Leaker Reveals AMD Zen5 APU’s Core Configurations
Leaker Reveals AMD Zen5 APU’s Core Configurations
More information regarding AMD’s Zen5 CPUs has emerged – and this time the focus is on the Ryzen mobile APUs, which are known to consist of multiple families of chips to cover different laptop segments. According to leaker @Olrak29_ on X (Twitter), Zen5 will feature up to 4+8 cores in the highest-end laptop chip (not counting BGA desktop chips), and 0+4 cores in the budget segment.
4 + 8
4 + 4
0 + 4— Everest (@Olrak29_) April 5, 2024
Wccftech has deciphered the numbers and points out that each of the three numbers represents Strix Point (up to 4 Zen5 + 8 Zen5c cores), Kraken Point (up to 4 Zen5 + 4 Zen5c cores), and Sonoma Valley (only 4 Zen5c cores).
While on paper it looks like AMD is taking on Intel’s idea of hybrid CPU architectures, the approach is different. Unlike Intel having two distinct core architectures – with E-cores lacking some instruction set and requiring Thread Director to supervise core allocation, AMD’s implementation is simpler: simply cut down on the cache of Zen5 core and save on die area, while reducing the clock speed to improve power efficiency.
This provides AMD’s silicon with one potential advantage: SMT (simultaneous multi-threading). Both Zen5 and Zen5c cores have double the thread count over the core count, whereas Intel’s E-cores lack them. On paper, this should give Team Red an edge on multi-core workloads, but nothing is definite so far – as Intel is reportedly ditching Hyper-threading with no observed loss in performance.
AMD has previously announced that Strix Point will be launched sometime in 2024. Following the usual launch convention, expect derivative models to come along by the end of this year or the next CES in January.
Pokdepinion: Having a 12-core Ryzen onboard in premium laptops should look pretty good as far as performance goes.
