AMD Zen 5: everything we know about Ryzen 9000 CPUs | Digital Trends (2024)

AMD Zen 5 is the next-generation Ryzen CPU architecture for Team Red, and its gunning for a spot among the best processors. After a major showing in June, the first Ryzen 9000 and Ryzen AI 300 CPUs are already here. AMD promises significant performance advantages for the new architecture that will give it a big leap in gaming and productivity tasks, and the company also claims it will have major leads over Intel’s top 14th-generation alternatives, allowing it to compete among the best gaming processors.

Now that we’ve had the chips in hand for a while, here’s everything you need to know about Zen 5, Ryzen 9000, and Ryzen AI 300.

Zen 5 release date, availability, and price

AMD originally confirmed that the Ryzen 9000 desktop processors will launch on July 31, 2024, two weeks after the launch date of the Ryzen AI 300. The initial lineup includes the Ryzen 9 9950X, the Ryzen 9 9900X, the Ryzen 7 9700X, and the Ryzen 5 9600X. However, AMD delayed the CPUs at the last minute, with the Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 showing up on August 8, and the Ryzen 9s showing up on August 15.

This was a surprise early release and seems likely to be an effort to get ahead of Intel, which is slated to debut its Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake CPUs much later in the year. It also gives AMD a chance to get its CPUs into the new breed of “AI” laptops that many major manufacturers are pushing.

Additional non-X and X3D variants are expected in the months that follow, with Club386 teasing that we might see the X3D chips as soon as September. That’d be sooner than expected, given that in the previous generation, the gap between the initial release and the X3D variants was longer.

For pricing, AMD reduced the list price across the Zen 5 desktop lineup compared to the previous generation. All of the new chips are cheaper, though to varying degrees. The two Ryzen 9s are $50 cheaper, for example, while the Ryzen 5 is only $20 cheaper. You can see how the pricing breaks down below.

AMD Ryzen 9000 Series processors are ready to deliver world class gaming and creator performance.

Available Aug 8:
• Ryzen 7 9700X
• Ryzen 5 9600X

Available Aug 15:
• Ryzen 9 9950X
• Ryzen 9 9900X pic.twitter.com/L9YOAyKmHg

— AMD Ryzen (@AMDRyzen) August 6, 2024

As usual, the actual price you’ll pay comes down to individual retailers. Given the rapidly declining prices of last-gen Zen 4 CPUs, AMD’s new Zen 5 lineup should fall below list price in short order.

Zen 5 specs and architecture

AMD detailed the specifications of the four new Ryzen 9000 processors at Computex 2024, showcasing comparable core counts and clock speeds to the previous generation, while claiming inter-process communication (IPC) uplifts from the new architectural design.

These specs are very comparable to their Ryzen 7000 equivalents, with the same cache quantities, thread counts, and clock speeds. What is different this time around is power draw. While the top-tier 9950X still has the same 170-watt thermal design power (TDP) of its 7950X predecessor, the other CPUs require far less.

The 7900X was a 170W TDP component, but the new 9900X pulls a mere 120W, and both the 9700X and 9600X are just 65W chips. While the power draw figures may be a little higher in real-world use, this is a notable improvement over their last-generation counterparts, and shows a big uplift in efficiency for the new Zen 5 design.

Despite previous rumors that AMD may want to tweak the TDP on the Ryzen 7 9700X in order to make it more competitive, AMD is sticking to the TDP that it initially announced — and it appears to be quite proud of its efficiency gains. During the Zen 5 Tech Day, AMD shared some initial slides regarding gen-on-gen improvements between Zen 4 and Zen 5.

Three out of the four new AMD processors saw a significant decrease in their power consumption. This could mean bad news for performance, but AMD claims otherwise. For instance, the Ryzen 5 9600X is said to be up to 17% faster while consuming far less power. On the other hand, the Ryzen 9 9950X may not feature a drop in TDP, but AMD claims that it’ll be up to 22% faster than its predecessor.

We’ve heard about IPC improvements for a while now, but until recently, it was unclear where those improvements are coming from. After all, the CPUs have the exact same core counts. However, AMD gave us a peek at the CPUs during the preview event, and we now know what’s new in Zen 5. The architectural changes that AMD outlined include:

• Zen 5 CPUs now support eight dispatch/retire units; up from six in Zen 4
• The number of arithmetic logic units (ALUs) in the core was increased from four to six
• Zen 5 now features a single 512-bit data path for AVX instructions instead of two 256-bit paths

Unlike Intel’s upcoming Arrow Lake CPUs, AMD has maintained simultaneous multithreading with Zen 5, and has made major improvements in branch prediction accuracy and latency to help improve overall multi-threading performance. As a result, AMD promises to deliver a 16% boost in IPC.

AMD has confirmed that its Zen 5 processors feature the RDNA 3.5 graphics architecture, which should mean even more capable onboard graphics than we saw with Ryzen 7000 CPUs. It’s not likely to be a huge upgrade, but considering we had perfectly passable performance for casual gaming on Zen 4, any upgrade is welcome. Ryzen 8000 APUs are already trying to hammer in the last nails of the entry-level graphics coffin. RDNA 3.5 on Zen 5 will only continue that trend.

AM5 socket

One of the greatest strengths of AMD’s Ryzen processors since their first generation has been in their upgradability. While Intel has typically offered fans two and occasionally three generations of support for any socket design, AMD’s Ryzen platform has been far more expansive. Anyone who bought a high-end motherboard from the Ryzen 1000 generation was able to simply plug in an AMD Ryzen 3000 or even 5000 CPU with a few BIOS updates and continue with the same memory, power, and everything else.

AMD is looking to replicate this with its AM5 socket, which debuted with Ryzen 7000 CPUs in the fall of 2022. Zen 5 uses the same AM5 socket as Zen 4, meaning not only will coolers be compatible, but CPUs will be too. Anyone with an existing X670E, X670, or B650 motherboard should be able to drop in a Zen 5 CPU and receive most of the benefits of the new generation as soon as they are available — though a BIOS update may be necessary.

AMD announced the first two new motherboard chipsets for Ryzen 9000 at Computex 2024, detailing the new x870 and x870E chipsets. Both bring USB4 support as standard, as well as PCI Express 5.0 for both graphics and storage slots. Higher memory frequencies are supported, too, potentially unlocking even greater performance for the next-gen CPUs.

Zen 5 performance

We’ve finally had a chance to test Zen 5, both in desktop and mobile applications, and AMD’s performance gains are real. First, single-core performance. As you can read in our Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X review, AMD made a massive leap with its single-core performance with its new architecture. The results from Cinebench R23 below show that in action, with the new chips shooting ahead of basically every other option.

Multi-core performance is a different story, and an area where AMD is starting to lose some of its edge. Although the generational improvement is there, Intel’s lead in core counts continues to dominate heavily-threaded workloads. Given that core counts are identical with Zen 5 desktop CPUs, AMD is struggling to move the needle in heavily-threaded workloads.

Still, in real applications, the performance improvements are present. You can see that in action in Handbrake, which absolutely slams the CPU for video transcoding. The gains here aren’t high enough to justify an upgrade if you have a Ryzen 7000 CPU already, but they’re a welcome addition for newcomers to the Zen 5 platform.

Gaming is a different story, where AMD is its own worst enemy at the moment. You can see inFar Cry 6above that Zen 5 brings some improvements over the previous generation. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D remains the best gaming CPU you can buy, however, and it’s not exactly close.

There are some niche improvements for gaming with Zen 5, however. Most notably, AMD added a 512-bit data path for AVX-512 instructions, which is huge for some AI workloads and tasks like PS3 emulation. The chess engine Leela Chess Zero shows just how big of a difference a native AVX-512 implementation makes in performance.

We saw similar performance increases in our Ryzen 9 9950X and Ryzen 9 9900X review. These more powerful CPUs especially excel in multi-core workloads, as you can see in Cinebench R24 above.

Although there’s a solid boost with these more expensive CPUs, they really struggle in gaming. As you can see in the results above, the Ryzen 9 9950X and Ryzen 9 9900X barely move the needle compared to their last-gen counterparts, and they fall completely behind the competition from Intel.

AMD has also launched its Zen 5 architecture in laptops with Ryzen AI 300 CPUs. As you can see from the results gathered during our Zenbook S 16 review, AMD provides competitive performance with the recent crop of Snapdragon X Elite chips, though it falls short of Intel’s more performant Meteor Lake offerings.

The real boon for AMD with Ryzen AI 300 is battery life. Outside of the new Snapdragon chips, AMD is providing some of the best battery life we’ve seen out of a Windows laptop. That will change as we see more powerful Zen 5 mobile options, but it’s clear that AMD’s efficiency claims are more than hot air.

3D V-Cache in Zen 5

AMD’s 3D V-Cache processors have been ruling the gaming charts ever since the release of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. Seeing as the Ryzen 7 7800X3D was also a massive success, it’s only right that gamers are hoping for a follow-up in the form of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. Good news: It’s coming. Bad news? We just don’t know when.

In a recent interview, AMD’s Donny Woligroski said that AMD is “not just resting on laurels” as he referred to AMD’s plans for the X3D versions of Zen 5 processors. AMD is actively working on making the chip better than its predecessor, which is more than can be said about the non-3D parts — there, AMD admitted that Zen 4 X3D chips will still outpace their non-3D successors in gaming.

Unfortunately, AMD hasn’t revealed how it hopes to improve the 3D V-Cache chips, or when we might see them. It’s possible that AMD will update its chiplet approach to prevent situations where only one die comes with extra cache, which is the case right now. Similarly, we might see higher clock speeds, more overclocking capabilities, or — hopefully — even more cache.

3D V-Cache Performance Optimizer 1.0.0.9

1st pic: 6.02.07.2300
2nd pic: 6.05.28.016https://t.co/C0OmQJW7Dv pic.twitter.com/mjeafB7VYr

— 포시포시 (@harukaze5719) June 12, 2024

As a sign that AMD is working on the 3D chips even if they’re not set to launch in July, the company recently pushed a Ryzen chipset driver that added a new 3D V-Cache Optimizer.

Here comes AM5

AMD’s Zen 5 is shaping up to be a major launch for Team Red, and it’s gotten out ahead of the competition by a number of months. With Intel not slated to launch its Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake processors until much later this year, we may have several months of AMD absolutely dominating before Intel can swing back. It no doubt will, but can it do so hard enough?

AMD has shown with Zen 5 that it has the potential to be the performance and efficiency leader in productivity and gaming. We still don’t have a full picture of the lineup, though, and AMD’s 3D V-Cache update is sure to shake things up when it arrives.