AMD Ryzen 7000 “Zen 4” CPU Lag Rumors Mount, BIOS Said to be Main Culprit

AMD Ryzen 7000 “Zen 4” processor and the respective AM5 platform does not seem to be going through a smooth release plan. Several rumors have surfaced ahead of the August 29 reveal indicating that the chips could see a short delay.

AMD Ryzen 7000 “Zen 4” Desktop CPUs and AM5 Platform Face Lag as BIOS Issues Mount

Although AMD has confirmed which will host the official unveiling on August 29, the actual sales won’t open for a few weeks or even a month later. before us reported in our exclusive, the launch could be postponed until September 27, the same day Intel’s 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPU is unveiled.

Now there are more rumors (I don’t know if even calling them a rumor is appropriate considering these reports come from actual reviewers and also various experts who work closely with motherboard manufacturers who are aware of what is going on) that the release has been delayed and AMD has asked to sign a new NDA, more or less confirming the new release date.

The following was posted by nApoleon, Editor and Resident Technical Reviewer at Chiphell in the forums:

One thing I want to make clear is that the event on August 29th will be a “Preview” and not an actual “Launch” that was always supposed to be in September. the the release was previously scheduled for September 15 but that was recently moved to September 27. We now know that the main reason behind this lag is related to the BIOS. Like every generation of Zen, the BIOS has been a crucial part that sees several revisions to improve CPU and memory support. This time, just like the AM4 platform, there will be various revisions before and after launch.

So far, we’ve heard that there have been at least 7 revisions of BIOS AGESA 1.0.0.1 in total, starting with patch A through patch G. The latest BIOS was released this month and things aren’t going well either.

Previously, motherboard vendors were expected to release AGESA BIOS v1.0.0.1 Patch D with their motherboards at launch, but that no longer appears to be the case as the older BIOS is not optimized enough for AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs and AM5 motherboard platform which also supports EXPO DDR5 memory. As such, there are reports that the official BIOS at launch would be v1.0.0.2 and we will also see future BIOS revisions in the future.

For those wondering what these BIOS issues are related to, there are multiple hotfixes, each focusing on various optimizations, fixes, and support. The current SMU has been updated to 84.73 and supports 16-core and 12-core AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs, while the previous one added better OC capabilities for DDR5 memory.

The list goes on, but it’s not specific to just memory or CPUs. As mentioned above, the AGESA BIOS firmware will be updated with priority before and after the AM5 platform launch, so instead of sales starting now and users going through a cumbersome BIOS update process, AMD rescheduled the release for a later date. date for a smoother and better first-time experience for users on its next-generation platform.

AMD Ryzen ‘Zen 4’ Desktop CPU Expected Features:

• Up to 16 Zen 4 cores and 32 threads
• Performance increase of more than 15% in single threaded applications
• New Zen 4 CPU cores (IPC/architectural improvements)
• New TSMC 5nm process node with 6nm IOD
• 25% performance improvement per watt vs. Zen 3
• >35% overall performance improvement vs. Zen 3
• 8-10% instruction per clock (IPC) improvement vs. Zen 3
• AM5 platform support with LGA1718 socket
• New motherboards X670E, X670, B650E, B650
• Dual channel DDR5 memory support
• Up to native DDR5-5600 speeds (JEDEC)
• 28 PCIe lanes (exclusive of CPU)
• 105-120 W TDP (upper limit range ~170 W)

Full details on AMD’s next-gen Ryzen 7000 desktop CPUs and respective 600-series motherboards can be found in our full next-gen family roundup here.

AMD Ryzen 7000 ‘Raphael’ Desktop CPU Preliminary Specifications:

News source: Videocardz