Zen 5 In Fire Range & Strix Point Families, Hawk Point with Zen 4 & RDNA 3.5

AMD’s Zen 5 and Zen 4 Powering Ryzen 8000 Fire Range, Strix Point and Hawk Point APUs With RDNA 3.5 GPU Cores Leaked By Moore’s Law is dead.

AMD Ryzen 8000 Zen 5 APU lineup to include Fire Range, Strix Point and Hawk Point families As Zen 4 Refresh with RDNA 3.5 GPU

The latest information from Moore’s Law is Dead allegedly comes from an internal roadmap leak that points to several next-generation APU families AMD will release next year. It looks like Zen 5 will be the main focus for next year along with some Zen 4 updates that were also pointed out in the leak.

So, starting with the details, it looks like AMD will likely be talking about the next generation of Ryzen APU families for laptops at CES 2024. The first family expected to hit shelves will be Hawk Point followed by Strix Point and Fire Range APUs. Next year will be a mix of Zen 5 and Zen 4 while the desktop platform will see the launch of a brand new Zen 5.

AMD Hawk Point APUs: Phoenix Refresh with Zen 4 Cores and RDNA 3.5 GPUs, launching Q1 2024

As mentioned earlier, the AMD Hawk Point APUs will be the first to hit the shelves, and based on rumors, it appears to be an update of existing Phoenix chips based on a slightly modified 4nm design. You still get the same Zen 4 cores but with an updated RDNA 3.5 and XDNA GPU for better things.

Since this family is mostly an update, AMD can easily make laptops available to consumers. While we are talking about the Phoenix update, the original Phoenix APUs are yet to be launched but retail is expected later this month as the Ryzen 7040 series. The update is likely to fall under the AMD Ryzen 8040 series.

• Zen 4 (4 nm) monolithic design
• up to 8 cores
• 12 RDNA 3+ Arithmetic Units
• Integrated XDNA Engine
• First Quarter Launch (Expected)

AMD Fire Range APUs: successor to the Enthusiast Dragon lineup with 16 Zen 5 Cores at 2H 2024

On the enthusiast front, AMD’s Ryzen 7045 “Dragon Range” APUs will be replaced by Fire Range APUs that are expected to feature up to 16 Zen 5 cores. While the number of cores remains the same as on current-generation offerings The new chips will deliver a significant boost in overall performance thanks to the upgraded architecture and provide higher efficiency.

These APUs are said to use a 5nm variant of Zen 5 cores, indicating a desktop lineup that retains the 5nm node. There is also some confusion as to whether the chip will have RDNA 2 or RDNA 3.5 cores but since it will likely only use two compute units, either will be good enough for the intended tasks of a low-power iGPU. We are most likely to get these APUs like the Ryzen 8055 series (Ryzen 8000 APU lineup).

• Zen 5 (5 nm) monolithic design
• Up to 16 cores
• RDNA 3+ graphics cores
• Launch 2H 2024 (expected)

AMD Strix Point APUs: Up to 16 Zen 5 Cores, 40 RDNA 3.5 compute units and 120 W TDP in single-chip designs

Now on to the more exciting details and these are the Strix Point APUs. According to rumors, AMD’s Strix Point APUs will come in two flavors, monolithic die, and chip design. Both will use 4nm Zen 5 CPU and RDNA 3.5 GPUs. We are most likely to get these APUs like the Ryzen 8050 series (Ryzen 8000 APU lineup).

AMD Strix Point Mono

The AMD Strix Point Monolithic design will look exactly like a traditional APU design, but for the first time in many years, AMD will increase core counts from 8 to 12 for monolithic designs. This would be possible using a hybrid design approach that features four standard Zen 5 cores and 8 Zen 5C cores in a 4 + 8 (4/8 + 8/16) package, rounding up to a total of 24 threads. The APU will have 24.0MB of unified L3 cache across all Zen 5/5C cores and is said to be 35% faster than the same-powered Phoenix (50W) in early Cinebench R23 benchmarks.

As for the GPU side of the Strix Point Mono, you’ll get 16 RDNA 3.5 controllers within 8 WGPs. There is still no Infinity Cache on board but performance is said to be on par with the RTX 3050 Max-Q GPU. It also rocks a 128-bit LPDDR5X memory controller and features up to 20 points of AI engine computing.

• Zen 5 (4 nm) monolithic design
• Up to 12 cores in hybrid configuration (Zen 5 + Zen 5C)
• 32MB of shared L3 cache
• 35% faster CPU vs. Phoenix at 50W
• 16 RDNA 3+ Computing Units
• On par with the RTX 3050 Max-Q
• 128-bit LPDDR5X memory controller
• Integrated XDNA Engine
• 20 TOPS AI Engine
• Launch Q2 and Q3 (Expected)

AMD Strix Point Chipset

The AMD Strix Point Chiplet is the more interesting of the two and is named as a “Halo” product. This will be the first consumer chiplet APU with up to 16 Zen 5 cores with 32 threads and delivers 25% faster performance than a 16-core Dragon Range chip with the same power (90W). It’ll also get 12, 8 and 6 core variants with 64MB of L3 cache (32MB per chip) and some nice efficiency improvements.

The GPU side gets an even bigger upgrade with up to 40 RDNA 3.5 CUs in 20 WGPs plus 32MB of infinite cache. This is expected to perform similarly for the RTX 4070 and RTX 4060 Max-Q GPUs. Certainly, an iGPU of this size and performance would be hugely beneficial to battery timings on laptops, and the chip would come with a peak TDP of 120W. It will also carry a 256-bit LPDDR5X controller and provide 40 TOPS AI computing.

• Zen 5 chip design
• Up to 16 cores
• 64MB of shared L3 cache
• 25% faster CPU vs 16 core 90W Dragon range
• 40 RDNA 3+ Computing Units
• On par with RTX 4070 Max-Q (90W)
• 256-bit LPDDR5X memory controller
• Integrated XDNA Engine
• 40 TOPS AI Engine
• Launch 2H 2024 (expected)

According to Kepler_L2, the Strix Point Halo APUs are now known as Sarlak.

See more

Strix Halo Sarlak is now called afaik.

– Kepler (@Kepler_L2) April 22, 2023

The first AMD Zen 5 Ryzen 8000 APUs are not expected until mid-2024 as these leaks indicate that we are still a year away from launch and a lot could change. But if this information is correct, the red team already has some formidable chips in the laptop segment to resist Intel’s Meteor Lake & Arrow Lake offerings.

AMD Ryzen Mobility CPUs: