AMD's Ryzen 8000 'Strix Point' to Use Zen 5 and Zen 5c Cores: Report
AMD's next-gen Ryzen 8000-series 'Strix Point' accelerated processing unit may pack quite a punch with twelve Zen 5-class cores and a reworked RDNA 3.5-based integrated GPU if a leak from Golden Pig Upgrade Pack is to be believed (via HXL). While Golden Pig Upgrade Pack has a good reputation, the information is unofficial and should be taken with discretion.
According to the leak, AMD's Ryzen 8000 'Strix Point' APU will pack four fully-fledged Zen 5 cores with 16 MB L3 cache, eight Zen 5c cores with 8 MB L3 cache, and an integrated GPU with 8 WGPs (1024 stream processors) based on the RDNA 3.5 architecture into a big monolithic die. The CPU cores will purportedly be distributed over two core complexes (CCX).
The Strix Point APU will be AMD's first hybrid processor featuring 'big' and 'little' cores, so it will be interesting to see how the processor will stack up against AMD’s existing offerings as well as Intel’s Meteor Lake offerings, which are said to come with up to 14 cores that will process up to 20 threads simultaneously. Meanwhile, since both Zen 5 and Zen 5c cores allegedly support threading, Strix Point will be able to process up to 24 threads at once.
The information about 12 Zen 5 cores in the upcoming APU has been reported before, so some might consider the new information as yet another sign that AMD is working on such an APU. Meanwhile, it is entirely possible that the company will have Strix Point APUs with different configurations, though we'll refrain from making assumptions about possible configs.
Arguably the most intriguing part of the Strix Point leak is that the APU will feature a graphics processor with eight RDNA 3.5-class WGPs, which points to 1024 ALUs. We can only guess about the clock rate of the iGPU as well as its intended performance, but the fact that the company decided to increase the number of stream processors in its built-in graphics processor indicates that there is a plan to offer higher performance with this unit.
AMD's Ryzen 8000-series Strix Point processors for laptops are expected to hit the market in 2024, so it is highly likely that some of AMD's partners are already test-driving them. Therefore, it is not surprising that there are leaks of their specifications, and chances that the APUs will indeed feature 12 cores and a potent iGPU are fairly high.
Nonetheless, at this point, take the information with a grain of salt since it comes from an unofficial source and can be inaccurate.
