AMD Ryzen 9 5900X to feature 12 cores, Ryzen 7 5800X gets 8?

AMD Ryzen 5000 series, instead of 4000

A new tweet from Patrick Shur, a software engineer actively sharing undisclosed details on future AMD Ryzen processors, suggests that the upcoming Zen3 based series will in fact adopt the 5000 series naming. This is not shocking news, as it has been rumored for a couple of weeks now. AMD would allegedly align Vermeer (desktop, Matisse successor) naming with Cezanne (mobile, Renoir successor). Both series would launch as Ryzen 5000 series. The 4000 series would therefore remain exclusive to Renoir FP6 (mobile) and Renoir AM4 (desktop) series.

Of course, the tweet that emerged yesterday does not prove anything. After all, no source has been provided. Yet it does align with what we have been expecting. Patrick discovered Ryzen 9 5900X and Ryzen 7 5800X processors, carrying 12 and 8-cores respectively. This would be the same core count as the current Ryzen 3000 series lineup:

Last month, Igor’sLAB reported on Vermeer engineering samples boosting to 4.9 GHz. Back then it was also speculated that the series might be renamed to 5000 series (hence they were reported as 4950X or 5950X). Patrick Shur provided an update that that claim. It appears that the OPN codes Igor Wallossek was sharing were not 16-core processors but 12-core Ryzen instead.

Such a naming schema does not leave a lot of room for an alleged 10-core processor, but one would guess it could launch as 5850X if it is launching at all.

Since there would be no changes to the core counts, AMD Zen3 is expected to bring new technologies and higher performance through other techniques. Our source has provided us with this list:

• Zen3 will be the first major redesign of Zen, focusing on performance/watt and scalability
• Better IPC, 8 core per CCX, new IO chip with better memory controller, improved SMT, and more efficient boost
• The new boost is not focusing on getting much higher clocks, it is designed to manage long workloads, it can be sustained for several minutes

Direct quote from our source

The last bullet point would certainly be the most interesting feature for Zen3. A longer boost state would certainly provide a performance increase in many scenarios.

AMD announced it will unveil Zen3 desktop processors on October 8th. The manufacturer has not confirmed the series naming yet.

Source: @patrickschur_