AMD to heavily push 12-core chiplets with Zen 6 “Medusa” series CPUs
Expect 24-core Zen 6 Ryzen CPUs from AMD and more chiplet-based laptop processors
AMD is changing the way they make CPUs with Zen 6. With their Zen 6 “Medusa” series CPUs, AMD plans to push chiplets harder than ever before with new 12-core CCX designs.
According to Moore’s Law is Dead, as backed up by @TDevilfish, AMD plans to use 12-core chiplets on their next-gen Medusa Point, Medusa Ridge, Medusa Range, and Medusa Halo CPUs. These chips will reportedly be built using TSMC’s 2nm lithography tech.
If these rumours are true, AMD may use the same chiplets for their Ryzen mobile, Ryzen desktop, and EPYC server processors. This allows AMD to manufacture these chiplets on an incredible scale, delivering significant cost savings for the company. Given the commonality of this chiplet design across AMD’s future product stack, it is also possible that these chiplets may be used in next-generation PlayStation or Xbox consoles.
What 12-core Zen 6 chiplets mean for Ryzen
Until now, practically all of AMD’s primary Ryzen desktop CPU chips/chiplets feature eight Zen-powered CPU cores. With Zen 1/2 these 8 CPU cores featured two 4-core CCXs (Core Complex), with Zen 3 and newer designs featuring one 8-core CCX. The move to a single 8-core CCX was transformative for Ryzen, as it unified L3 caches for these CCX’s, and removed any inter-CCX latencies when moving data between them.
With 12-core CCXs, it is likely that AMD’s new 12-core Zen 6 chiplets will feature more total L3 cache. This could be good news for gaming workloads. Furthermore, it could allow AMD to ship Zen 6 Ryzen CPUs with up to 24 total cores. After all, today’s Zen 5 Ryzen CPUs ship with up to two 8-core chiplets. Why won’t Zen 6 ship with up to two 12-core chiplets.
With AMD’s Zen 6 Medisa Ridge (Ryzen Desktop) processors, we are likely to see CPUs with up to 24 CPU cores. This should enable a huge increase in multi-threaded CPU performance. Additionally, we may also see more L3 cache on standard Zen 6 Ryzen processors, thanks to these larger chiplets.
Indeed, 4 products (halo/range/DT/point1) should share the same N2 CCD.
— TB-303 Devilfish (@TDevilfish) February 8, 2025
Performance gains for Ryzen mobile
AMD’s Medusa Point CPU reportedly features 12 Zen 6 CPU cores. This processor will replace AMD’s Strix Point CPU, which features 4 Zen 5 CPU cores and 8 Zen 5c CPU cores. With this new CPU design, a 30% increase in overall multi-threaded performance has been predicted. Not bad given the fact that AMD aren’t increasing their CPU core counts with this new Medusa Point design.
AMD’s Zen 6 architecture is shaping up to be a transformative architecture for the company’s Ryzen lineup. Between new chiplet technologies to the wider adoption of chiplets, AMD should be able to achieve significant performance gains with their next-generation chips. New chiplet tech should lower latencies and increase bandwidth. Add on larger Zen 6 chiplets with more cores, and AMD may be onto a winner. Let’s just home that AMD can execute these design concepts well.
You can join the discussion on AMD’s 12-core Zen 6 chiplets for laptop and desktop CPUs on the OC3D Forums.
