent AMD documentation and planning when it comes to the deployment of Zen3+, and that Rembrandt should be the one to carry that particular architecture refinement through to the 6 nm process. It would seem that AMD's Vega would "finally" see its demise, bringing about some much-needed performance improvements to counter Intel's investments in GPU performance with Xe.

The earliest reports on AMD's next-generation "Cezanne" APU silicon pointed at the possibility of the chip combining "Zen 3" CPU cores with a next-generation iGPU solution based on RDNA2 ("Navi 2#"). AMD plans to launch "Cezanne" in 2021, which makes it the immediate successor to "Renoir." A report by Igor's Lab has fresh details on "Cezanne." Apparently the chip sticks with the "Vega" graphics architecture on its iGPU. This doesn't necessarily mean that it's the same exact iGPU as the 8 CU version on "Renoir."

On the other hand, the "Van Gogh" silicon slated for 2021 is expected to receive RDNA2 graphics. It's important to note here that "Van Gogh" and "Cezanne" sit in the same product stack, and "Van Gogh" does not succeed "Cezanne." Rather, it's the codename for an entry-level APU, succeeding "Dali" (Athlon 3000G), which also means the RDNA2-based iGPU will be a lot slimmer than the "Vega" based one on "Cezanne." It's only by 2022 that AMD will have a performance-segment APU with RDNA2-based iGPU, with "Rembrandt." Find our older article getting into AMD's roadmaps here.