AMD CEO Dr Lisa Su announced some details of the company’s upcoming Ryzen 7000 series CPUs at her Computex 2022 keynote, along with a new AM5 socket and 600-series chipsets for motherboards that will accompany them. The company also teased an upcoming ‘Mendocino’ CPU lineup for affordable mainstream laptops and Chromebooks as well as a new SmartAccess Storage feature for high-performance laptops. While specific details of models, pricing, and features were not disclosed, AMD did say that these products will launch by the end of 2022.
AMD Ryzen 7000 series, AM5 socket, X670E, X670, B650
Ryzen 7000 series CPUs, codenamed ‘Raphael’, will be based on the Zen 4 CPU core architecture and will feature up to 16 cores spread across two physical chiplets. These chiplets will be manufactured using a new 5nm TSMC process and CPUs will also feature a new IO die based on a 6nm process.
AMD will introduce the new AM5 socket, finally retiring the AM4 standard which has served since before the introduction of the original Ryzen CPU series in 2017. This will allow for a generational shift to DDR5 RAM and the PCIe 5.0 interconnect standard. The maximum TDP supported will go up to 170W, and all coolers designed for socket AM4 will be compatible. This also marks a shift to an LGA-style CPU package, from the current pin grid layout.
AMD promises boost clock speeds “significantly above 5GHz” and a demonstration shown during the presentation appeared to show a pre-production 16-core CPU sample running at up to 5.5GHz in the game Ghostwire: Tokyo. The CPU was also shown beating Intel’s Core i9-12900K in a multi-threaded Blender workload.
Zen 4 CPU cores will feature double the L2 cache as the current generation, and expanded instructions to handle AI acceleration. The company will also use its RDNA2 GPU architecture for integrated graphics capabilities. AMD touts improved power efficiency and a 15 percent uplift in single-threaded performance thanks to the higher clock speed, architectural improvements, and new manufacturing processes.
Socket AM5 motherboards will be available from several hardware OEMs when the CPUs go on sale
Ryzen 7000 CPUs will have up to 24 PCIe 5.0 lanes. Platform-level capabilities include Wi-Fi 6E, up to 14 USB ports, and four simultaneous displays over HDMI 2.1 and/or DisplayPort 2.0. Three new desktop chipsets have been announced: the X670 Extreme for “the most demanding enthusiasts” will support multiple PCIe 5.0 devices along with extreme overclocking and power delivery capabilities. The X670 will appeal to “the bulk of enthusiasts and gamers” with PCIe 5.0 to at least one graphics card and M.2 storage device. Motherboards based on the mainstream B650 will only support PCIe 5.0 for storage devices. The budget segment will likely continue to be served by AM4 products for some time.
AM5-based Motherboards from ASRock, Asus, Biostar, Gigabyte, and MSI will be announced this week at Computex 2022, and will go on sale along with the new Ryzen 7000 CPUs later this year. AMD also says PCIe 5.0 SSDs from major brands will be available at the same time, and it has worked closely with SSD and controller manufacturers.
More information such as Ryzen 7000 series SKUs, specifications and prices as well as details of the Zen 4 core architecture will be announced closer to the “fall 2022” launch window.
AMD ‘Mendocino’ CPUs
Along with new enthusiast desktop hardware, AMD talked about the success of its Ryzen 6000 series laptop CPUs, announced at CES earlier this year, and teased a new CPU family codenamed ‘Mendocino’ for low-cost laptops and Chromebooks. Curiously, this is the same codename that Intel used for one of its earliest Celeron CPU generations in the late 1990s. AMD’s Mendocino will be based on the Zen 2 CPU core architecture but will also feature RDNA2 graphics capabilities. Other specifications include support for LPDDR5 RAM. CPUs will have up to four cores with eight threads. The company projects over 10 hours of battery life for Mendocino-based laptops.
AMD is targeting laptops in the $399 to $699 price range (approximately Rs. 30,000 – 55,000 before taxes). Laptop OEMs should begin announcing models in Q4 2022. These should appeal to students, office workers, and those who need simple, basic productivity in a portable package.
AMD Advantage
During the keynote, AMD also touted the success of its AMD Advantage laptop design programme and various capabilities that OEMs can implement with an AMD CPU and GPU. Along with models from Alienware, Lenovo, HP and Asus that deliver such capabilities, AMD also previewed the upcoming Corsair Voyager notebook which is designed for mobile gaming and streaming. Featuring AMD hardware and smart features plus a 16-inch display, 10-key Elgato command centre and dedicated webcam and video input switching controls, the Corsair Voyager will be available in some countries later in 2022.
Corsair launching first ever gaming and streaming laptop exclusively with amd – entire family of smart tech, 16” premium display. Voyager. Truly mobile streaming solution. 10 key elgato command centre. Integrated camera hub software, change video inputs and field of view. DDR5, available this summer including customizable versions from origin.
Finally, the new Smart Access Storage will leverage Microsoft DirectStorage to allow for large game textures and 3D models to be loaded directly from an NVMe SSD to the GPU’s memory.