AMD launched the Ryzen 3000 lineup last year, cornering Intel in what turned out to be the biggest CPU launch of the decade. Now, team red is gearing up to release the successor to the insanely popular Matisse lineup. The Zen 3 chips have already been taped out and are ready for volume production. They will leverage TSMC’s 7nm+ enhanced node and should be launched either in Q4 2020 or Q1 2021. As for the specs and performance, there is no solid evidence, only an educated guess but it shouldn’t be off the mark by much.
4th Gen AMD Ryzen 4000 (Vermeer) Specifications
Zen 3 Core Architecture: The 4th Gen Ryzen lineup will be based on the Zen 3 microarchitecture. As per AMD’s higherups, like Zen 2, Zen 3 will also be a new design. As such, we can expect healthy IPC gains, potentially pushing AMD’s single-core performance ahead of Intel’s.
Faster die-to-die interconnect: AMD will likely also improve the speed and latency of the Infinity Fabric connecting the various CCDs. This should result in major performance boosts in latency-sensitive applications, most notably gaming. There’s also a chance that the peak operating speed of the IF will be raised from 1800MHz to 2000MHz or higher.
Enhanced 7nm+ Node: The 4th Gen Ryzen lineup will leverage the improved version of the 7nm node. We can expect higher boost clocks (at least by 100-200MHz), better yields and at the same time a lower power draw. It should also lead to better overclocking potential. These three factors together should lead to significant performance uplifts in gaming workloads.
Core Counts: With the 4th Gen Ryzen lineup, the core clocks will most likely remain the same. AMD has Intel beat in terms of multi-threaded performance on all fronts. The company will now focus on the IPC and single-threaded side of it.
SMT4: There have been many rumors on SM4, i.e, four threads running simultaneously on one core but according to what I’ve heard, that won’t happen, at least not the consumer space. The Epyc Milan range might get the feature, but that’s about it.
DDR5: This is another point that has been under contention. However, considering that the DDR5 hasn’t even started volume production yet and Milan will retain the SP3 socket, the use of DDR4 is pretty much a certainty.
AM4: AMD has already said that it plans on retaining the AM4 socket for another generation, so there’s a chance that those of you with a B450 motherboard will get a chance to upgrade to the 4th Gen Ryzen lineup.
