Is ZEN Architecture The Future?

Third-gen Ryzen processors are based on the ZEN 2 chiplet-style architecture.

It consists of a 14nm Input/Output die and 7 nm processor-chiplets having either 4, 6 or 8 cores.

This multi-chip module design with the I/O components of the CPU are laid separate from the processing core increases the scalability and manufacturability of the new processors.

This design also helps in thermal efficiency and cooling as the heat is spread throughout the IHS(Integrated Heat Spreader), which is soldered to the die, and thus avoiding hot-spots in the die.

Ryzen processors also boast a much lower TDP (Thermal Design Power) because of the 7 nm manufacturing process employed which makes the processing cores much more power and thermally efficient.

Ryzen processors are known for performing better with high-speed memory because of its correlation with the Infinity Fabric’s clock speed used for communication between the cores and   I/O die.

Third-gen Ryzen also has support for PCIe(Peripheral Component Interconnect – Express) Gen 4.0 which double the bandwidth as compared to PCIe Gen 3.0 used in mainstream Intel processors, thus providing an extremely fast and bottleneck free link between the CPU and PCIe devices such as your graphics card and NVME and m.2 SSDs.PCIe Gen 4.0 SSDs provide superior read and write as compared to old 3.0 or SATA SSDs.

On the other hand, Intel has been struggling with its 10 nm process with only low powered mobile processors being viable enough for production. Mainstream desktop processors are still being produced with their 14 nm process as it provides higher core clocks required for gaming and single-threaded workloads.

Chipsets and Motherboard

All the generations of the Ryzen (mainstream and desktop) processors use the AM4 microprocessor socket, launched in September 2016 it was designed to replace the sockets AM3+, FM2+, FS1b platforms. 

It has a total of 1331 contacts (pin slots) and is the first from AMD to support DDR4 compatible memory as well as achieve compatibility between high-end chips and lower-end APU’s.

AM4 supports a number of chipsets their names and the supported generation of processors are summed up in the following table:

Chipset	Market Segment	Overclocking support	CPU support
X570	Performance	Yes	ZEN+ ZEN2
X470	Performance	Yes	ZEN ZEN+ ZEN2
X370	Performance	Yes	ZEN ZEN+
B450	Mainstream	Yes	ZEN ZEN+ ZEN2
B350	Mainstream	Yes	ZEN ZEN+
A320	Budget	No	ZEN ZEN+

Third-Gen Ryzen Threadripper (HEDT) processors use a socket similar to that used in the previous generation Threadrippers but the new sTRX4 socket replacing the TR4 socket is not backwards compatible even though it has the same number of contact points.

The socket is a land grid array(LGA) type i.e. the contact pins are present on the motherboard instead of the processor as in mainstream Ryzen processors.

Chipset	Socket	Overclocking Support	CPU Support
X399	TR4	Yes	ZEN ZEN+
TRX40	sTRX4	Yes	ZEN2

By: Atishek Kumar

Computer Science Undergrad at NSUT specialising in Artificial Intelligence.