AMD's New CPU Roadmap Tips Plans for 'Compact' Chip and Threadripper
AMD is preparing three distinct flavors of Zen 4 Ryzen chips, according to a new CPU roadmap the company released on Thursday.
Along with the standard Zen 4 processors, AMD plans on releasing chips featuring the company’s 3D V-Cache technology, which it debuted in the Ryzen 7 5800X3D earlier this year. These CPUs come with even more L3 cache for better gaming performance.
In addition, AMD is preparing a new class of “Zen 4c” chips currently under development. “Zen 4c is a very compact density version of Zen 4, but it’s identical in functionality,” said AMD CTO Mark Papermaster on Thursday during the company’s financial analyst day.
“It’s workload optimized so when you don’t have to run at high frequency, you can take advantage of an incredible efficiency and scale-up capabilities,” he added. Papermaster told PCMag the Zen 4c chips will arrive next year.
Interestingly, the Zen 4 family will also use a 4-nanometer manufacturing process for an upcoming laptop-focused processor family called “Phoenix Point.” Other Zen 4 chips, including the upcoming Ryzen 7000 desktop CPUs, will use a 5nm manufacturing process.
For power users, the company also teased that Ryzen Threadripper chips using the Zen 4 architecture are in the works.
During his presentation, Papermaster added that AMD is already working on the Zen 5 architecture, which he said is on track to arrive in 2024. The Zen 5 chips will use a 4nm and 3nm process to pack even more transistors on the silicon.
“Like Zen 3, it will be a ground-up new microarchitecture,” he said. “We’ve optimized it for scaling across a broad range of workloads.”
At the analyst day event, AMD also offered more details about the upcoming Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 processors, which will launch this
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