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[JEMC]

Bofferbrauer2 said:

JEMC said:

I don't understand why AMD keeps using Zen2. Given the systems that will use those APUs, going with Zen3 would have been a much better choice.

In this case, it's probably because Zen3 is designed from the ground up as an 8-core design, while Zen2 is basically 2 quadcores (the CCX) merged together into an octacore (CCD). So for a machine that only uses 4 cores, Zen2 is the more easy choice, as otherwise it would need some redesign to Zen3 to make that work - and for such cheap devices, that just doesn't make much economic sense.

Also, as the 5000U series as shown, at those low power limits and clock speeds, Zen2 is not really any slower than Zen3, and sometimes even faster. Zen3 really needed 30W or higher to start build a gap to Zen2. So from a performance perspective, it's not a big loss, if any at all. And hey, it's down to 6nm, and Ryzen 6000 has shown that this can be a nice bonus, especially on battery life.

Besides, since Mendocino will replace both Dali and Pollock, which are both still on Zen(+), all dualcores and only with Vega graphics, this is a huge step forward either which way.

On a sidenote, I expect those chips to later become the next Athlon and Celeron desktop CPUs. The last of that we got were Picasso over 2 years ago and also still on Zen+ and 2c/4t, so also here AMD will be significantly raising the bar for entry-level PCs. I hope just not on the price point...

I hadn't thought about the 4 vs. 8 cores design of Zen2 and 3, thanks for bringing that out.