Zen 4 is what AMD will be using to product its next generation of desktop processors to replace the AMD Ryzen 5000 series. We're expecting the company to use this new architecture to produce Ryzen 7000 processors with a promised 35% overall performance gain over existing CPUs.
What is AMD Zen 4?
Zen 4 is the fourth generation of AMD's architecture that powers its Ryzen family of desktop and laptop processors. This architecture will be making good use of manufacturing partner TMSC's 5nm process, which should bring forth considerable gains in efficiency, allowing AMD to extract yet more performance out of its CPUs design.
AMD detailed up to a 10% increase in instructions per clock, more than 15% boost in single-thread performance, up to a colossal 125% increase in memory bandwidth per core, and better than 25% more performance-per-watt. This all results in the overall performance improvement promise of around 35%. Oh, and we're all looking forward to stock clock speeds greater than 5.5GHz.
As well as performance improvements through technologies like 3D V-Cache, AMD is expected to introduce PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 RAM support. To utilize these new processors, we're also expecting a new AM5 socket to be made available, which will be used on motherboards with PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 support. Chipsets will be formed of the X670E, X670, and B650.
AMD Zen 4 is the company's answer to Intel Alder Lake, which saw the introduction of 12th Gen Core processors. We gave these processors a positive review, including the exceptionally good Intel Core i5-12600K. AMD has its work cut out for it to come back with the next generation of Ryzen CPUs. Zen 4 is hoped to do just that.
Interestingly, by the time we expect to see Zen 4 processors from AMD, Intel should have Raptor Lake out in the wild, though details are still scarce on 13th Gen Intel processors. One thing's for sure, we're going to see some considerable gains over AMD Ryzen 5000.
AMD Zen 4 CPU specifications
AMD has yet to confirm specifications for its upcoming Zen 4 (Ryzen 7000) series of processors, though the rumor is we'll see 24 cores on Ryzen 9 CPUs.
We will see 24 core Zen4/5 CPUs on AM5 socket. Probably the listed SKUs will be:Ryzen 9 = 24/20 coreRyzen 7 = 16/12 coreRyzen 5 = 8/6 coreRyzen 3 = 4/2 coreAugust 19, 2021
One can look to expect SKUs, performance, and pricing to be in line with Ryzen 5000 series processors at launch, but with a slight uplift to both.
When will AMD Zen 4 CPUs be available?
AMD hasn't shared a release date for Zen 4 processors, but CEO Dr. Lisa Su did confirm at Computex 2022 that Zen 4 would be released sometime in Q3 2022. We're expecting what is believed to be the Ryzen 7000 series to be available sometime within the next few months (at the time of writing).
