At AMD’s Tech Day in LA, the company showcased its Zen 5 Ryzen 9000 Granite Ridge CPU. Key improvements include more instructions per cycle, expanded width execution, doubled cache data bandwidth, and AI acceleration. These advancements result in an average 16% IPC uplift over Zen 4. The Zen 5 also features a new NPU, enhancing single-core machine learning and encryption capabilities. Available in Q4 2024, these CPUs offer up to 32% higher performance per watt and run at significantly lower temperatures.
At AMD’s Tech Day in LA, the company had a lot to say about its latest play—Zen 5 all the way. AMD’s Zen 5 Ryzen 9000 Granite Ridge CPU is a masterpiece of CPU design. Some of the power improvements undoubtedly stem from transitioning from the 5nm node to N4P, but AMD has also implemented additional targeted optimizations.
![AMD Zen 5](https://www.jonpeddie.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/AMD-Zen-5.png)
The key takeaway was four improvements:
- More instructions per cycle
- Dispatch and expanded width execution
- Doubled cache data bandwidth
- AI acceleration
AMD summarized it, with a relative weighting in the following diagram.
![zen1](https://www.jonpeddie.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/zen1.png)
The improvements were nicely illustrated in four slides.
![zen-2](https://www.jonpeddie.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/zen-2.png)
Zen 5’s improved branch prediction system features dual decode pipes for better branch prediction, reducing latency and increasing accuracy.
![zen-3](https://www.jonpeddie.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/zen-3.png)
Increased dispatch and execution engines within the processor now have an eight-wide design, allowing more work per clock cycle.
![zen-4](https://www.jonpeddie.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/zen-4.png)
The enhanced cache bandwidth of the L1 cache and floating-point unit (FPU) bandwidth has doubled, and the L2 cache is now 16-way associative.
![zen-5](https://www.jonpeddie.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/zen-5.png)
Zen 5’s FPU supports AVX-512 instructions with a full 512-bit data path, improving throughput. As a result of those improvements and a smaller node size, when compares to the Zen 4, the company saw an average of 16% IPC uplift on tests that it ran.
![zen-6](https://www.jonpeddie.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/zen-6.png)
The Zen 5 also has a new NPU that the company says will give it up to 32% greater single-core machine learning capability and up to 35% greater single-core AES-XTS encryption ability.
This new and improved AI processor within the Zen 5 is called Strix Point, and the company says it will provide:
- A new foundation of performance designed for emergent workloads.
- Two unique core clusters, one optimized for peak performance and one for throughput.
- Enhanced boost sensitivity for responsiveness and efficiency.
- Intelligent scheduling on heterogeneous design.
AMD said the fifth-gen AMD CPUs will be available next month and have up to 192 cores and 384 threads. However, AMD’s 800-series motherboards may not be available, and AMD says the various motherboard vendors will release them on their own schedules.
In addition, AMD says a new confidential Al feature, based on a new trusted I/O feature, will deliver leadership in 4nm and 3nm process technologies to the data center and consumers, including mobile devices.
![zen-7png](https://www.jonpeddie.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/zen-7png.png)
All of that results in up to 32% higher performance per watt compared to AMD’s previous Zen 4 CPU. AMD says the Ryzen 9000 runs at significantly lower temperatures than its predecessors, maintaining high-frequency residency, which leads to better effective frequency and longer boost durations.
![zen-8](https://www.jonpeddie.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/zen-8.png)
AMD is also bringing back its auto-overclocking precision boost overdrive (PBO) and claims Ryzen 9000’s lower TDP range allows more headroom for PBO gains. According to AMD, PBO engagement results in a 6% to 15% improvement in multi-threaded Cinebench performance for Ryzen 5, 7, and 9 processors, though the Ryzen 9 9950X wasn’t included in their PBO examples (likely showing only a low single-digit percentage gain).