AMD
AMD this week released more information about its next-gen Ryzen 9000 processors and their underlying Zen 5 CPU architecture, ahead of their launch in late July. The company reiterated some of the high-level performance claims it made last month: performance increases in the range of 1 to 10 percent over Zen 4 for both single- and multi-threaded tasks. But AMD also boasted about the chips’ power efficiency compared to the Ryzen 7000, noting that they would reduce power consumption despite the performance boost.
Priority to energy efficiency
AMD has announced that it has lowered the default power limits on three of the four Ryzen 9000 processors (the Ryzen 5 9600X, Ryzen 7 9700X, and Ryzen 9 7900X) compared to the Ryzen 7000 versions of those same chips. Despite the lower default power limit, all three chips still show double-digit performance improvements over their predecessors. AMD also says that the Ryzen 9000 processor temperatures have been reduced by up to 7°C compared to the Ryzen 7000 chips at the same settings.
The Ryzen 9000’s double-digit performance gains come despite the company lowering the default TDPs of most of its chips. These TDP settings determine how much power one of AMD’s processors can use (but not necessarily how much it can use). will to use).
AMD
Since the TDPs have been lowered, AMD says the Ryzen 9000 chips will have a bit more overclocking headroom than the Ryzen 7000.
AMD
It’s worth noting that we’ve typically tested the stock Ryzen 7000 processors at multiple power levels, and for most chips, including the 7600X and 7700X, we’ve found that the increased TDP levels didn’t really improve performance in the first place. The TDP reduction in the Ryzen 9000 may be made possible in part by architectural improvements or a newer manufacturing process, but AMD already had some leeway to reduce those power consumption numbers without impacting performance too much. TDP is also best thought of as a power indicator limit rather than the actual amount of power a processor will use for a given workload, even when fully utilized.
We do appreciate AMD’s focus on power efficiency for the Ryzen 9000 series, though, especially since Intel’s top-of-the-line 13900K and 14900K processors have been plagued by outages that seem This may be related to high power consumption and improper motherboard configurations. Intel has yet to issue a definitive statement on the nature of the problem, but it’s plausible (maybe even likely!) that this is a side effect of these chips being pushed to their thermal and electrical limits.
The Ryzen 9000 processors can still be pushed further by users who want to push those power limits and try overclocking. AMD points out that the chips all have more headroom for automated Precision Boost Overdrive overclocking, precisely because the default power limits leave a bit more performance on the table. But as long as the chips still perform well at their default settings, people who just want to build a computer without doing a lot of tinkering will be better served by chips that run cooler and use less power.
More time on the clock for the AM5 socket
AMD has committed to supporting the AM5 socket until “2027+”, two years longer than the “2025+” promised in late 2022.
AMD
The Ryzen 9000 will launch alongside several slightly updated chipsets, although existing AM5 boards will be able to use these chips after a BIOS update.
AMD
Another small but notable change is buried in AMD’s slides, and it’s good news for anyone who’s already invested in a Socket AM5 motherboard or plans to do so in the near future: AMD has officially extended the socket’s guaranteed support timeline to at least 2027, and is leaving the door open for support beyond that date. That’s a two-year extension from the “2025+” timeline the company laid out in late 2022.
Of course, the term “support” can mean a lot of different things. AMD continues to officially support the AM4 socket with new processor releases, and continues to rely on AM4 as a budget platform as the AM5 socket costs have remained stubbornly high. But these “new” releases have all been repackages of various iterations of the late-2020 Ryzen 5000 processors, rather than truly new products. Still, AMD’s formal commitment to the longevity of the AM5 socket makes it a little easier to recommend to people who regularly upgrade their processors.
The Ryzen 9000 chips will be able to be integrated into any current AM5 motherboard after a BIOS update. The company is also announcing a line of 800-series chipsets for the new motherboards, though these will generally only feature minor improvements over the 600-series chipsets they replace. The X870E and X870 are guaranteed to have USB 4 ports, and the X870 supports PCIe 5.0 speeds for the GPU slot, while the X670 only supported PCIe 4.0 speeds for the GPU slot. The lower-end B850 chipset still supports PCIe 5.0 speeds for SSDs and PCIe 4.0 speeds for GPUs, while an even lower-end B840 chipset is limited to PCIe 3.0 speeds for everything. The B840 also won’t support CPU overclocking, although it can still overclock RAM.
List image by AMD