AMD’s Robert Hallock refutes Zen 4 PCIe Gen4 rumors and talks about the future of “Zen Philosophy”
in a New YouTube video Looking back on its Zen architecture for more than five years, company representatives also discussed future products, including the next generation (AM5) platform and 3D-VCache CPU, both of which are scheduled to land next year, when they will compete for our position. The best gaming CPU List.
The video starring AMD’s Chief Marketing Officer John Taylor and Technical Marketing Director Robert Hallock also explored in depth how AMD’s original “Zen philosophy” will continue to promote the company’s innovation and help it compete with Intel’s upcoming Alder Lake platform and beyond.
Hallock described AMD’s strategy as the four pillars required for success: core architecture, process technology (such as TSMC’s 7nm), CPU frequency, and platform (AM4, AM5).
The two said that in order to maintain future competitiveness, AMD will not chase Intel’s current hybrid core strategy, which Hallock said may be “more difficult to solve in software.” Instead, AMD will return to its roots and build a CPU around the Zen philosophy that achieves this.
Hallock believes that AMD can build a smaller core, combined with excellent packaging and good firmware, which will be faster than the current Ryzen CPU, especially more energy-efficient.
Future AMD products
Hallock also confirmed that the long-life AM4 socket is approaching its useful life. In 2022, AMD will replace AM4 with a “new platform” (AM5 is not directly named), which will integrate DDR5 support and heat sink compatibility with existing AM4 devices. The first Ryzen architecture to support AM5 will be Zen 4, which will be launched next year.
Hallock also confirmed that the next platform will support PCIe Gen 5.0. Of course, the statement that the platform will support the technology does not necessarily mean that all CPUs on the platform will have a faster next-generation pipeline.Please note that the company’s current GPU-equipped APUs (such as Ryzen 5 5600G) Up to PCIe 3.0, although the Zen 3 architecture is based on fully supporting 4.0 bandwidth.
3D V-Cache technology has also been updated. Hallock confirmed that Ryzen CPUs with integrated V-Cache will be launched early next year—before Zen 4. 3D V-Cache is a new technology announced by AMD a few months ago to increase the performance of Ryzen in gaming workloads by up to 15%.
The incredible performance enhancement of 3D V-Cache comes from doubling the number of L3 caches that Ryzen CPUs can access. For the top Ryzen 9 5950X, this is equivalent to 192MB of L3 cache. This is done by stacking multiple layers of L3 cache 3D on top of each other and connecting these layers to the CPU through high-quality interconnection. The pipeline of 3D V-Cache has been completed on the current Zen 3 chip. All AMD has to do is to install an additional L3 cache layer when it is ready, and nothing more.For more information about AMD 3D packaging and V-Cache, please check Our narrator on Hot Chips in August.
We currently don’t have an official name for the initial V-Cache product line, but the CPU will effectively update Zen 3, which has much more L3 cache than the current Ryzen 5000 processor and resides on the AM4 socket. This will be the last CPU lineup to run on AM4 before AM5 (or anything officially marked) replaces it with Zen 4 later in 2022.
