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We’d be fools to expect much talk of desktop chips at the ‘Advancing AI’ event, but we can always grab pinches of salt and attempt to infer what talk about server chips might mean for desktop. To that end, I’d say (tentatively) that what AMD has revealed about its upcoming Zen 6-based ‘Venice’ server processor platform is promising for the Zen 6-based desktop chips, which are expected to launch either late this year or early on in 2027, perhaps at CES.
In the event keynote, AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su says the new Zen 6 core has “higher IPC, higher frequency, and that delivers up to 1.8x more performance than [Zen 5-based] Turin. That is one of the largest generational gains.”
We don’t know what exactly that 1.8x performance figure refers to, but we can make a reasonable speculation when we put it in context. The context is that AMD says it will run at up to 5 GHz, which is the same max clock speed we see in Zen 5 Epyc.
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There could be differences here in the specific processors AMD is showing us, of course, and Su did say Zen 6 has higher frequency. But I think we can tentatively infer that if there are no massive changes in maximum clock speed, the fact that AMD can claim a performance increase of up to 1.8x could imply a decent gain in instructions per clock (IPC) to make up that extra performance, even if the reference point AMD is using for it is cherry picked.
That IPC gain would of course transfer to Zen 6 desktop chips using the same cores, which would mean more powerful and efficient chips. That’s all very speculative, of course, but the seeming lack of big clock speed change plus such a big claim as 1.8x performance has me hopeful.
At the event, AMD also shared its roadmap for future server chips. Zen 7 will be coming in 2027, and Zen 8 in 2028, meaning there will be a yearly cadence. Presumably that will mean a yearly cadence for the desktop chips, too, though those will lag behind each server launch. Pass the salt, eh?
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