During one of its webinars for channel partners on maximizing server deployments with AMD Ryzen processors, AMD revealed some of its future plans for its next-generation Zen 5 microarchitecture. Knowing the extensive AMD desktop roadmap through 2025 and plans to launch Zen 5 codenamed ‘Granite Ridge’ sometime in 2024, AMD has created a slightly updated roadmap. The roadmap includes details announcing that the AM5 platform will officially support the upcoming Zen 5 processor.
In addition to this, AMD has revealed that its Zen 5 desktop processors will fall into the Ryzen 8000 series family, but Zen 5 will also feature a new iGPU codenamed ‘Navi 3.5’, so there is a bit of a twist. is applied. The last possible announcement is that his Ryzen 7000 series processors with RDNA 3 (Navi 3x) based integrated graphics could arrive later this year.
Despite very little technical information from AMD regarding its upcoming Zen 5 (Granite Ridge) based processors due sometime in 2024, AMD has figured it out. It contains some important (albeit hidden) confirmations about the next-gen platform. The first of these confirmations is that AMD’s Zen 5 for desktop products will fall under the Ryzen 8000 series which is the direct successor to AMD’s current Zen 4 based Ryzen 7000 series for desktops.
AMD’s Ryzen 8000 desktop processor family as we know it today incorporates three main lineups. This includes regular desktop CPUs and at least one (possibly more) Zen 5-based processors with 3D V-Cache packages. The third is a lower power, lower specification, more compact core known as the Zen 5c series. It is used in AMD’s EYPC 128-core Bergamo processor, as we know from the Zen 4c case.
In addition to the Ryzen 8000 naming confirmation, AMD also revealed that the current AM5 platform for its motherboards will also support upcoming Zen 5 based processors with the AM5 socket extending through 2026. AMD’s motherboard sockets have been around for generations and have had periods of longevity and stability with the launch of new processors, and the AM5 seems to be no exception in this regard. This means that users with Ryzen 7000 and AM5 based motherboards like the X670E and B650E could theoretically plug the upcoming Ryzen 8000 chips directly into their sockets and make them available through a firmware update. means However, AMD has not confirmed this at this time.
Another interesting disclosure is that AMD’s Ryzen 8000 series won’t feature RNDA 3 based processors. It has integrated graphics, but is also in development with a new codename hinting at an update to the existing Navi 3 product. It’s named Navi 3.5 and there are no official details about which AMD GPU architecture it’s based on or specs about, but we should have more details by the time Zen 5 launches, also in 2024. Scheduled.
The most important feature of AMD’s slightly updated roadmap is that it shows AMD Ryzen 7000 series (Zen 4) processors with Navi 3.0 graphics. Given that AMD’s currently releasing Ryzen 7000 series processors such as the Ryzen 9 7950X feature RDNA 2 based integrated graphics chips (Navi 2x), this is about the Ryzen 7000 based ‘APU’. This could be the most obvious disclosure from AMD to date. It looks like AMD has moved on from the term, which could be released later this year. This could be a roadmap failure for AMD.
Still, it remains to be seen if we’ll see a Zen 4-based SoC with the more integrated graphics we’ve become accustomed to from previous generation Ryzen processors.
