16-core no more: 2026-bound Ryzen 9 11950X could launch with 24 Zen 6 cores

A new leak from Moore's Law is Dead highlights some exciting news about AMD's Zen 6 architecture. Unlike previous generations that had different codenamed, Zen 6 will be unified under the Medusa banner. Mainstream laptop SKUs will be called Medusa Point/Medusa Ridge, desktop offerings Medusa Ridge and the Strix Halo successor will arrive as Medusa Halo.

Additionally, all three product lines will share the same 12-core Zen 6 CCD. It isn't clear if Zen 6c cores will be included in some products, but if they are, they'll likely be on a separate CCD. Furthermore, the top-spec Zen 6 desktop offering (Ryzen 9 11950X?) will finally up its core count from 16 to 24 with two of the above-mentioned CCDs. Even Intel plans to greatly up the core count on Nova Lake, and AMD doesn't want to be left behind.

It gets better. This time, AMD will finally use TSMC's cutting-edge 2 nm (N2) node, unlike previous-gen offerings that were usually a node or two behind. But, Zen 6 will also include some N3 parts. A previous leak said it would come with an UDNA (formerly known as RDNA 5) iGPU. Lastly, there have been murmurs about Medusa Point SKUs with 3D V-cache, something Tom has been unable to verify at this point.