The future of AMD Ryzen APUs and the AM5 platform: 6nm Rembrandt and 4nm Phoenix imminent?

AMD’s AM5 platform has gotten its head start with a trio of Ryzen 7000 CPU families based on the Zen 4 core architecture, but looking ahead we want to know what else the red team has planned for its AM5 platform, especially the APU side. .

AMD’s AM5 APU strategy could include two Ryzen product lines: 6nm Rembrandt and 4nm Phoenix

The latest AMD Ryzen APUs for the desktop segment were released in the summer of 2021. These were the Ryzen 5000G series products based on the Zen 3 core architecture along with the Vega graphics core. Since then, AMD has introduced its Ryzen 6000 and Ryzen 7000 APUs for laptops that feature up to Zen 4 core architecture and the new RDNA 3 graphics arc.

So while the company released plenty of Ryzen CPU options for its AM4 and AM5 platforms during the 2021-2023 period, AMD’s lineup of desktop APUs seems to be on hold. But we can make sense of what is happening and why it is so right now. When AM4 was introduced, it was first launched in the OEM segment and the first line to use it was the Bristol Ridge family.

The AMD Bristol Ridge family did not use the newer Zen cores, instead being based on the older Excavator cores (a revision of the Bulldozer cores). These APUs supported the new DDR4 DRAM standard, which was new at the time for the AMD AM4 platform and it took some time before we were able to see proper Zen-based Ryzen APU options on the market.

Now based on information inside the Gigabyte leak from a few years ago (discovered by HXL), it looks like AMD may follow a similar strategy for its AM5 line of desktop APUs. Within the Feature Compatibility Table, three families of AMD AM5 processors are listed. We know that Family 19H (Model 60h-6Fh) is the Ryzen 7000 “Raphael” line that has received the X, Non-X and X3D treatment so far. On top of that, there are two additional families that we haven’t seen yet and these are Family 19h (Model 40h-4fh) and Family 19h (Model 70h-7Fh).

The A40F4H is possibly the AMD Rembrandt family (Zen 3+ and RDNA 2), while the A70F71 is the AMD Phoenix family (Zen 4 + RDNA 3). We know that AMD built their Rembrandt or Ryzen 6000 family of APUs using the 6nm process node, while the Phoenix Ryzen 7000 APUs were built on the 4nm process node. Based on the information available in the graphic, AMD APUs for AM5 have 20 PCIe lanes (probably Gen 4 only) and support USB 4 plus various USB 3.2 connections.

If AMD were to release APUs for the AM5 platform, then I would guess that they would most likely start with the entry-level Rembrandt parts under the Ryzen 3 and Ryzen 5 7000G family while moving up to the high-end Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 9 APUs. high with Phoenix. . Or the company could just release Rembrandt APUs this year, followed by Phoenix next year, since desktop APUs are always several quarters or years away from the laptop APU lineup. Considering that Rembrandt has been gone for over a year, the latter makes sense.

With DDR5 prices going down and AM5 platform prices also getting closer to where they should have been at the start, it now makes more sense to have some APU options available to the masses.

The main hurdle on the part of APUs has been how AMD has marketed them. Almost all of the recent desktop APU releases, like the Renoir Ryzen 4000G and Cezanne Ryzen 5000G parts, have been OEM first with a DIY release that either never took place or took place months after the initial introduction. While the prices for these chips are decent and make for interesting budget builds, keeping them exclusive to the OEM segment has the same effect as what’s been going on with the Ryzen Threadripper Pro family for two generations.

AMD APU Planned Roadmap 2016-2023

news source: HXL (@9550pro)