Though it is proven now, it is what we anticipated.
This week, AMD disclosed its final financial results for the year 2023. Additionally, as part of the “dog and pony show” that it puts on for investors, the company also outlined the future possibilities. It is not surprising that the company revealed on the call that it will be discontinuing its new Epyc central processing units (CPUs) that are built with its Zen 5 architecture later this year. It then stated that it will be shipping Zen 5 consumer products later this year, which indicates that the business will continue to maintain its two-year cycle for its Zen architecture. At the same time, it indicates that the X3D versions will most likely be presented at CES 2025 once more.
Lisa Su, the CEO of AMD, stated during the company’s earnings call (via Seeking Alpha) that she anticipates the addressable personal computer market to expand even further in the second part of the year as artificial intelligence personal computers continue to gain popularity. According to prior rumblings that we have recorded, these so-called artificial intelligence personal computers are expected to arrive in June and become widespread in the second half of the year. It is said by Su that AMD intends to “extend its leadership in AI PC” with “our next wave of Zen 5 CPUs.” This indicates that AMD intends to be at the forefront of the competition. As a result of the ambiguity of that statement, the editor of Tom’s Hardware, Paul Alcorn, confirmed with AMD that this would include Ryzen central processing units in addition to Epyc processors of the next generation.
As a result of this confirmation from a “AMD rep,” the speculations that AMD intended to launch Zen 5 in April and then discontinue the V-Cache chips in September have been put to rest. Rather than that, it is likely that we will experience the same rollout that we witnessed with Zen 4, with the top-of-the-line Ryzen CPUs being released in September, followed by the X3D chips being introduced at CES. According to Videocardz, there is still a significant debate regarding whether the Zen 5 rollout will be distributed for desktop computers, mobile devices, or both. Lisa Su highlights the Zen 5 mobile, which the company refers to as Strix Point, during the call. She describes it as Zen 5 with enhanced Radeon graphics and artificial intelligence capabilities. According to her, notebooks that include these chips would be in stock later on in this year.
During the call, Dr. Su did not mention anything regarding RDNA 4 GPUs while discussing gaming; however, he did say that the company’s gaming revenue was robust overall for the year. She stated that revenue from gaming graphics increased both sequentially from the previous quarter and year-over-year, citing the robust sales of graphics processing units (GPUs) from the 6000 and 7000 series. Su claims that semi-custom sales have decreased, but that the company’s GPU sales have compensated for those losses.
However, there are still a few doubts around Zen 5, the most important of which is whether a 4nm or 3nm TSMC node will be used. Due to the fact that it is more mature and offers a better price, the first option is the most obvious decision. Nevertheless, as seen in the graphic that is located above, the organization has included both nodes on its roadmap. Regardless, it is anticipated that the Zen 5 will not undergo a substantial amount of change in comparison to its predecessor. It is anticipated that the Zen 5 will provide a satisfactory upgrade, but it will not undergo any significant modifications to the overall architecture, clock speeds, or core counts. It is a given that artificial intelligence performance will play a significant role in AMD’s upcoming launch; however, it is also possible that those reports are not accurate. As always, we will have to wait and see what AMD has in store for us.