Intel and AMD are expected to launch all-new architectures this year, with AMD prepping Zen 5 Ryzen chips and Intel hard at work on Arrow Lake. Since AMD usually follows a two-year cadence, this September should be when Zen 5 will launch, but now a new rumor says AMD has adjusted its schedule for an April launch instead. It will follow up with the X3D chips later this year, just in time to pour cold water over Intel's launch of Arrow Lake. It's a clever strategy, seemingly designed to exact maximum punishment on its rival.
The details about AMD's upcoming plans come from a Twitter/YouTube account that regularly posts about forthcoming silicon. According to High Yield, there won't be any big changes to AMD's next-generation architecture, which will feature Ryzen 9000 naming. Their leaked specs suggest AMD will use TSMC 4nm silicon, and all the major specs from Zen 4 will remain the same. It'll still top out at 16 cores, use the same 6nm I/O die, have the same chiplet design, and offer similar clock speeds. Despite being bereft of notable changes, the source says it will still achieve a "double-digit" IPC uplift over Zen 4, so between 10 and 20%.
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AMD is supposedly planning on launching the top desktop CPUs for Zen 5 in April, way ahead of schedule. The logic here seems to be that it wants to capitalize on the lack of enthusiasm for Intel's Raptor Lake refresh, which has put the company in a vulnerable position because it's an underwhelming product cycle for Intel. In addition, it's also rumored that AMD will launch its X3D chips later in the year to steal the thunder of Intel's Arrow Lake CPU launch. That would mean we'd probably see them around September or so, with Intel's chips following close behind.
Other notable tech leakers have disputed this launch schedule, saying AMD will follow the same cycle this time as it did with Zen 4 by launching regular chips later this year, then X3D at CES 2025. Another issue not mentioned in this latest roundup is the next-generation AM5 chipset, which reportedly won't be coming any time soon, possibly ever. Instead, Zen 5 will use existing X670/B650 motherboards since the I/O isn't changing. DDR5 RAM speeds will tick up a notch to DDR5-6400, but that's about it.
It all seems a bit underwhelming, as we had anticipated AMD would make a node jump from TSMC 5nm to 3nm, but given the timing and likely cost, that might not happen now. We can also see AMD using TSMC 4nm just to save some money, and it's not like it needs something truly next-generation to beat Raptor Lake refresh.
Arrow Lake is a different kettle of fish, as it uses Intel 20A with RibbonFET transistors, backside power delivery, and a tile-based design. Whether X3D will be able to eat its lunch remains to be seen. However, AMD's V-Cache chips have consistently outperformed Intel's in games while using less power, so we can see AMD stealing Intel's thunder later this year—even with a "refresh" of its own.
