AMD winds up Zen 6 cores for faster clock speeds

AMD has outlined changes to its Zen 6 processor cores, which it says will deliver higher clock speeds and substantial performance gains in server and cloud workloads. The design underpins upcoming Epyc chips and is expected to reach Ryzen desktop and mobile processors later, though AMD has not yet shared client chip details.

Zen 6 comes in standard and compact Zen 6c versions, with the same instruction set and clock speed as the main distinction. AMD claims 20 to 31 per cent higher instructions per clock than Zen 5 on cloud and AI workloads, averaging 27 per cent, while announced clocks range from 4.1 to 5.3 GHz; some Epyc models will have up to 256 cores. The article cautions that server gains may not translate directly to PCs, where gaming performance depends on whether games are limited by the processor.