AMD: new Ryzen at the beginning of 2022, but for Zen 5 we will have to wait
AMD
In a new video posted on its official YouTube channel, AMD retraced the five years since the introduction of Zen architecture. In the video, which you will also find accompanying this news, the company's representatives also discussed future products, including the next-generation platform (AM5) and 3D-VCache CPUs, both planned for next year.Credit: AMD AMD's Chief Marketing Officer, John Taylor, and Director of Technical Marketing, Robert Hallock, delved into how AMD's original “Zen philosophy” will continue to drive the company's innovation and help it stay competitive against Intel's upcoming Alder Lake platform and beyond. Hallock claimed that AMD's strategy is based on four main pillars: core architecture, process technology (like TSMC's 7nm), CPU frequency, and platform (AM4, AM5).
To continue to remain competitive even in the future, the two have asserted that AMD will not pursue the mixed core strategy Intel is now focusing on, which Hallock described as "harder to tackle in software." Rather, AMD will go back to its roots and build CPUs around the same Zen philosophy that brought it to this point. Hallock is confident that AMD can make smaller cores, combined with excellent packaging and good firmware, which will be significantly faster and above all more energy efficient, than those offered by current Ryzen CPUs.
Hallock also confirmed that the long-used AM4 socket is nearing the end of its life cycle. In 2022, AMD will replace AM4 with a "new platform" (AM5 was not named directly), which will incorporate DDR5 support. The first Ryzen architecture to support AM5 will be Zen 4, which is expected to arrive next year. Hallock has also confirmed that the next platform will support PCIe Gen 5.0.
There has been room for an update on 3D V-Cache technology and, for the occasion, Hallock has confirmed that Ryzen CPUs incorporating 3D V-Cache will be out early next year, ahead of Zen 4. 3D V-Cache is a new technology announced by AMD several months ago to give Ryzen up to 15% performance improvement in world-class workloads. gaming. The incredible performance increases brought by 3D V-Cache come from the triple allocation of L3 cache that a Ryzen CPU has access to. For example, for a Ryzen 9 5950X this equates to 192MB of L3 cache. This is done by stacking multiple layers of L3 cache on top of each other and connecting them to the CPU with a high quality interconnect.
We do not yet have an official name for the initial line of chips with 3D V-Cache, but the CPUs will effectively be an upgrade to Zen 3 with significantly more L3 cache than current Ryzen 5000 models. This will be the latest AM4-based CPU range before AM5 replaces it with Zen 4 later in 2022.
AMD Radeon RX 6600 official: 1080p for $329, at retail any moment now
Surprise! AMD just revealed the $329* Radeon RX 6600, a new budget 1080p gaming graphics card that should be available at Amazon, Best Buy, Micro Center and Newegg starting as soon as the very moment we published this story at 9AM ET. Given how exorbitant GPU prices have been during the global chip crunch, you should probably stop reading if you want one and get with the clicking.
OK: If you’re reading these words, I’m assuming you’ve now secured either a new GPU or a dose of disappointment. Great! Now let’s discuss why you might actually want this video card, based on my recent briefing with AMD.
*all of these prices are made up by AMD and Nvidia and you’ll rarely ever see them
If you’ve read my colleague Tom Warren’s recent AMD RX 6600 XT review, you know we already considered that $379* card an entry-level GPU. It was capable of playing most of the latest games at 1080p and maximum settings, but not all, not with ray-tracing, and was definitely a sizable step beneath the $400* Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti that costs just $20 more*. It’s exactly the kind of bang-for-the-buck GPU that I used to buy myself, though.
Well, the new RX 6600 is the exact same GPU, but with four fewer compute units (28 instead of 32), slightly slower clockspeeds, and reduced power consumption of just 132 watts (vs. 160 watts) so you can easily fit it into a system with a 450-watt power supply, instead of the 500 watts AMD recommends for the 6600 XT, let alone the 550-watt that even Nvidia’s entry level $329* GeForce RTX 3060 asks buyers to bring to the table.
In practice, AMD says you’re looking at a 10 to 15-percent performance gap between the 6600 and 6600 XT, but the company would rather you look at its 23-percent uplift over Nvidia’s RTX 2060 instead — assuming you’re taking advantage of Smart Access Memory aka Resizable BAR with a compatible CPU and game, anyhow. If so, AMD says you can expect to average 91 FPS in Far Cry 6, 85 FPS in Deathloop at maximum levels of detail, and averages 100 FPS across the company’s test suite, compared to 120 FPS average for the 6600 XT.
The company also says its Nvidia DLSS competitor, AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) is potent enough in games like Far Cry 6 that you can step up to 1440p plus raytracing and still average 60 FPS (assuming you’re pairing it with a Ryzen 5 5600X processor and DDR4 3600MHz RAM or better).
Unfortunately, most of AMD’s GPU board partners don’t seem to be taking full advantage of the RX 6600’s reduced power consumption yet. While ASRock does have a single-fan design and Sapphire’s dual-fan looks fairly svelte, every card takes up at least two full slots in a case and they all still require 8-pin PCIe power connector — and the PowerColor card still quotes a 500W power supply recommendation, not 450. Still, like the Nvidia RTX 3060, the reduced size and power requirements could make it popular for smaller builds.
You should find full reviews of the AMD RX 6600 at a variety of reputable publications today, and we’ll add a few of their conclusions later in the day. But as with any graphics card during the pandemic, actual retail availability at a reasonable price matters far more than comparative performance, since you generally can’t find anything close to its MSRP — and that goes double for AMD, whose availability has been notably worse. Here’s AMD’s statement to The Verge on supply this time around:
AMD is working closely with board partners, OEMs, SIs and etail/retail partners to ensure as many graphics cards are available to gamers as possible, and we expect that a healthy supply of AMD Radeon RX 6600 graphics cards will be available at launch.
“Healthy” is a very difficult word to pin down, but we’ll see. Late last month, AMD CEO Lisa Su suggested chip supplies would likely be “tight” until the second half of 2022.
