Jim Keller predicts huge gains with AMD’s Zen 5 CPUs

Jim Keller the “father of Zen” predicts a huge performance boost from AMD’s Zen 5 processors

If Jim Keller’s anyone to go by, AMD’s Zen 5 processors are going to deliver incredible levels of performance. Keller, the CEO of the AI chip startup Tenstorrent, showcased comparative performance numbers for multiple CPU architectures at a recent talk (as reported by PC Gamer), highlighting performance numbers from AMD’s latest Genoa processors as well as processors from Amazon, Nvidia, and Intel. Strangely, one of Keller’s slides contained performance numbers for AMD’s unreleased Zen 5 CPU architecture, highlighting significant performance gains over their existing Zen 4 products. 

For the uninitiated, Jim Keller is known by many as the “father of Zen”, having worked for AMD as their chief CPU architect while Zen was being designed. While he left AMD in 2015, he started the roadmap that would lead AMD to become the success that they are today. If anyone outside of AMD knows Zen, its Jim Keller.

The world of CPUs moves slowly, taking years for designs to become shipping products. AMD had publicly confirmed that Zen 5 was in development all the way back in 2019 (link), highlighting how long it takes for new processors to be developed. While Keller’s data about Zen 5 is likely a guess, but if anyone is qualified to give the industry an informed guess about Zen 5’s performance, it’s Jim Keller.

Below is a chart that showcases the “Scaler Competition Landscape” using SPEC2K17INT as a benchmark. This is an industry standard enterprise benchmark that focuses on single-threaded integer performance, which means that AMD’s performance gains do not come from simply adding more CPU cores into the mix. 

In the chart above, AMD’s Zen 5 processor is predicted to be around 30% faster than a Zen 4 Genoa processor, offering users slightly higher core clock speeds and what is likely to be a 20+% IPC (instructions per cycle) increase. Zen 5’s performance benefits are to come from increases in core clock speeds, and an increase in the amount of work that AMD’s CPUs can complete per clock cycle.

If Keller’s performance numbers are anything to go by, AMD’s Zen 5 processors are going to deliver strong performance uplifts to users. AMD’s Zen 5 processors are due to launch in 2024, which means that consumers will need to wait a while before AMD’s ready to launch next-generation Zen 5 Ryzen processors.

You can join the discussion on Jim Keller’s Zen 5 performance predictions on the OC3D Forums.