AMD’s next-gen Zen 5 architecture has been rumored all over the place, with bombastic headlines like 40% IPC improvements… but nope. The latest on Zen 5 is to expect somewhere between 15-25% average IPC performance uplift.
In his latest video, Tom from Moore’s Law is Dead answers the question about Zen 5 IPC improvements from various sources, including someone inside of AMD. The first source explained: “Currently we’re (AMD) telling partners to expect Zen 5 to achieve an IPC increase of ~17%, but also that the chosen IPC claim depends on what marketing thinks they can get away with. Oh, and please note that the average IPC uplift will NOT be close to 40%. I can’t believe I have to say that!”
The second source explained: “In a recent presentation from AMD, we were told to expect an IPC increase for Zen 5 that’s ‘in the teens of low to mid-twenties,’ but that FP workloads will often be much higher. So idk, it seems like AMD has quite a bit of wiggle room this time around, and my honest impression is that they’ll try to fluff the marketed IPC enough to look close to what Intel announces for Lion Cove. Oh, and we were also told that both Client and Server Zen 5 are targeting Q3 2024 for launch”.
The third source of MLID added: “The original lowball goal for Zen 5’s IPC uplift was 20%. And, we though that would be easy if we put in the work… but it wasn’t. We ran into power issues, the shift to 4nm hurt clocks, and at one point were were concerned it might only get efficiency & IPC increases in the low double digits. In fact, we very briefly considered downgrading Strix to Zen 5 to ensure it launched on time”.
This source continued, adding: “However, from what I’ve heard recently, Zen 5 finally has decent optimism behind it. However, I haven’t been on the project for months, so I can’t tell you exactly how well it will turn out. I’d stick with +14-26% IPC, expect modest clock increases on some SKUs, and assume it’s decently efficient”.