There's a new rumour in town suggesting that AMD will refresh the Ryzen 5000 series with B2 stepping. Codenamed ‘Vermeer', this Zen 3 refresh would pave the way for improved clock speeds up to 5GHz.
The post shared by Patrick Schur includes two SKUs and the respective specifications and OPN codes. The first is a 16/32T processor with a 3.4GHz base clock and a whopping 5.0GHz boost clock, and the second is a 6C/12T CPU with the same base and boost clock as the Ryzen 5600X, which is 3.7GHz and 4.6GHz, respectively.
B2 Stepping for Vermeer?! ?
100-000000059-60_50/34_Y
3.4 GHz (up to 5 GHz)
Stepping: B2
Cores: 16100-000000065-06_46/37_Y
3.7 GHz (up to 4.6 GHz)
Stepping: B2
Cores: 6— Patrick Schur (@patrickschur_) May 17, 2021
Before jumping to conclusions, it's worth comparing them with the original Ryzen 5000 series processors. While there's a small 100MHz frequency bump in the boost clock of the 16C/32T processors listed, the other one looks to be feature exactly the same clock frequencies as the Ryzen 5600X. The B2 stepping probably means that the processors will receive a refresh, but a performance increase isn't mandatory.
If AMD releases these two SKUs, the Ryzen 5000 series will feature a total of 8 SKUs.
KitGuru says: Do you think AMD will release refreshed Ryzen 5000 series processors, or will the next desktop processor series jump straight into a new node?