Question Zen 6 Speculation Thread

[Fjodor2001]

I wonder how large a percentage of users make their decisions on whether a NPU is present in their laptop.

Most don’t know what an NPU is. They’ll just look for the Copilot+ compatible sticker instead, since they don’t want to risk being non-compliant with that.

There might also be NPU requirements for the upcoming Windows 12. At least if you want the full feature set. Nobody wants to end up in a similar situation as when they could not upgrade to Windows 11 due to lack of TPM.

 

[poke01]

Copilot+ compatible sticker instead

Nobody does this as well

 

[Fjodor2001]

Nobody does this as well

It’s still quite new, but I think lot more will know what it means over time. And they’ll definitely know what non (fully) Windows 12 compliant means.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Most don’t know what an NPU is. They’ll just look for the Copilot+ compatible sticker instead, since they don’t want to risk being non-compliant with that.

Bingo.

 

[jpiniero]

People aren't looking for the Copilot+ Compatible. Wall Street is.

This is OK for the non-APU Zen 6 since it's basically only going to be sold to gamers.

 

[biostud]

Most don’t know what an NPU is. They’ll just look for the Copilot+ compatible sticker instead, since they don’t want to risk being non-compliant with that.

There might also be NPU requirements for the upcoming Windows 12. At least if you want the full feature set. Nobody wants to end up in a similar situation as when they could not upgrade to Windows 11 due to lack of TPM.

I wonder how many will try to avoid the copilot sticker

 

[Thibsie]

I wonder how large a percentage of users make their decisions on whether a NPU is present in their laptop.

Noone. But an AI sticker : Wow !
Stupid I know.

 

[adroc_thurston]

They’ll just look for the Copilot+ compatible sticker instead,

No one cares.
Copilot+ exists to get Windows rebates.

 

[Joe NYC]

I wonder how many will try to avoid the copilot sticker

I disabled TPM, just to stop Windows nagging me about upgrading from Windows 10 to Windows 11, so not having / disabling NPU can also be a "feature"

 

[Fjodor2001]

I disabled TPM, just to stop Windows nagging me about upgrading from Windows 10 to Windows 11, so not having / disabling NPU can also be a "feature"

What do you intend to do when the extended Windows 10 support ends in October 2026? Will you continue using it without any security updates?

 

[Timorous]

What do you intend to do when the extended Windows 10 support ends in October 2026? Will you continue using it without any security updates?

Steam OS will be preferred for gamers given the way Windows and MS are going.

 

[soresu]

Steam OS will be preferred for gamers given the way Windows and MS are going.

Definitely for AMD and OGL/DX7-11 games where their proprietary drivers are still lacking.

AMD would do well to try and make Mesa work well on Windows so they can make use of all the work on RadeonSI and RADV/DXVK.

 

[OneEng2]

In well scaling MT applications, 1ZEN5 is about 1.3 skymont cores in desktop.... Maybe 1.4 in DC.

How anyone would expect ZEN6 24c/48t to best NVL 48c is beyond me.

If someone has benchmarks and some math that contradicts this, or if you can disprove my above statement, I am all ears.

If we are discussing "does higher thread client matter" , it's a great discussion to have.

 

[OneEng2]

BTW, Intel SMT Implementation only got around 15% IIRC.

 

[adroc_thurston]

How anyone would expect ZEN6 24c/48t to best NVL 48c is beyond me.

You do know what clock frequency is right

 

[itsmydamnation]

and vram bandwidth scaling

 

[Joe NYC]

What do you intend to do when the extended Windows 10 support ends in October 2026? Will you continue using it without any security updates?

I was going to wait until Windows 12, which does not seem to be happening.

I will upgrade office PCs to Windows 11, but I have not decided about my home PC.

 

[MS_AT]

What do you intend to do when the extended Windows 10 support ends in October 2026? Will you continue using it without any security updates?

It's hard choice on one hand security updates, on the other hand M$ incompetence. The last couple of months of patch Tuesdays were hilarious. One can wonder if M$ itself is not the biggest threat to Windows users...

 

[Fjodor2001]

I was going to wait until Windows 12, which does not seem to be happening.

There’s still a chance we’ll get Win 12 before October 2026. That’s what I’m hoping for, and then I’ll upgrade to Zen6 or NVL-S at the same time as switching to Win 12, assuming those CPUs will be released latest a few months after that deadline.

I can probably survive a few months without security updates. But if Win 12 will be released a lot later than that I’ll be in trouble and will have to decide on a new plan. Worst case I’ll have to jump to Win 11 instead on the new PC and stay on that until Win 12 is released.

 

[Tigerick]

Is anything known about whether there will be any NPU on Zen6 DT?

NVL-S is expected to have NPU6 @ 74 TOPS INT8. I assume one of the reasons is to comply with the Microsoft Copilot+ PC requirement of 40+ TOPS. So will Zen6 DT follow the same path, or be declared non-compliant with that requirement?

Yep, MLID did mention new IOD with die area. He just doesn't know about NPU. Below are my speculated features:

	Zen 5 / Fire Range IOD	Zen 6 / Gator Range IOD	Features Speculated
Node	N6	N3P	Jumping 2 nodes
Die Size	122 mm2	~ 155 mm2	Source: MLID. So much bigger die size
Memory	128-bit DDR5-5600 / 6000	128-bit DDR5-8000 128-bit LPDDR5x ?
PCIe	28 PCIe 5.0 lanes	28 PCIe 6.0 lanes ?	Blackwell GPU already support PCIe6.0. And there is PCIe6.0 SSD
USB	USB 3.2 Gen 2	USB 4.0
iGPU	RDNA2 2CU	RDNA4.5 8CU ?	Source: MLID - RDNA4 8CU
NPU	NA	XDNA3 80-110 TOPS	My analysis

 

[ETI4711]

Why do you think there is only Medusa on the Roadmap for SoCs with NPU?

 

[dr1337]

Why do you think there is only Medusa on the Roadmap for SoCs with NPU?

Because the chiplet desktop products aren't SOCs.

 

[eek2121]

Steam OS will be preferred for gamers given the way Windows and MS are going.

I switched to CachyOS a while ago.

There are multiple projects aiming to streamline a containerized Windows install for apps and games not compatible with wine. Does not work with anticheat in games, however. The containers let you run things like adobe and office natively.

Apparently there is a way to hide a virtualized windows installation from anticheat. Understandably, you won’t find guides that show how to do this easily available. A solution like that would theoretically give you 100% compatibility, however.

The Linux desktop inches forward.

 

[OneEng2]

You do know what clock frequency is right

You do know what "thermally limited" is right?

 

[adroc_thurston]

You do know what "thermally limited" is right?

Stuff that doesn't apply to Zen6?