Major Leak Detailing the Future AMD Zen 7 CPU Architecture
From the YouTube channel Moore's Law Is Dead comes an extensive early account of the highly anticipated Zen 7 architecture of AMD. The details include consumer desktop CPU and laptop CPUs, as well as server components, and provide information on manufacturing processes, chiplet designs, and initial performance expectations.
Manufacturing and the Desktop CPU Design ("Grimlock Ridge")
It has been said by the leak that Zen 7 will utilize TSMC's advanced A14 manufacturing node, which is predicted to enter mass production sometime in 2028. For the desktop platform codenamed "Grimlock Ridge," it has been said that AMD is possibly working on two principal Zen 7 chiplets (CCDs) under the name "Grimlock":
- Silverton (High-Performance): A fully functional chiplet with 16 Zen 7 cores, 32 MB of L2 cache, and 64 MB of L3 cache. It will also support the use of an additional 160 MB 3D V-cache tile. This chiplet is set to be employed in the high-end Ryzen 13,000 series and Epyc server CPUs.
- Silverking (Scaled-Down): A lesser chiplet with 8 Zen 7 cores, 16 MB of L2 cache, and 32 MB of L3 cache. This version cannot support V-cache and servably sees itself to be used for laptop processors.
Architecture will continue to support two CCDs per die. If AMD releases a dual-CCD consumer product using 16-core "Silverton" chiplets, it could lead to a 32-core desktop CPU with a staggering total of 448 MB of cache.
Laptop Architecture ("Grimlock Point" & "Grimlock Halo")
For mobile design, Zen 7 is drawing upon a hybrid approach with different core types designed into a heterogeneous style similar to the Strix/Medusa generation. The leak describes two major configurations:
- Grimlock Point: A CPU mobile design with 4 Zen 7 core and 8 "dense" Zen 7c cores.
- Grimlock Halo: Higher-performance mobile design with 8 primary Zen 7 cores and 12 Zen 7c cores.
Both laptop configurations are also expected to feature an unspecified number of "Zen 7 Low-Power" cores aimed to efficient performance of background tasks.
Preliminary Performance Estimates
Included in the leak were performance targets of early inception for the architecture:
Desktop Performance (against Zen 6):
- General workloads will be improved by 16-20% (i.e. workloads excluding gaming).
- Single-threaded performance will be improved by 20% max.
- An increase in multi-core performance of up to 67%.
- There is a rough, early, and very much non-final estimate for an 8% IPC (Instructions Per Clock) gain.
Laptop Efficiency (Performance per watt):
- 3 watts: Up to 36% increase.
- 7 watts: Up to 32% increase.
- 12 watts: Up to 25% increase.
- 22 watts: Up to 17% increase.
These efficiency improvements can help tremendously when applied to handheld gaming consoles, thus potentially paving the way for future chips like "Ryzen Z4 Extreme," thus enabling the battery-powered devices to push for even more performance.
