Leak hints at HUGE L3 cache increase for Zen 6 CPUs
Zen 6’s boosted L3 cache could be great news for gamers
It looks like AMD’s next-generation Zen 6 CPUs will feature new CCDs that are packed with cores and filled with cache. Based on a new leak from Zhangzhonghau on Chiphell (via WCCFTECH), who reports that AMD’s Zen 6 CCDs (Core Complex Dies) will feature 48MB of L3 cache.
Prior Zen 6 “Medusa” leaks have revealed that AMD’s Zen 6 CPUs will have 12-core CCDs. This means AMD’s next-generation Ryzen CPUs should feature CCDs with 50% more cores and 50% more L3 cache. This is great news for gamers, as gaming workloads love having large pools of cache.
AMD’s Zen 6 CPUs are likely to be fantastic gaming processors
For gaming workloads, CACHE IS KING! Why are AMD’s Ryzen X3D series CPUs so popular? They are popular because of the benefits of AMD’s X3D technology. What does that tech do? It gives gamers a larger pool of L3 cache.
With Zen 6 “Medusa” CPUs, AMD’s CCDs will have 48MB of L3 cache. Today’s Zen 5 CCDs have 32MB of L3 cache. This 50% increase in cache size should help speed up gaming workloads on AMD’s next-gen CPUs. Yes, this will likely be further enhanced with Zen 6 X3D models (which will have even more L3 Cache). Even so, this boosted on-CCD L3 cache size should increase the gaming performance of baseline, non-X3D AMD CPUs.
There’s more to Zen 6 CPUs than having more cores and more L3 cache
Aside from having more CPU cores and L3 cache on each CCD, AMD’s Zen 6 CPUs reportedly benefit from a new chiplet architecture. This should increase AMD’s inter-chiplet bandwidth and decrease inter-chiplet latencies. This should decrease DRAM latencies and lower inter-CCD latencies for multi-CCD Ryzen CPUs.
These changes should boost the performance of all latency-sensitive workloads, and increase the performance of AMD’s multi-CCD Ryzen CPU designs. Improved latency characteristics should be great news for gamers, as increased responsiveness can greatly impact gaming workloads.
What about Zen 6c
Like Zen 4 and Zen 5, AMD will create c-series Zen 6 CPU cores. These Zen 6c CPU CCDs reportedly feature 32 cores and 128MB of L3 Cache. These CPU cores feature a denser design, and will likely run at lower clock speeds than AMD’s standard Zen 6 CPUs. That said, they should deliver more compute performance per watt in many workloads and be more cost-effective for users. AMD’s Zen 6c CPU cores will likely be seen most in the server CPU market, and potentially in some Ryzen mobile CPUs.
You can join the discussion on AMD’s rumoured Zen 6 cache sizes on the OC3D Forums.
