AMD’s Ryzen 9000 processors are expected to launch sometime in the second half of 2024. Leveraging the Zen 5 core architecture, these chips will bring significant performance improvements to the PC space. According to rumors, the next-gen Zen core will feature a wider frontend and upgraded execution units at the backend. The core interconnect will also be updated, and we’ll likely get an NPU unit for accelerating AI workloads.
The first Ryzen 9000 chip, an engineering sample from the looks of it, has been photographed (courtesy of @VallahExperte on X). Unsurprisingly, there’s no model number etched on the IHS (integrated heat spreader). However, it has the same serial number as the Zen 5 sample spotted in the Einstein Home listing (via ElChapuzasImformatico).
We’re looking at an octa-core CPU, likely an early sample of the Ryzen 7 9700X with 1MB of L2 cache per core (an assumption) and integrated Radeon graphics. The Zen 5 chip was tested with 32GB of DDR5 memory on a Windows 11 PC on the 2nd of June last year. It has been nearly a year since then, and it’d be fair to assume that the Ryzen 9000 processors will likely have progressed to the qualification stage by now.
