AMD says Zen 3 has a 19 percent IPC boost over Zen 2

AMD Ryzen 5000 series
(Image credit: AMD)

AMD started off its Zen 3 launch event by promising a 19 percent Instruction Per Clock improvement over Zen 2. That's quite the improvement. Indeed AMD is promising to have the fastest single-threaded performance overall. This coupled with the Ryzen 5000 chips higher frequency means that AMD looks like it's gunning to wrestle the overall performance crown from Intel.

This impressive improvement comes from a number of areas, although the benefits of the unified 8-Core Complex (CCX) is certainly key, which leads to reduced latency and better access to the L3 cache. 

There are also performance improvements from increasing the number of Load and Stores compared to Zen 2. AMD has also added more branch prediction bandwidth to tackle back to back predictions—something it is calling 'zero bubble'. It has also made the Zen 3 floating point and integer execution wider.

Dr. Lisa Su went on to point out that 'It's our largest increase generation over generation since we launched the Zen family.' This will have an impact on the performance in serious workloads, but as IPC is so important to gaming, it should also mean that AMD could finally close ground with Intel and potentially overtake it. 

(Image credit: AMD)

Obviously we'll have to wait and see how the new Ryzen 5000 chips perform once they're in our labs. 

Available globally on November 5, the new Ryzen 5000 series is made up of the Ryzen 5 5600X, Ryzen 7 5800X, Ryzen 9 5900X, and Ryzen 9 5950X.

Alan Dexter

Alan has been writing about PC tech since before 3D graphics cards existed, and still vividly recalls having to fight with MS-DOS just to get games to load. He fondly remembers the killer combo of a Matrox Millenium and 3dfx Voodoo, and seeing Lara Croft in 3D for the first time. He's very glad hardware has advanced as much as it has though, and is particularly happy when putting the latest M.2 NVMe SSDs, AMD processors, and laptops through their paces. He has a long-lasting Magic: The Gathering obsession but limits this to MTG Arena these days.

Latest in Processors
 photo shows a factory tool that places lids on data center system-on-chips at an Intel fab in Chandler, Arizona, in December 2023. In February 2024, Intel Corporation launched Intel Foundry as the world’s first systems foundry for the AI era, delivering leadership in technology, resiliency and sustainability.
Return of the gigahertz wars: New Chinese transistor uses bismuth instead of silicon to potentially sock it to Intel and TSMC with 40% more speed
 photo shows a factory tool that places lids on data center system-on-chips at an Intel fab in Chandler, Arizona, in December 2023. In February 2024, Intel Corporation launched Intel Foundry as the world’s first systems foundry for the AI era, delivering leadership in technology, resiliency and sustainability.
So, wait, now TSMC is supposedly pitching a joint venture with Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom to run Intel's ailing chip fabs?
Pipboy holds up an open padlock.
A BIOS update could be all that's stopping you or someone else from jailbreaking your old AMD CPU
A screenshot from Sony's PlayStation 5 Pro announcement video, showing a stylized processor against a dark background with glowing lines streaming from its edges
The AMD x Sony collab gave us FSR4 and a version will appear in PlayStation next year, too, having 'already started to implement the new neural network on PS5 Pro'
A screenshot from a YouTube video showing a sticker being pulled from the front of a fake 9800X3D CPU
This Amazon-bought fake AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is actually a 14-year-old Bulldozer chip with a cheap sticker on it
A close-up stylized photo of a silicon wafer, showing many small processor dies
Intel is still using TSMC for 30% of its wafer demands: 'We were talking about trying to get that to zero as quickly as possible. That's no longer the strategy'
Latest in News
Key art of the videogame Lunacid, showing a pale, long haired knight in purple armor contemplating a purple, flaming sword surrounded by the different phases of the moon.
One of my favorite indie RPGs is getting a follow-up made with FromSoftware's 25-year-old Super Mario Maker for first person dungeon crawlers
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 image - Henry riding a pink and blue striped horse while holding a fish
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 now has Steam Workshop support, and of course one of the first mods lets you adjust the 'jiggle physics'
Still image of Bastion holding a bird, taken from Microsoft's Copilot for Gaming reveal trailer
Microsoft unveils Copilot for Gaming, an AI-powered 'ultimate gaming sidekick' that will let you talk to your console so you don't have to talk to your friends
Erenshor - A player and two simulated MMO party members stand on a plateau in front of a yellow landscape
This RuneScape-looking 'simulated MMORPG' has all the nostalgia without the drama because all the other 'players' are NPCs
Pirate Bay co-founder Carl Lundstrom
Pirate Bay co-founder and far-right politician found dead after plane crash
Sunset in the desert in Hello Sunshine
Hello Sunshine is a desert survival sandbox where you live in the literal shadow of the colossus