HardwareProcessorsThe first technical deep dive of the Zen 5 architecture is here, with preliminary benchmarks supporting AMD’s IPC claimsWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
HardwareProcessorsThe first technical deep dive of the Zen 5 architecture is here, with preliminary benchmarks supporting AMD’s IPC claimsWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: AMD)
It’s been almost a month since AMDunveiled its Zen 5 processor architectureand new range of Ryzen CPUs at Computex 2024. Still, with no products on retailers' shelves just yet, we’ve not had word on how much better the new design is than its predecessor, Zen 4. However, one lucky person has managed to get their hands on an engineering laptop sample with a Strix Point APU and run a full gamut of in-depth architecture tests on it.
Officially branded under the Ryzen AI 300 moniker, Huang tested a laptop sporting the Ryzen AI 9 365. This has four Zen 5 cores, boosting to around 5 GHz, and six compact Zen 5c cores, with a maximum clock speed of around 4 GHz. But it’s worth noting the Zen 5 cores in the Strix Point APU aren’t exactly the same as those used in the upcoming desktop Ryzen 9000-series chips.
The first difference is the amount of L3 cache on tap—where each CCD (Core Complex Die) chiplet in theRyzen 9 7950Xgets 32MB of cache, for example, AMD has taken the unusual step of giving the ‘normal’ and compact cores different amounts. In the case of the Ryzen AI 9 365, the four Zen 5 cores have 16MB of L3 cache, whereas the six Zen 5c cores have to share half that amount, just 8MB.
All of the cores in Strix Point also have reduced vector/SIMD pipelines, compared to Zen 4 APUs. For example, doing any 128-bit or 256-bit integer vector operations results in half the throughput, per clock cycle, of the Zen 4 cores in the Ryzen 7 7840U processor (512-bit ops remain unchanged).
However, Huang observed that Strix Point’s Zen 5 cores had noticeably better throughput in scalar operations compared to Zen 4, and the handling of thread branching is much better, too. There are other gains over the previous architecture, such as being able to fetch up to twice the number of instructions when using two threads per core and much better read performance from the L2 cache.
Huang carried out a decent amount of testing in the time he had with the laptop, so it’s worth delving into his blog to learn more about the changes AMD has implemented in Zen 5. It’s a very technical read, of course, and such throughput figures don’t always translate well into real-life applications.
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The ROG Ally’s APU has eight ‘normal’ Zen 4 cores.(Image credit: AMD)
Strix Point has been steadily popping up on theGeekbench v6 results databaseand one such recent entry (dated June 24) has a Ryzen AI 9 370HX (same as the 365 but with eight Zen 5c cores and higher boost clocks) with a single thread score of 2,795 and a multithreaded score of 14,124. Iran the benchmark on my Asus ROG Ally, which has an AMD Z1 Extreme APU (basically just a renamed Zen 4 Ryzen 7 7840U chip) and that got 2,457 and 11,155 respectively.
Geekbench sometimes has issues reporting CPU specifications correctly, especially ones that aren’t officially available yet, so the results should still be taken with a pinch of salt. That said, while an increase of 14% in the single thread score somewhat tallies with AMD’s claims that Zen 5 has a 16% IPC increase over Zen 4, the 27% increase in the multithreading score is a little more complicated to break down.
Your next machine(Image credit: Future)Best gaming PC: The top pre-built machines.Best gaming laptop: Great devices for mobile gaming.
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(Image credit: Future)Best gaming PC: The top pre-built machines.Best gaming laptop: Great devices for mobile gaming.
(Image credit: Future)
Best gaming PC: The top pre-built machines.Best gaming laptop: Great devices for mobile gaming.
The Ryzen AI 9 370HX has 12 cores, 24 threads in total, whereas the Z1 Extreme has eight cores, 16 threads. However, in the case of the former, where Geekbench is reporting a recorded clock of 4,825 MHz, that’s only for the Zen 5 cores; the Zen 5c ones will be running at least 800 MHz slower than this.
The eight cores of the Z1 Extreme aren’t split like this so some of its eight full cores will be running much faster than those in the Zen 5+5c chip.
Once we get our hands on some Zen 5-powered laptops, we’ll know for certain and hopefully, we won’t need to wait too long to find out.
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AMD accuses Intel’s Arrow Lake of being a ‘horrible’ product and implies a lack of options for consumers has caused the Ryzen 7 9800X3D shortage
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Epic CEO Tim Sweeney says tech leaders are ‘pretending to be Republicans’ to gain favor with Trump, skirt antitrust laws, and ultimately ‘rip off consumers and crush competitors’
If you’re trying to convince me your ‘companionship’ robot is ‘lifelike’, maybe don’t rip her face off in the demo video
Square Enix launches new anti-harassment policy to protect its employees and partners from abusive fans
The Sims begins its 25th anniversary celebration next week with a Behind The Sims episode of news and announcements
Path of Exile 2 numberlord spends 16 straight days killing rare monsters to prove that a stat that makes loot better makes better loot
Palestinian developer raises more than $200,000 to make Dreams on a Pillow, a game about the horrors of the 1948 Nakba
Piranha Games will lay off employees after Mechwarrior 5: Clans ‘performed below projections’
Marvel Rivals’ latest update quietly killed the game’s burgeoning mod scene
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