If you’re on Team AMD, get ready for a new CPU socket.
On Tuesday, the company confirmed it’s going to be introducing a new socket next year when next-generation Ryzen chips arrive, thus marking the end of the AM4 socket.
AMD Director of Technical Marketing Robert Hallock discussed the upcoming change in a 14-minute video celebrating the fifth anniversary of the company’s Ryzen chip line. Although the new socket was not named, Hallock said: “So in 2022, Ryzen will have a new platform. And some key ingredients are DDR5 (RAM), PCI express Gen 5, and cooler compatibility with existing socket AM4 coolers.”
The changes will put the next-gen Ryzen chips in line with Intel’s upcoming Alder Lake chips, which also support DDR5 RAM, PCIe Gen 5, and are scheduled to arrive later this year.
Hallock also went out his way to dispel rumors that next-generation Ryzen chips are sticking with the current PCIe Gen 4.0 technology. “I’ve seen the rumors—you have to—saying that next-gen platform will only have (PCIe) Gen 4. No, no, no. It’ll have Gen 5 because Ryzen has made a name for itself,” Hallock said.
PCIe Gen 5 is designed to double the data bandwidth to components such as graphics cards and storage. So you can expect the new interface to elevate future PCs to the next level in performance. “At the end of the day, people want to know is AMD building a platform with all of the latest and greatest technology to plug into. Yeah. Yes,” Hallock added.
In the video, AMD also discussed its 3D chip-stacking tech called 3D V-Cache, which was initially unveiled in June. The chip-stacking process promises to pack even more cache on future Ryzen CPUs to boost the processing speeds for applications such as gaming by around 15%.
Naturally, we wondered if AMD might reserve the technology for Ryzen chips built with the upcoming Zen 4 architecture. But according to Hallock, the 3D V-Cache will arrive in a Zen 3-based Ryzen CPU early next year. This same chip will still socket into AM4. That means consumers who currently own an AM4 motherboard can still reap the 3D V-Cache technology if they decide to upgrade.
“And then, further out in time, you got that Zen 4 product also later in 2022. New platform, new technologies. It’s like a nice steady drumbeat of new stuff,” Hallock added.
In the video, AMD also discussed how it's working to better improve the power efficiency on laptops to lengthen the battery life. To pull this off, the chip maker is looking at using several power-management algorithms in the device’s firmware to optimize the battery consumption instead of merely relying on one.
“That allows you to extract even more power efficiency from the CPU,” Hallock said. The company plans on releasing a new line of notebook-based CPUs early next year.