2022 IS SHAPING UP to be potentially one of the more exciting
years in the CPU realm. After AMD’s Zen 3 CPUs claimed the
overall performance crown in 2020, Intel responded in late 2021
by finally releasing a desktop CPU built on something better
than 1 4nm—Alder Lake used the Intel 7 process, aka the artist
formerly known as Enhanced 1 0nm SuperFIN. For 2022, we’ll be
getting two more contestants for the CPU battlegrounds: AMD
Zen 4 and Intel Raptor Lake.
Zen 4 represents the next big jump for AMD and will be the first
Ryzen desktop solution to move on from socket AM4. Zen 4 will
move to a new AM5 socket, with plenty of features that required
a change in sockets. Will AM5 also ditch the CPU pins and move
to an LGA design? All signs indicate that will happen. Zen 4 will
target general IPC and feature improvements, and will also be
the first x8 6 CPU to move to TSMC’s N5 5nm process technology.
The move from 7nm to 5 nm promises the usual gamut of chip
size, power, and transistor density improvements. N 5 entered
volume production in 2020 with Apple’s A 14 Bionic processors,
so it’s already had plenty of time to mature. TSMC says N 5 can
improve transistor density by about 1 .8x over N7, with 30 percent
lower power use at the same performance, or 15 percent higher
performance at the same power. More importantly, while the
recently rechristened Intel 7 process might be competitive with
TSMC’s N7, it’s still a generation behind N5, and AMD plans to
leverage that lead.
AMD hasn’t given any specific statements regarding
performance and architectural improvements with Zen 4 , but
we do know the consumer Raphael CPUs, which will be sold
as the Ryzen 6000 series, should arrive before the end of 2 022.
AMD is likely to stick with a maximum 1 6-core CPU design for
the consumer segment, which leaves plenty of extra transistors
for other features. Note that AMD has also revealed plans for a
96-core Genoa Zen 3 data center part in 2 022, with a 128 -core
Bergamo Zen 4 chip planned for 202 3.
Zen 4 will also join the DDR5 bandwagon. Officially, AMD
hasn’t said whether Zen 4 will require DDR5, so it could end
up supporting DDR4 and DDR5—though, like Alder Lake,
motherboards would almost certainly use either one or the othermemory type. PCIe Gen5 support should also be present, though
it may not be enabled on all motherboards or chipsets. Power
and motherboard cost will be driving factors in both memory and
PCIe support.
Early claims suggest that Zen 4 may deliver up to a 25 percent
IPC (instructions per cycle) improvement over Zen 3—or maybe
just 25 percent more performance. Either would be great, as even
10– 20 percent gains are hard to come by. More cache, improved
latencies, and other architectural enhancements might be able to
get there. Zen 4 may also see Ryzen CPU clocks break the 5GHz
barrier for the first time.
Intel’s Raptor Lake will be less revolutionary, relying
instead on modest changes relative to the recently launched
12th-Generation Alder Lake CPUs. Raptor Lake will be 1 3th-
Generation Core and should maintain socket compatibility with
LGA1 70 0. That means it will continue to support DDR4 and DDR5,
as well as PCIe Gen5.
The big change with Raptor Lake, other than the usual
incremental generational improvements, appears to be in cache
sizes and core counts. Both are based on early leaks and rumors,
but we may see much larger L3 caches on Raptor Lake, to help
close the gap with AMD’s Zen 3 and V-cache models.
As for the CPU core counts, Alder Lake has a maximum of
eight Golden Cove performance cores with Hyper-Threading and
eight Gracemont efficiency cores that only run a single thread
each. That gives a maximum 1 6-core/24-thread configuration on
the Core i9- 12 900K. Raptor Lake will improve on that number, but
interestingly the current word is that the maximum configuration
will be eight Golden Cove cores ( 16 threads) and 16 Gracemont
cores ( 16 threads as well), yielding a maximum 2 4-core/32-
thread design. Raptor Lake is also reported to target efficiency
more than pure performance, which would coincide with the
addition of more efficiency cores while keeping the same number
of performance cores.TO GPU OR NOT TO GPU?
Intel has been including integrated graphics solutions
with all of its consumer designs since the 2nd Gen Sandy
Bridge family launched back in early 2011. More recently,
it has begun selling F-series chips that lack graphics, but
those are just the same CPU die with the graphics fused
off. In contrast, AMD has so far split its Ryzen family into
CPUs that lack graphics and APUs that include them.
With Zen 4, AMD may stop bifurcating its processors.
The business and OEM sectors love all-in-one chip
solutions, particularly in the growing laptop market. With
80 percent more transistors in the same die area, even
with other architectural improvements, it wouldn’t be a
stretch for AMD to include some form of GPU in all Zen 4
chips. Unfortunately, RDNA 2 graphics tech may be used,
it will likely be significantly underpowered relative to
dedicated graphics cards.Intel has only recently launched its Alder Lake CPUs, but the
13th-Generation Raptor Lake should use the same socket and
motherboards and further improve performance and efficiencyCPUS & GPUSCPUS: ZEN 4 TAKES ON RAPTOR LAKE IT’S INTEL VERSUS AMD ALL OVER AGAINtech preview 2022