The new AMD Zen 4 architecture will bring significant performance and power improvements, and according to AMD, we are looking at an average of a 13 percent IPC uplift compared to the previous generation, reaching up to 5.7GHz, an 800MHz increase compared to Ryzen 5000 series, and up to 29 percent higher single-thread performance, also compared to Ryzen 5000 series.

The Zen 4 CPU core dies (CCDs) are built on TSMC's 5nm EUV (N5) manufacturing process, which gives Zen 4 a 49 percent higher performance at the same power level, or 62 percent lower power at the same performance, at least compared to the 7nm-based Zen 3 core. The I/O die also got shrunk from 12nm down to 6nm (N6).

Compared to the Zen 3 CPU core, AMD has doubled the amount of per-core L2 cache to 1MB, and each eight-core cluster shares 32MB of L3 cache, which means that 6-core and 8-core SKUs come with a single CCD, while the 12-core and 16-core SKUs come with two CCDs, and a total of 64MB of L3 cache. It also brings support for AVX-512 instructions, although it is left to be seen which sets of AVX-512 instructions will AMD actually support.

As expected, AMD Ryzen 7000 series comes with a brand new socket, the AM5, a 1718-pin LGA socket. The good side of the story is that socket AM4 coolers are compatible with the AM5 socket. AMD will have a total of four different chipsets for socket AM5, the X670E and X670 for the high-end, and B650 and B650E for the mid-range. The X670(E) should launch in September and B650(E) will be coming in October. As far as we can tell, the B650 non-E will only offer support for PCIe 5.0 SSD and stick with PCIe Gen 4 for GPUs.

As noted, AMD is launching a total of four Ryzen 7000 series SKUs for now, all of which will be available on September 27, alongside the first X670 and X670E motherboards.

The flagship Ryzen 9 7950X is a 16-core/32-thread SKU working at a base frequency of 4.5GHz, with a maximum turbo set at 5.7GHz. This is a 170W TDP CPU with 16MB L2 and 64MB of L3 cache.

The next in line is the Ryzen 9 7900X, a 12-core/24-thread SKU working at 4.7GHz base and 5.6GHz maximum turbo clock. It has the same 170W TDP and packs 12MB of L2 cache and 64MB of L3 cache.

The Ryzen 7 7700X is an 8-core/16-thread SKU working at a 4.5GHz base and 5.4GHz maximum turbo frequency. It has a 105W TDP and features 8MB of L2 cache and 32MB of L3 cache. The Ryzen 5 7600X is a 6-core/12-thread SKU with the same 105W TDP. It works at 4.7GHz base and 5.3GHz maximum turbo frequency and packs 6MB of L2 and 32MB of L3 cache.

As noted, all four will be available on September 27th, priced at $699 for the Ryzen 7 7960X, $549 for the Ryzen 9 7900X, $399 for the Ryzen 7 7700X, and $299 for the Ryzen 5 7600X.