We’ve heard some lofty claims lately about the performance benefits that AMD’s next-generation Zen 5 CPUs could deliver, but a well-known YouTube leaker was quick to clarify that we won’t see anything like a 40% generation gain.
Granted, the quoted 40% figure recently published by another leaker, Kepler, was for a single scenario (SPEC benchmark) and hardly an average performance gain for the Zen 5. But Moore’s Law is Dead (MLID) has made it clear what kind of IPC (Instructions per Clock) boost its sources expect on average.
The first thing to note here is that when we talk about IPC, the final figure AMD claims will be based in part on how the marketing department runs things – as always – and at this point even Team Red can’t say exactly what it is. It will be (because the silicon isn’t ready yet).
According to an AMD source, the expectation – and it’s a prediction at this point – is an IPC gain of around 17% for the Zen 5. Which basically matches the 15% to 20% that MLID has in the past put forward as the most likely scenario for the next generation of Ryzen.
That AMD source specifically says the average IPC increase won’t be close to 40%, but to be fair, that was never Kepler’s claim, as we’ve already discussed. Still, the idea is to dispel the idea that some people may have picked up lately that the Zen 5 could be aiming for those kinds of miraculous gains on average.
What do the other sources MLID spoke to as part of this latest video think the Zen 5 will succeed through an IPC increase over Ryzen 7000 CPUs? Someone who attended an AMD presentation about its next-gen processors said that Team Red floated the idea of IPC gains in the teens, percentage-wise, or perhaps in the low-to-mid 20% range.
A third source claims 15% to 25%, so all these amounts essentially amount to 15% to 20% – maybe a little more if we’re lucky. Interestingly, that third source claims that Zen 5 has been a bigger struggle than AMD thought it would be, but more recently at Team Red there have been breakthroughs and a generally greater level of optimism behind the next generation of desktop chips.
The second source also mentions that AMD wants to launch these Zen 5 desktop processors in the third quarter (as well as server chips). This is supported by a recent move from Asus, which is already offering support for next-generation CPUs in its motherboards, indicating that the Ryzen 9000 (or 8000) desktop range may not be that far away (Q3 starts in July this year). class).
Advantage AMD?
MLID underlines that he’s pretty excited about the latest buzz on Zen 5 right now, given the more pessimistic chatter that’s floated through the rumor mill in the past.
As mentioned, we can expect an IPC gain of around 20%, perhaps 25%, which is still an impressive generational improvement (very impressive in the latter case). And anyway, the general flavor of all the leaks so far is that Zen 5 will offer at least as much of a performance boost as Ryzen 7000 CPUs, and almost certainly a bit more (maybe quite a bit more).
Furthermore, the YouTube leaker believes the Zen 5 processors should “easily” be ready for the third quarter, and with the latest Intel Arrow Lake rumors suggesting the rival next-gen CPUs might not arrive until very late 2024 will appear – or they could even move to 2025 – all of which could mean that the advantage lies very much with AMD.
This raises the prospect that Team Red could even have the next generation of X3D ready by the time Intel gets Arrow Lake out the door and immediately strikes back against Team Blue, at least in PC gaming.
All in all, it looks like AMD is on to a winner unless there’s a significant disruption in the way these rumors are currently developing, and Intel could have a tough time in the next-gen clash of the best CPUs. In the interest of balance, however, we should note that Arrow Lake is expected to represent a major generational leap for Intel – perhaps a huge boost – although Team Blue may need all the sales power it can get.