Claims about AMD moving to a 12-core chiplet design for Zen 6 have got me all kinds of excited for the next generation of X3D processors

In 2019, AMD started a new paradigm in processor design, with its Zen 2 architecture and the use of chiplets. Since then, every CCD or Core Complex Die has been home to eight cores—no more, no less. However, if one tech leaker is to be believed, then Zen 6 will mark a new era for AMD, as it’s being claimed that the next generation of CCDs will sport 12 cores each.

The leaker in question is Moore’s Law is Dead and yes, I know. Buckets of salt. Press X to doubt. Pigs will fly. Cats and dogs, living together. All those things. Anyway, the claim that Zen 6 CCD will be a 12-core design was announced in its latest YouTube video and I have to admit that the images purporting to be for a next-gen laptop APU, showing the larger CCDs, do look a bit like a quickly-knocked-up render.

But let’s assume it is true and that the Ryzen 10000-series, assuming AMD isn’t going to change the nomenclature, will be full of entries like a Ryzen 7 10700X with 12 cores, 24 threads and a Ryzen 9 10950X with 24 cores, 48 threads. What would this mean for gaming? To be honest, not an awful lot.

The reason for that is simple: Few games at the moment absolutely demand a processor with more than 8 cores and 16 threads. And in the cases of those that do generate a small mountain of threads, the bulk of the workload is still only done via five or six of them. Having more cores by itself won’t change anything.

However, it’s when you start to look beyond the standard Ryzen processors that things get more interesting. The Ryzen 5 lineup has always been a 6-core, 12-thread design where the CPU has one CCD, just like Ryzen 7 chips, but two cores are disabled. Zen 6 Ryzen 5s could potentially be eight-core processors—and if they’re priced the same as current Ryzen 5s, then such CPUs would be all most people would ever need.

For me, though, the really interesting possibilities are with the X3D models. The latest ones, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D and the forthcoming Ryzen 9 9900X3D and 9950X3D, are single and twin CCD designs respectively, and sport a 64 MB slice of L3 3D V-Cache on one CCD. A Ryzen 7 10800X3D would be a 12-core, 24-thread CPU with at least 112 MB of L3 cache and quite possibly even 144 MB.

The reason for this is that moving to 12 cores in the CCD would require the normal L3 cache embedded in the chiplet to be increased to 48 MB, from the 32 MB. AMD could stick to using 64 MB for the 3D V-Cache slices in Zen 6 but I suspect that the demand from the additional cores would require this to be changed to 96 MB instead.

Better still, where the likes of the Ryzen 9 7900X3D and 9900X3D have to deal with the fact that only six cores get access to the 3D V-Cache directly and their other six cores have to do this via the IOD (Input/Output Die), the 10800X3D would have all 12 cores hooked up to that sweet, sweet cache without having to deal with any inter-CCD latencies.

In short, a Ryzen 7 10800X3D with its 12-core CCD and (pleasepleaseplease) 144 MB of L3 cache would make a Ryzen 9 9900X3D look a bit feeble in comparison. That’s because you’d not only have a fantastic gaming chip but also one that’s better in productivity and content creation workloads. And a Ryzen 9 10950X3D (24 cores, 48 threads, 192 MB L3 cache) would be an absolute monster.

Of course, all of this is pure conjecture based on a completely unsubstantiated rumour. At worst, it’s nothing more than a flight of fantasy. But I suspect that Zen 6 will probably be the right time for it to update its CCD design to make the new architecture stand out from the crowd, especially after the muted reception Zen 5 received.

With each successive release of RDNA, I’ve become less and less interested in what AMD has been bringing to the world of graphics processors. What it could have lined up next for Zen, though, has got me all kinds of excited and I genuinely can’t wait to see what the Ryzen 10000-series will be like. Just don’t rename it something like Ryzen AI 10 Plus Extra, please AMD?