AMD Zen 5 CPU leak shows 40% 'core for core' performance uplift - but let's not get excited yet

If you heard that AMD's next-gen Zen 5 processors were going to be 40% faster than current Ryzen 7000 models, you'd have a hard time believing it, right?

Well, this is the claim made by a fresh piece of spillage from the rumor mill, and it's something we need to dig into a little.

The speculation emerged over at the Anandtech forums, as 3D Center flagged up on X (formerly Twitter), where well-known leaker Kepler told us: "Core for core Zen5 is >40% faster than Zen4 in SPEC."

Apparently, sample Zen 5 silicon is performing to the tune of 40% quicker as a generational leap in the aggregate SPEC benchmark score.

So, does that point to an IPC increase of 40% gen-on-gen? Well, not exactly, as clock speeds could come into play with the Zen 5 CPUs too (though arguably, the available extra mileage for additional frequency gains with next-gen Ryzen could be thin on the ground).

On top of that, while this is clearly an eye-opening figure to mention - and we should take it with plenty of seasoning - we do also have to bear in mind that even if it's true, this is just a single benchmark.

Caution is certainly required bearing that in mind, and that all the other leaks around Zen 5 up until now have suggested a lower generational jump - more in the area of 15% to 20%, although more like a 30% gen-on-gen performance increase has been mentioned too.

This latest leak even outstrips the latter optimistic scenarios that have been floated before, so again, we'll need to see more evidence of a major stride forward with Zen 5 before we're even remotely convinced about this kind of talk.

Read more: AMD Zen 5 CPUs may not debut until late in 2024 - could Intel's Arrow Lake even arrive first?