AMD’s Ryzen 7000 CPUs will surpass 5GHz and mostly require a new motherboard

AMD is preparing a clean break with the past this fall, and it believes your need for speed will persuade you to do the same. Today, at Computex 2022, AMD disclosed the primary features of its next-generation Ryzen 7000 desktop CPUs, its Zen 4 architecture, and – for the first time in five years — a completely new type of motherboard you’ll need to purchase. While some of AMD’s oldest AM4 motherboards can be modified to accommodate the company’s newest Ryzen 5000-series desktop CPUs, the future Ryzen 7000 requires AM5.

The Ryzen 7000 are the first PC chips based on a 5nm technology, according to the firm, and the AM5 motherboard platform is designed to handle DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 out of the box.

But there’s a fifth “five” in the mix: AMD says Ryzen 7000 CPUs will be able to boost above 5GHz, making them the company’s first desktop chips to do so. During their Computex presentation, AMD demonstrated a 5.5GHz clock speed while playing Ghostwire: Tokyo, matching the 5.5GHz turbo of Intel’s Core i9-12900KS. Not that megahertz matter much in terms of performance – both Intel and AMD have multiple laptop CPUs that can turbo to 5GHz, which doesn’t necessarily mean they’re faster at tasks than a lower-clocked desktop CPU.

What should truly make a difference: Zen 4 will have “more than 15%” higher single-threaded performance than Zen 3 due to improved clock speed and generation-on-generation process improvements (single-thread still being the most important metric for many apps, particularly games). However, the new processors may have higher power consumption: the new AM5 motherboards may now provide up to 170W of power to the chips, up from 142W previously claimed.

A Ryzen 7000 still includes three chipsets under its distinctive rook-shaped lid: two 5nm Zen 4 CPU modules and a new 6nm I/O die with integrated RDNA 2 graphics, DDR5, and PCIe 5.0 controllers, and built-in power management. Intriguingly, AMD marketing director Robert Hallock claims that every Ryzen 7000 processor will contain some of those integrated graphics, so you’ll only need a video card if you need the extra power for business or gaming. Integrated graphics aren’t precisely uncommon on Intel or AMD desktop CPUs, but they aren’t a given.

Another promise is that every AM5 motherboard tier AMD announces today, including the new X670 Extreme, X670, and even the more cheap B650 will include at least one fast PCIe 5.0 NVMe storage slot. AMD claims to be seeing 60 percent faster gains in sequential read speed, which might lead to the legendary 1-second game load times promised by Microsoft’s DirectStorage.