The company revealed the finer details during a deep technical dive into its next-generation Epyc “Venice” server processors. The next generation of Ryzen processors has yet to be announced, but both families share the same underlying Zen 6 architecture. And for gamers, the implications go far beyond including more cores on a spec sheet, although that’s obviously great.
Twelve cores, one chiplet
A complex core (CCD) is a group of CPU cores that share a set of fast L3 cache, which keeps frequently used data close instead of forcing trips to slower system memory.
Current 12-core Ryzen processors need two CCDs because Zen 5 only fits eight cores in each. That works, but communication between separate chipsets takes longer than communication within one. As a result, games with tightly connected threads running on both CCDs may pay a latency penalty.
Adam Patrick Murray / Casting
Zen 6 changes the equation. With 12 cores sharing 48MB of L3 cache, a future 12-core Ryzen could completely fit into a CCD. That’s 50 percent more cores and cache than Zen 5, although the cache-to-core ratio remains unchanged at 4MB.
Games capable of keeping more than eight cores busy could benefit from not distributing that work between two CCDs. However, games that already run their critical threads on a dual-chip processor CCD wouldn’t necessarily benefit from the new arrangement.
There is another potential advantage for future Ryzen X3D processors, which combine Ryzen cores with ultra-fast integrated V-Cache. AMD’s dual-chiplet X3D processors require programming logic to direct games to cores with higher cache. A single cache-rich CCD with twelve cores could simplify that balancing act.
