AMD Zen CPU Core Testing "Met All Expectation" - No "Significant Bottlenecks" Found

The spider web has recently been abuzz with rumors almost AMD's latest high performance x86 CPU core inception code named "Zen" simply one particular rumor caught our attention.
According to some of the whispers we've heard equally of late, AMD design engineers accept maintained a goal for Zen to exist competitive with Intel's futurity offerings from the very beginning. The engineering teams are said to have already tested Zen and that test chips of the new CPU core have so far "met all expectation" with no "significant bottlenecks" in the microarchitecture being found.
We oasis't been able to verify these claims and as such would propose all readers to have this rumor with the usual grain of NaCl.
_____________
[UPDATED - 2016-05-20]
AMD's President & CEO Lisa Su confirmed that Zen has exceeded expectations throughout testing and validation and volition evangelize a performance per clock improvement that exceeds xl% versus the company's about contempo high functioning CPU microarchitecture code named Excavator.
_____________

AMD Zen Feature
This comes off the heels of the AIDA64 changelog which now includes Zen based "Tiptop Ridge" and "Raven Ridge" FX CPUs and APUs respectively. Concluding month was also very intriguing, with revelations about AMD'south Zen and K12 CPU cores taping out also as the wealth of data which was revealed through an official AMD Linux patch that detailed many aspects of the Zen microarchitecture and what the CPU core is capable of.

What Nosotros Know So Far Near AMD's Zen Microarchitecture

Nosotros beginning broke the news almost AMD's side by side generation loftier performance cadre back in September of terminal twelvemonth. At which point AMD's and so CEO Rory Read revealed the code proper name for the company'south upcoming high operation x86 CPU microarchitecture. Prior to that we only had cognition of Zen's sister ARMv8 cadre code named K12.

AMD ARM K12 Core High-Performance Custom
Every bit of late AMD has been slightly more generous with data virtually its brand new microarchitecture. Back in May AMD announced that it was preparing an entirely new line-up of FX CPUs and a brand new platform 'AM4". We learned that the new family of FX processors lawmaking named "Summit Ridge" would feature an entirely new socket and an updated feature set including DDR4 memory support. More importantly we learned that the new platform would feature mainstream CPUs with "high core counts" - rumored to be upwards to eight cores - and "SMT" support.

Two months later we learned that AMD was besides working on a monstrous High Functioning Computing APU with 16 Zen cores and a huge integrated GPU in addition to stacked High Bandwidth Retentiveness. Nosotros also learned that AMD is planning to introduce high performance server CPUs with up to 32 Zen CPU cores. Hearing about all of those dissimilar SKUs is jolly heady, but it was also quite frustrating equally no-1 really had a clear thought of what to expect from Zen. That is until AMD revealed a whopper at its Financial Analyst Day earlier this yr, which is that Zen will accept a forty% pedagogy per clock improvement over its predecessor "Excavator".

AMD's Zen CPU Core Coming in 2022 - Features FinFET Procedure, SMT And New Enshroud System

Zen will be AMD's successor to the Drive family of cores. It will be the first always CPU core from the company to adopt simultaneous multithreading. It'due south as well the company's showtime entirely new CPU core design post-obit the Bulldozer family of cores which debuted in 2022 and was the company'south start ever design to feature clustered multithreading .

AMD x86 Zen Core Architecture

In addition to SMT, Zen likewise features a new high-bandwidth depression latency cache system. A vital improvement over the previous generation of cores. Since subpar cache operation was one of the primary pitfalls of AMD's Bulldozer CPU microarchitecture. The new CPU core is designed for and volition be manufactured on an advanced FinFET process. Which would allow the CPU core to scale from low power mobile applications to loftier performance desktop and enterprise markets.

Zen To Characteristic A xl% Instructions Per Clock Improvement Over Excavator

Mark Papermaster, AMD's Chief Engineering Officer revealed that the visitor plans to introduce a huge IPC improvement with Zen over AMD'due south latest generation "Excavator" x86 core. A 40% increase in IPC would correspond the largest spring in IPC ever for the company, an improvement which Mark Papermaster claimed he had not seen "anywhere in the industry".

AMD 40 IPC Zen Zen+
Papermaster likewise made it a bespeak to highlight that this 40% functioning comeback effigy is independent from the manufacturing procedure. Then information technology'south a permanent architectural performance comeback that will always exist present regardless of the process node.

AMD 2022 2022 x86 Zen Roadmap
Zen will exist featured in AMD's enthusiast CPU production line in 2022. Lisa Su confirmed that the new CPU architecture volition be arriving to desktop FX CPUs kickoff and to servers second. Succeeding Zen will be Zen+ cores. Which volition feature evolutionary comeback over Zen. The company volition introduce a new socket in 2022 dubbed AM4 that will business firm products spanning from loftier functioning CPUs to mainstream APUs based on Zen and next generation FinFET GCN based GPUs.

AMD 2022 Roadmap Zen, 7th generation APU, Arctic Islands GPUs
The new family unit of high performance FX CPUs which appeared in previous leaks every bit "Summit Ridge" will feature SMT CPUs with high core counts and DDR4 memory support. The platform will be based on the new AM4 socket and a new all the same undisclosed chipset. Unconfirmed leaks indicate that Acme Ridge will feature CPUs with up to viii Zen cores and 12MB of L2 and L3 cache, but that is withal to exist confirmed.