AMD's Robert Hallock clarifies some burning questions regarding the Ryzen 7000 desktop processors

AMD’s Ryzen 7000 announcement at Computex 2022 seemed somewhat disappointing for Team Red’s fans since not many details were provided and some specs were just vaguely hinted at. This spec confusion caused heated debates on the usual social networks, with some analysts pointing out that the upcoming Zen 4 desktop processors could end up dead on arrival, considering the expected performance figures for the Intel Raptor Lake family that will launch shortly after AMD’s Ryzen 7000 chips. Some publications like HotHardware and TechPowerUP reached out to AMD in order to clarify some details. AMD’s Director of Technical Marketing Robert Hallock revealed quite the wealth of information that was missing from the official presentation, and it looks like the Ryzen 7000 family could still have what it takes to wrestle with Intel’s Raptor Lake processors.

First of all, during the HotHardware live Q&A session streamed on Youtube, Hallock specified that the processor showcased at Computex was only a prototype 16-core model with a power level set between 105 and 170 W. These are not final specs, and AMD is working to deliver 170 W maximum TDP for the flagship models. Because of this, the estimated performance gains of more than 15% in ST loads were conservative, and AMD is actually expecting a 40% performance increase over Zen3. Hallock further reiterated that all cores will easily reach 5.5 GHz, while the new AM5 motherboards will offer DDR5 overclocking benefits.

The more relevant points extracted from the TechPowerUP extensive Q&A refer to:

• AI acceleration instruction sets: the Zen 4 processors will support “AVX 512 VNNI for neural networking and AVX 512 BFLOAT16 for inferencing.”
• The RDNA2 iGPUs are included in the I/Q die, not in the compute dies, and will be standard on all SKUs. These will provide basic display output capability as well as video encode and decode, including AV1. The iGPU is rumored to have only 4 CUs, so it will most likely not match the Radeon 680M from the Rembrandt mobile APUs.
• AMD will not discontinue the desktop APUs based on the mobile APUs, so we can expect to see the Radeon 680M iGPUs on desktop parts, as well.

Unfortunately, Hallock did not provide new details on the highly-anticipated RDNA3 GPUs. AMD hinted that GPU official specs as well as new details regarding the Ryzen 7000 processors could be unveiled at the Financial Analyst Day in early June.

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