AMD Details Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 and AM5 – Launch September 27th

AM5 Platform

Alongside Ryzen 7000, AMD will also be launching the AM5 platform. Featuring a new 1718 pin LGA socket with up to 230W of power delivery, DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 links, and support for current AM4 coolers – AM5 is a timely upgrade to the AM4 platform that has served well since September 2016.

The new chipsets launching on AM5 will be X-series and B-series. At launch in September, X670 and X670E motherboards will be on the market, with B650 and B650E available from October.

David McAfee – Corporate VP and General Manager – was keen to highlight that there will be no artificially-implemented performance differences between the X-series and B-series chipsets. They will simply differentiate by their supported platform feature sets and connectivity, as was the case for AM4.

The X-series motherboards will, however, be designed by partners for the highest power delivery, better overclocking headroom, and extensive IO. X670E differs to X670 primarily with the way in which PCIe connectivity is deployed to likely the GPU or storage for X670, compared to the GPU and storage for X670E. This will be the same for B650 and B650E.

While PCIe Gen 5 storage is not yet a relevance, the SSD ecosystem is set to improve with drive availability starting November 2022.

Realistically, it was several months and years before PCIe Gen 4.0 SSDs truly took advantage of the increased bandwidth capability. So, it will be interesting to see how quickly Gen 5 storage ramps up on the marketplace.

DDR5 support is another of the key changes for the AM5 platform. AMD highlighted how DDR5 is now the logical choice of memory for an enthusiast platform, particularly as DDR4 has realistically reached its technology maturity. DDR5 has higher bandwidth and throughput and this is important when leveraged for the Ryzen 7000 Series ecosystem, according to AMD.

Unlike Intel, AMD is essentially doubling down on DDR5 support given that there is no DDR4 compatibility with Ryzen 7000 desktop and AM5. When quizzed about this – particularly with respect to DDR5 cost premiums versus DDR4 – David said that there is expectation that DDR5 pricing will continue to improve for consumers and that it would not be surprising to see DDR5 pricing match and drop below DDR4 by mid-2023.

One of the key announcements with respect to memory was AMD EXPO. Short for Extended Profiles for Overclocking, AMD highlighted how EXPO is essentially a one-click DDR5 overclock for Ryzen CPUs that can deliver higher frequency and improved latency for up to 11% enhanced gaming performance (though we don’t know exactly how that is quantified).

15 memory kits from vendors such as Corsair, Kingston, and G.SKILL are expected at launch. And David was keen to point out that these will be enthusiast-grade memory kits with frequencies even as high as 6400MHz at launch.

I think AMD EXPO Technology is actually quite interesting. Particularly as this is memory overclocking that looks to be driven more by AMD’s side of the equation, rather than through motherboard UEFIs, as we have seen in the past. We can only hope that the integration between AMD, motherboard vendors, and memory makers will work effectively.

AM5 motherboards will be available alongside the Ryzen 7000 Series for launch on September 27^th, starting with X-Series products.

AMD was perfectly clear in highlighting that they understand that the new AM5 platform with DDR5 memory and high-end processors will be a costly option for enthusiasts at first. There was, however, an interesting point in one of the slides that highlighted the expectation of AM5 motherboards start from an affordable $125 USD!

Yes, those boards will likely be entry-level with regards to component quality and feature set. But they will support Zen 4 desktop processors, and could help ease the cost of the initial platform buy-in.

Another key takeaway was the planned support for AM5 through 2025+. Given that AM4 launched in September 2016 and saw several iterations over the next six years, it would be fair to say that we expect that ‘+’ to add a genuine extra few years onto the 2025 quote.

iGPU

One point that went somewhat under the radar in Dr Lisa Su’s main presentation was the iGPU for Ryzen 7000.

During the Q&A session, David McAfee clarified that the iGPU is not APU-level capabilities with respect to its graphics performance. So, it is not intended to be a slice of hardware design for playing gaming titles.

It is, however, there for users who simply want to run multiple displays without a dedicated graphics card. And this has the benefit of allowing AMD to bring media encode and decode capabilities on chip, thus potentially improving energy efficiency performance for the processor and overall system in certain media consumption and production workloads.

Summary

AMD’s Ryzen 7000 Series announcement highlights a clear push for power-efficient performance with this latest stack of processors. There are no lower-end parts as the intention is to launch the enthusiast products first, particularly given the platform’s (expensive) DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 support.

While power efficiency is a key driver of the underlying architecture, it also looks like AMD has not forgotten about all-out performance based on the numbers the company has shown. 16-Core Ryzen 9 7950X being up to 57% quicker than the Core i9-12900K in certain workloads – and with 13% higher IPC versus Zen 3 – is impressive.

Thankfully, it won’t be too long before we can see the real-world, independent test results to see exactly how AMD’s new Zen 4 chips and the new AM5 platform stack up.

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KitGuru Says: Dr Lisa Su rounded out the Ryzen 7000 Series announcement presentation with some of the key numbers versus Ryzen 5000 Series. A 29% faster core for gamers, 44% more compute for creators, and 28% greater energy efficiency. These are all sizable gains versus an already competitive Ryzen 5000 Series. It will be interesting to see how the new chips and the new AM5 platform perform when they launch on September 27^th.

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