AMD Zen 2 May Offer Significant IPC Boost

AMD Zen 2 May Offer 15% IPC Increase

After Intel launched the Core series, AMD CPUs gradually lost their competitive edge. This all changed last year with the launch of Ryzen. Due to the new Zen architecture, performance has shot up, with a massive increase of over 40%. So far, the company is doing quite well on the CPU front, with steady market share gains. To keep things moving, the company is releasing Zen 2 in the near future. According to new reports, Zen 2 may feature a boost of up to 13%.

When AMD first started talking about Zen, the promise was a 40% IPC boost. Surprisingly, the performance boost that the company delivered was even greater, at about 52%. At the same time, the company also revealed that they had plans for steady IPC improvements over time. At the time, the suggestion was that further IPC improvements in the 10% range would follow with each new generation.

Zen 3 to Zen 5 Also On Their Way

For Zen+ this year, AMD delivered a modest ~3% IPC increase. Zen+ is just a minor jump since it is just a die shrink. Zen 2 is where the next performance jump will be. Right in line with the expectations back in 2016, and before, AMD has managed to deliver on this promise. Once you consider the gains from Zen+ as well, AMD has even beat their own projections. Since CPU designs take a long time, Zen 2 all worked out when Zen launched.

So far, AMD has revealed that they are already working on Zen 5. If that is the case, we can expect at least 4 more major IPC jumps after Zen 2. At the same time Intel is slowing down, AMD is only getting started. Hopefully, the company will be able to continue with their great track record. At the very least, we should get a better part of a decade out of Zen and improved performance for CPUs.