1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,720 It feels like it wasn't that long ago that AMD released Zen 4 and transitioned to LGA sockets. 2 00:00:05,720 --> 00:00:10,320 But now, the release of Zen 5 is imminent with Team Red announcing it'll be out in July. 3 00:00:10,320 --> 00:00:15,720 So, is Zen 5 worth your excitement? And more importantly, is it worth your hard earned money? 4 00:00:15,720 --> 00:00:18,840 Let's first take a look at cold hard performance numbers. 5 00:00:18,840 --> 00:00:21,840 At least the ones given to us by AMD. 6 00:00:21,840 --> 00:00:26,000 The company has claimed that we're looking at a 16% performance increase over Zen 4 7 00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:30,280 in terms of instructions per clock cycle. And seeing as how the speeds in megahertz 8 00:00:30,280 --> 00:00:34,520 are similar to what we got with Ryzen 7000, that should hopefully translate 9 00:00:34,520 --> 00:00:37,680 to a somewhat comparable average performance increase, 10 00:00:37,680 --> 00:00:41,840 though this will depend heavily on the application, with Blender being one of the programs 11 00:00:41,840 --> 00:00:45,400 that benefited most dramatically in AMD's internal testing. 12 00:00:45,400 --> 00:00:50,100 Team Red says that the IPC improvements are partly due to better branch prediction, 13 00:00:50,100 --> 00:00:54,640 which is pretty typical for a new generation of CPU. But there are also improvements away 14 00:00:54,640 --> 00:00:58,820 from the CPU dies themselves. For starters, Zen 5 has official support 15 00:00:58,820 --> 00:01:02,360 for higher memory speeds. Now, you'll be able to set your RAM 16 00:01:02,360 --> 00:01:07,360 up to JDEC DDR5 5600 speeds while remaining within warranty. 17 00:01:07,520 --> 00:01:11,280 This is up from the 5200 speeds supported by Zen 4. 18 00:01:11,280 --> 00:01:14,440 And a new chip architecture also means faster chip sets. 19 00:01:14,440 --> 00:01:19,440 So far, AMD has announced the X870 and the X870e, 20 00:01:19,480 --> 00:01:24,280 with the main difference being that the latter has a few more usual PCI Express lanes. 21 00:01:24,320 --> 00:01:29,160 Perhaps a bit more excitingly, USB 4.0 support is standard on both chip sets 22 00:01:29,160 --> 00:01:33,520 as well as support for Wi-Fi 7. The launch lineup will be fairly similar 23 00:01:33,520 --> 00:01:38,880 to what we've seen in the past. Two nine series modules, a seven series and a five series, 24 00:01:38,880 --> 00:01:45,880 with the core counts also being the same, but with lowered TDPs outside of the very top end 9950X, 25 00:01:45,880 --> 00:01:50,140 which makes sense considering Zen 5 is on a smaller process node than Zen 4. 26 00:01:50,140 --> 00:01:53,440 But there's something on the laptop side that's significantly different 27 00:01:53,560 --> 00:01:58,080 from what we've seen from AMD before. The first couple Zen 5 mobile CPUs 28 00:01:58,080 --> 00:02:03,280 will have different branding than in the past, as they're going to be called Ryzen AI. 29 00:02:03,280 --> 00:02:08,560 And you guessed it, these CPUs are going to have integrated neural processing units or NPUs 30 00:02:08,560 --> 00:02:13,880 in order to compete with both Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X chips as well as upcoming Intel chips 31 00:02:13,880 --> 00:02:20,320 that will also have more of a focus on AI. These Ryzen AI NPUs will support up to 50 trillion 32 00:02:20,320 --> 00:02:24,560 operations per seconds or tops, making them over three times as powerful 33 00:02:24,560 --> 00:02:27,560 as the NPUs we got with the Ryzen 8000 series, 34 00:02:27,560 --> 00:02:32,080 and more than strong enough to officially support Windows co-pilot plus features, 35 00:02:32,080 --> 00:02:35,160 including that controversial Windows recall function. 36 00:02:35,160 --> 00:02:38,240 Assuming of course Microsoft actually releases it at some point. 37 00:02:38,240 --> 00:02:43,600 Two high-end mobile chips will be available at launch, one with 12 cores and another with 10. 38 00:02:43,600 --> 00:02:48,160 So would we recommend buying a Zen 5 chip or a laptop with one included this summer 39 00:02:48,160 --> 00:02:51,640 when they hit the market? Well, you do get a nice little performance bump, 40 00:02:51,680 --> 00:02:55,080 but seeing as the last Zen 4 already had optional support 41 00:02:55,080 --> 00:02:58,960 for newer standards like PCI Express 5.0 and USB 4, 42 00:02:58,960 --> 00:03:03,600 we don't think they're an absolute must buy if you've already upgraded recently. 43 00:03:03,600 --> 00:03:08,600 And the general attitude toward AI these days seems to be rather negative, especially considering 44 00:03:08,600 --> 00:03:14,000 there isn't yet a super compelling use case for local NPUs on desktops or laptops. 45 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:19,680 But if you do want Microsoft's AI features on a traditional x86 system, then have at it. 46 00:03:19,680 --> 00:03:24,200 Microsoft has announced that co-pilot plus will be getting GPU support in the future 47 00:03:24,200 --> 00:03:28,000 and other AI tasks tend to run quite well on GPUs. 48 00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:33,700 But laptops save power running them on NPUs, hence the current focus on getting them into notebooks. 49 00:03:33,700 --> 00:03:37,760 What do you think about Zen 5? Are you gonna be checking it out for your next upgrade? 50 00:03:37,760 --> 00:03:42,240 Let us know down in the comments. And if you want to know more about one of Zen 5's biggest competitors, 51 00:03:42,240 --> 00:03:43,720 go watch this video next.