AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12 Core & Ryzen 7 5800X 8 Core “Zen 3” CPUs Could Potentially Launch As Early As 20th October

The potential launch date of AMD's next-generation Ryzen 9 5900X and Ryzen 7 5800X "Vermeer" Zen 3 CPUs may have been unveiled. According to 1usmus (Yuri Bubliy) and Computerbase, the Ryzen 5000 CPU series could hit the market even before the introduction of AMD's RDNA 2 based Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards.

According to the sources which were reported by Videocardz, it is stated that AMD's Ryzen 5000 series family would initially include the Ryzen 9 5900X and the Ryzen 7 5800X however, Uniko's Hardware recently tweeted that the initial lineup would not only be based off those two SKUs but also feature the Ryzen 9 5950X and the Ryzen 5 5600X.

The AMD Ryzen 9 5950X will definitely be the flagship with 16 cores and 32 threads followed by the Ryzen 9 5900X which will feature 12 cores and 24 threads. The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X will come with a total of 8 cores and 16 threads while the Ryzen 5 5600X will feature 6 cores and 12 threads. Pricing is likely to remain close to the existing parts but we have seen from yesterday's leaked benchmark that Zen 3 offers a serious upgrade over Zen 2 CPUs.

The following table which was created by Twitter fellow, CapFrameX, shows more than 30% faster performance for the Ryzen 7 5800X 8 core versus the Zen 2 based Ryzen 7 3800X 8 core processor:

As for the launch date, both sources reported at least one day that matches and that's the 20th of October. Yuri stated that his information is based on older reports and that the Zen 3 launch will be held on 20th October with the Ryzen 9 5900X and Ryzen 7 5800X going on sale that day. This would mean that AMD's Zen 3 CPUs will be on store shelves in less than a month's time if the report is true and even before Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards which will be introduced on the 28th of October.

Zen 3 - 20th October (5800X/5900X)Navi 2 - 15-20th NovemberThis is old information, but I can see that AMD has not adjusted the plans.

— 1usmus ???????? (@1usmus) September 30, 2020

Computerbase also points out two potential dates, one being 20th October and the other being 27th October. It might be possible that AMD releases top-tier chips first followed by the more mainstream parts or they could just select one day and launch the four chips together in retail. 1usmus also points out that AMD's Radeon RX 6000 series (RDNA 2) graphics cards may hit retail much later in November (15-20th) which is around two months after the NVIDIA Ampere GeForce RTX 30 series lineup.

The AMD Zen 3 architecture is said to be the greatest CPU design since the original Zen. It is a chip that has been completely revamped from the group up and focuses on three key features of which include significant IPC gains, faster clocks, and higher efficiency.

AMD has so far confirmed themselves that Zen 3 brings a brand new CPU architecture, which helps deliver significant IPC gains, faster clocks, and even higher core counts than before. Some rumors have even pointed to a 17% increase in IPC and a 50% increase in Zen 3's floating-point operations along with a major cache redesign.

We also got to see a major change to the cache design in an EPYC presentation, which showed that Zen 3 would be offering a unified cache design which should essentially double the cache that each Zen 3 core could have access compared to Zen 2.

The CPUs are also expected to get up to 200-300 MHz clock boost, which should bring Zen 3 based Ryzen processors close to the 10th Generation Intel Core offerings. That, along with the massive IPC increase and general changes to the architecture, would result in much faster performance than existing Ryzen 3000 processors, which already made a huge jump over Ryzen 2000 and Ryzen 1000 processors while being an evolutionary product rather than revolutionary, as AMD unveiled very recently.

The key thing to consider is that we will get to see the return of the chiplet architecture and AMD will retain support on the existing AM4 socket. The AM4 socket was to last until 2020 so it is likely that the Zen 3 based Ryzen 5000 CPUs would be the last family to utilize the socket before AMD goes to AM5 which would be designed around the future technologies such as DDR5 and USB 4.0. AMD's X670 chipset was also hinted as to arrive by the end of this year and will feature enhanced PCIe Gen 4.0 support and increased I/O in the form of more M.2, SATA, and USB 3.2 ports.

It was recently confirmed by AMD that Ryzen 5000 Desktop CPUs will only be supported by 400 & 500-series chipsets while 300-series support would be left out.

AMD had also recently confirmed that Zen 3 based Ryzen 5000 desktop processors would mark the continuation of its high-performance journey. The Zen 3 architecture would be first available on the consumer desktop platform with the launch of the Vermeer family of CPUs that will replace the 3rd Gen Ryzen 3000 Matisse family of CPUs.

So, what’s next for AMD in the PC space? Well, I cannot share too much, but I can say our high-performance journey continues with our first “Zen 3” Client processor on-track to launch later this year. I will wrap by saying you haven’t seen the best of us yet.

AMD Executive Vice President of Computing & Graphics - Rick Bergman

As of now, the competitive advantage that AMD has with its Zen 2 based Ryzen 3000 is just way too big compared to whatever Intel has in their sleeves for this year, and Zen 3 based Ryzen 5000 CPUs are going to push that envelope even further. Expect AMD to unveil its next-generation Ryzen CPUs and the underlying Zen 3 core architecture on 8th October.