AMD confirms Hybrid Zen 4 CPU launch plans – Phoenix 2 is coming!

With Zen 4 and Zen 4c cores, AMD’s Phoenix 2 CPU is the company’s first hybrid processor

In a conversation with XDA-Developers, AMD has confirmed their plans to launch a hybrid processor design that’s codenamed “Phoenix 2”, a CPU that will feature AMD’s Zen 4 and Zen 4c core designs.

In effect, AMD’s Zen 4 and Zen 4c core designs are somewhat equivalent to Intel’s P-core and E-core designs, with AMD’s Zen 4c cores being more compact than their fully fledged Zen 4 counterparts. That said, Zen 4c features support for all of the same instruction sets as full sized Zen 4 core, albeit with less L3 cache, and lower clock speed targets. Unlike Intel’s E-cores, AMD’s Zen 4c cores support all workloads that full Zen 4 cores can, which means that AMD’s hybrid CPU designs will not have the same AVX-512 compatibility issues as Intel’s current hybrid CPU designs.

With their “Phoenix 2” CPU design, AMD are said to be launching a mobile-focused chip that will features two Zen 4 CPU cores and four Zen 4c CPU cores. This will give AMD’s processor up to a total of six CPU cores and twelve threads. This chip will also feature integrated graphics, making this new chip ideal for mid-range notebooks. AMD’s Phoenix 2 silicon is said to be part of AMD’s upcoming Ryzen 3 7440U CPU.

While AMD are coming to market with a hybrid x86 processor design later than Intel, it is clear that AMD are ahead of Intel in some areas. For starters, the fact that AMD’s Zen 4c cores feature instruction set parity with their Zen 4 cores sidesteps a lot of the issues that Intel have faced with their fundamentally different P-core and E-core designs, while offering users the same advantages.

We expect AMD to discuss their hybrid CPU plans in more detail in the near future, though it remains unclear how long it will be before we will see AMD’s hybrid CPUs become available in laptops. It is also unclear what AMD’s plans are for hybrid CPU designs within the desktop PC market. 

You can join the discussion on AMD’s Hybrid Zen 4/Zen 4c CPU plans on the OC3D Forums.