AMD’s Ryzen 9000 series will have lower thermals than last-gen

PC builders can expect AMD’s Ryzen 9000 series to be easier to cool thanks to thermal design improvements

At Computex 2024, AMD revealed their Ryzen 9000 series of processors, promising users more performance, and lower TDPs across most of their product line. Now, thanks to an interview with Tom’s Hardware, we know that AMD has also improved the thermals of their Ryzen 9000 CPUs.

Based on this interview, it looks like AMD has improved the efficiency of the Integrated Heatspreader (IHS) of their Ryzen 9000 series CPUs. AMD’s David McAfee mentions the “efficiency of the lid” when discussing Ryzen 9000’s improvements. This change alone should help improve the thermals of AMD’s new Ryzen 9000 CPUs. In other words, AMD’s Ryzen 9000 series CPUs will run cooler than their predecessors.

I think the other thing that we’ll get into is the frequency residency in spite of the fact that the Fmax (maximum frequency) hasn’t really changed,

As far as what’s on the box, the frequency residency, the efficiency of the lid and thermal design in the 9000 generation gives your effective frequency a lift over the prior generation. So you actually do see a net, overall positive there with just the processor running faster with the Zen 5 architecture versus Zen 4.

At the end of the day, we give you more performance without increasing power, and at the end of the day, we give you more performance without increasing the heat. At the end of the day, we bought a non-X3D chip very close to an X3D chip when it comes to gaming,

– David McAfee – AMD Corporate VP and General Manager of the Client Channel Business

One benefit of AMD’s improved Zen 5 designs is that they will have an “effective frequency lift” as “frequency residency” has improved. AMD’s new Ryzen 9000 series CPUs will be able to maintain their boost clock speeds for longer. This is due to AMD’s improved the power and thermal characteristics with Ryzen 9000.

With Zen 5, AMD delivers more performance without more power or heat. That’s great news for PC builders. We won’t need larger coolers or beefier power supplies to run Ryzen 9000 series CPUs.

You can join the discussion on AMD’s Ryzen 9000 improvements on the OC3D Forums.