There’s a new AMD CPU leak in town, with the latest information suggesting the number of cores per die in a Ryzen CPU could double with Zen 5c, then double again with Zen 6. That could mean we’re going to see a load more cores in future AMD gaming CPUs.
This latest news bolsters suggestions that AMD’s upcoming CPUs are set to march their way onto our best gaming CPU guide with impressive gaming performance. It’s not a guarantee by any stretch but signs are positive.
Zen 5 is the next lineup of AMD CPUs, with them expected to be launched at the upcoming Computex 2024 trade show at the start of June 2024. These processors are expected to arrive under the brand name of Ryzen 9000, to follow on from the current range of Ryzen 7000 and 8000 CPUs. As for Zen 6, that’s the next, next generation of AMD CPUs, which isn’t expected to arrive for a while yet.
This new leak comes via regular CPU news leaker @Kepler_L2 and other X (formerly Twitter) sources. Specifically, the account @InstLatX64 has shared an image showing the configurations of the various dies used in all the generations of AMD Zen CPUs, from Zen 1 through to Zen 6.
In this image, we can see that the number of cores per Core Complex Die (CCD) – the single chiplet that contains the CPU core parts of Zen CPUs – for Zen 5c is listed as 16, which would be double the number that can currently be squeezed onto Zen 4 dies.
The big caveat here is that Zen 5c cores are expected to be slightly low-power variants that are denser than normal Zen 5 cores, with less cache and lower clock speeds. As such, they’re unlikely to be the choice for higher-end gaming CPUs, with normal Zen 5 cores instead being used for these parts.
However, the chart also shows that future Zen 6 dies can house a massive 32 cores per die, doubling again the number of cores per silicon chip. And here there’s no mention of these being low-power Zen 6c cores.
The chart also shows the number of CCDs that can be combined to form a single CPU, with Zen 5 allowing for up to 16 CCDs to be combined to form a massive 128-core chip. Meanwhile, for Zen 6, eight CCDs can be combined to make a 256-core chip.
Again, such massive CPUs won’t be for gaming rigs, but rather for workstations and servers, but it’s amazing to see such high core counts nonetheless.
As for what else is in story for AMD’s upcoming CPUs, you can read our AMD Zen 5 guide for all the latest info.