AMD Ryzen 8000 CPUs could arrive late in 2024 - and that'll make Intel happy

A new leak about AMD Ryzen 8000 (Granite Ridge) processors fills in a good deal more info about the next-gen chips (bring your own salt), but it may disappoint because it puts forward a later timeframe for arrival than previously expected.

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If this leak is right, Ryzen 8000 X3D processors may not arrive until spring 2025, perhaps (Image Credit: AMD)

Let's get that nugget out of the way upfront, with a new report from Hilbert Hagedoorn at Guru3D claiming that the Zen 5 release date will be the second half of 2024.

Previously, we'd heard chatter from the rumor mill - courtesy of YouTube leaker Moore's Law is Dead - that Zen 5 desktop chips might be out in the first half of next year, and quite possibly Q1 2024.

If this new source - who provided Guru3D with a 'reliable' AMD partner document - is right, then we'll be waiting a lot longer than the start of 2024 for Ryzen 8000 processor to be on shelves.

Take all this with the usual skepticism, but the document also reveals that Zen 5 will top out at 16-cores as the rumor mill has already insisted.

Indeed, the Ryzen 8000 models are expected to maintain the same core loadouts as Ryzen 7000, starting from 6-cores and running to that 16-core (32-thread) flagship. Rumored L3 cache is set to be 64MB.

So, while the Ryzen song will remain much the same in those respects with the next-gen processors, AMD will of course have a way to drive them faster.

Firstly, with rumored IPC (Instructions per Clock) gains of 18%, while power-efficiency is also better - we're told power usage is dropped by 34%. That'll theoretically allow AMD to crank up clock speeds to make performance gains over Ryzen 7000 even more impressive. TDPs of the Ryzen 8000 range are expected to run from 65W to 170W.

All this seems pretty much in line with previous rumors that have suggested around a 20% boost for IPC.

At any rate, the report reminds us that the document's performance details remain "speculative" and of course, if release is still some way off - maybe a year and a half even, if it's H2 of next year - things could easily change in the meantime.

Zen 5 versus Arrow Lake

That said, all clues point to Zen 5 being a substantial leap over the current-gen, if not quite up there with what some early chatter hinted at (more towards 30% for an IPC uplift, which always seemed highly optimistic, let's be honest).

If the later release date is correct, this will be some comfort to Intel, because it'll give Team Blue some breathing space to get Arrow Lake out. They will be the next high-end desktop CPUs to follow what'll theoretically be just a basic Raptor Lake refresh later this year for Intel.

Arrow Lake isn't expected to debut until late in 2024, but if Zen 5 is also going to turn up then, and these CPU ranges are going head-to-head, things suddenly look a good deal rosier for Intel.

At least if the rumors around Arrow Lake are correct, and it will offer a boost of possibly up to 30% (IPC) or maybe a touch more. If that really is the case, Intel could be back in the driving seat for desktop CPUs again (having clearly lost the initiative with the rise of Ryzen 7000 X3D).

We shall see - but of course, AMD will look to follow vanilla Ryzen 8000 CPUs with its own 3D V-Cache variants, too, and likely as swiftly as possible. However, it took five months after the launch of Ryzen 7000 to ship the first X3D versions, which would put Zen 5 X3D chips in the spring of 2025, most likely - about two years from now.