Nearly two years ago, AMD announced its first Ryzen Z1 processors. These were essentially the same silicon that AMD was putting in high-end thin-and-light laptops but tuned specifically for handheld gaming PCs like the Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally X. As part of its CES announcements today, AMD is refreshing that lineup with three processors, all slated for an undisclosed date in the first quarter of 2025.
Although they’re all part of the “Ryzen Z2” family, each of these three chips is actually much different under the hood, and some of them are newer than others.
The Ryzen Z2 Extreme is what you’d expect from a refresh: a straightforward upgrade to both the CPU and GPU architectures of the Ryzen Z1 Extreme. Based on the same “Strix Point” architecture as the Ryzen AI 300 laptop processors, the Z2 Extreme includes eight CPU cores (three high-performance Zen 5 cores, five smaller and efficiency-optimized Zen 5C cores) and an unnamed RDNA 3.5 GPU with 16 of AMD’s compute units (CUs). These should both provide small bumps to CPU and GPU performance relative to the Ryzen Z1 Extreme, which used eight Zen 4 CPU cores and 12 RDNA 3 GPU cores.
AMD’s full Ryzen Z2 lineup, which obfuscates the fact that these three chips are all using different CPU and GPU architectures. Credit: AMD
The Ryzen Z2, on the other hand, appears to be exactly the same chip as the Ryzen Z1 Extreme, but with a different name. Like the Z1 Extreme, it has eight Zen 4 cores with a 5.1 GHz maximum clock speed and an RDNA 3 GPU with 12 cores.
But rather than make Ryzen owners wait for the 24H2 update to come out later this fall (or make them install a beta version of a major OS update), AMD and Microsoft have backported the scheduler improvements to Windows 11 23H2. Users of Ryzen 5000, 7000, and 9000 CPUs can install the KB5041587 update by going to Windows Update in Settings, selecting Advanced Options, and then Optional Updates.
“We expect the performance uplift to be very similar between 24H2 and 23H2 with KB5041587 installed,” an AMD representative told Ars.
In current versions of Windows 11 23H2, the CPU scheduler optimizations are only available using Windows’ built-in Administrator account. The update enables them for typical user accounts, too.
Older AMD CPUs benefit, too
AMD’s messaging has focused mainly on how the 24H2 update (and 23H2 with the KB5041587 update installed) improves Ryzen 9000 performance; across a handful of provided benchmarks, the company says speeds can improve by anything between zero and 13 percent over Windows 11 23H2. There are also benefits for users of CPUs that use the older Zen 4 (Ryzen 7000/8000G) and Zen 3 (Ryzen 5000) architectures, but AMD hasn’t been specific about how much either of these older architectures would improve.
The Hardware Unboxed YouTube channel has done some early game testing with the current builds of the 24H2 update, and there’s good news for Ryzen 7000 CPU owners and less good news for AMD. The channel found that, on average, across dozens of games, average frame rates increased by about 10 percent for a Zen 4-based Ryzen 7 7700X. Ryzen 7 9700X improved more, as AMD said it would, but only by 11 percent. At default settings, the 9700X is only 2 or 3 percent faster than the nearly 2-year-old 7700X in these games, whether you’re running the 24H2 update or not.
This early data suggests that both Ryzen 7000 and Ryzen 5000 owners will see at least a marginal benefit from upgrading to Windows 11 24H2, which is a nice thing to get for free with a software update. But there are caveats. Hardware Unboxed tested for CPU performance strictly in games running at 1080p on a high-end Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090—one of the few scenarios in any modern gaming PC where your CPU might limit your performance before your GPU would. If you play at a higher resolution like 1440p or 4K, your GPU will usually go back to being the bottleneck, and CPU performance improvements won’t be as noticeable.
The update is also taking already-high frame rates and making them even higher; one game went from an average frame rate of 142 FPS to 158 FPS on the 7700X, and from 167 to 181 FPS on the 9700X, for example. Even side by side, it’s an increase that will be difficult for most people to see. Other kinds of workloads may benefit, too—AMD said that the Procyon Office benchmark ran about 6 percent faster under Windows 11 24H2—but we don’t have definitive data on real-world workloads yet.
We wouldn’t expect performance to improve much, if at all, in either heavily multi-threaded workloads where all the CPU cores are actively engaged at once or in exclusively single-threaded workloads that run continuously on a single-core. AMD’s numbers for both single- and multi-threaded versions of the Cinebench benchmark, which simulates these kinds of workloads, were exactly the same in Windows 11 23H2 and 24H2 for Ryzen 9000.
Finally, it’s worth noting that the Ryzen 7 9700X was held back quite a bit by its new, lower 65 W TDP in our testing, compared to the 105 W TDP of the Ryzen 7 7700X. Both CPUs performed similarly in games Hardware Unboxed tested, both before and after the 24H2 update. But the 9700X is still the cooler and more efficient chip, and it’s capable of higher speeds if you either set its TDP to 105 W manually or use features like Precision Boost Overdrive to adjust its power limits. How both CPUs perform out of the box is important, but comparing the 9700X to the 7700X at stock settings is a worst-case scenario for Ryzen 9000’s generation-over-generation performance increases.
Windows 11 24H2: Coming soon but available now
Microsoft has disclosed a few details of the underpinnings of the 24H2 update, which looks the same as older Windows 11 releases but includes a new compiler, a new kernel, and a new scheduler under the hood. Microsoft talked about these specifically in the context of improving Arm CPU performance and the speed of translated x86 apps because it was gearing up to push Microsoft Surface devices and other Copilot+ PCs with new Qualcomm Snapdragon chips in them. Still, we’ll hopefully see some subtle benefits for other CPU architectures, too.
The 24H2 update is still technically a preview, available via Microsoft’s Windows Insider Release Preview channel. Users can either download it from Windows Update or as an ISO file if they want to make a USB installer to upgrade multiple systems. But Microsoft and PC OEMs have been shipping the 24H2 update on the Surfaces and other PCs for weeks now, and you shouldn’t have many problems with it in day-to-day use at this point. For those who would rather wait, the update should begin rolling out to the general public this fall.
Enlarge/ We (and other testers) have had issues getting the Ryzen 9000 series to behave normally.
Andrew Cunningham
AMD recently released its Ryzen 9000-series processors, which brought the company’s new Zen 5 CPU architecture to desktops for the first time. But we (and multiple other reviewers) had issues getting the chips’ performance to match up to AMD’s promises, something that the company wasn’t able to fully resolve before the processors launched to the public.
AMD has since put out statements explaining some of the discrepancies and promising at least partial fixes for some of them.
A Windows problem
The main fix for slower-than-expected game performance, the company says, will come with the Windows 11 24H2 update later this year, which will include “optimized AMD-specific branch prediction code” that improves Ryzen 9000’s performance by between 3 and 13 percent in an AMD-provided cross-section of games and benchmarks (though a handful of tests also showed no change). AMD says that these improvements will also benefit Zen 3- and Zen 4-based Ryzen processors, but that “the biggest boost” will be reserved for Ryzen 9000 and Zen 5.
Apparently, this branch prediction code improvement is already available in current Windows builds if you’re running games and apps in Administrator mode, which AMD used to run its tests. From AMD’s post, it’s unclear whether it was running games from within the normally disabled Administrator account, as has been reported elsewhere, or if it was merely running them in Administrator mode from within a standard user account.
In any case, even a standard user account with Administrator permissions spends most of its time running in a standard user mode, throwing up a User Account Control elevation message when Administrator privileges are needed for something. For security reasons, Windows only runs software in Administrator mode when it’s required, generally to install an app for the first time or make other system-wide changes. Virtually no one will be running games with Administrator privileges or while logged in as Administrator, which makes it an odd testing choice. Regardless, the 24H2 update should make those branch prediction improvements available to standard user accounts running in user mode.
The Windows 11 24H2 update should be released to the general public this fall, though Windows Insiders can also get it from the Insider Preview channel or by downloading an ISO. The 24H2 update is already the default version of Windows on Copilot+ PCs and on the Ryzen AI-powered Asus laptop we tested recently, so for most people it should be stable and reliable enough for day-to-day use.
There’s no word on whether or when these changes might come to Windows 10. But as with Intel’s Thread Director, which is not optimized for Windows 10, I wouldn’t count on AMD or Microsoft working very hard to bring significant performance improvements to a last-generation operating system that is just over a year away from its end-of-support date, even if it is still Steam’s most popular Windows version by a handful of percentage points.
Enlarge/ AMD’s first Ryzen 8000 desktop processors are what the company used to call “APUs,” a combination of a fast integrated GPU and a reasonably capable CPU.
AMD
AMD’s G-series Ryzen desktop processors have always been a bit odd—a little behind the curve on AMD’s latest CPU architectures, but with integrated graphics performance that’s enough for a tiny and/or cheap gaming desktop without a dedicated graphics card. They’re also usually updated much more slowly than AMD’s other desktop Ryzens. Today, AMD is announcing a new lineup of Ryzen 8000G processors, chips that should provide a substantial boost over 2021’s Ryzen 5000G chips as long as you don’t mind buying a new socket AM5 motherboard and RAM to go with them.
There are three new processors releasing on January 31. The most powerful is the $329 Ryzen 7 8700G, an 8-core CPU with a Radeon 780M GPU. The next step down, and probably the best combination of price and performance, is the $229 6-core Ryzen 5 8600G, which comes with a slightly slower Radeon 760M GPU.
At the bottom of the range is the $179 Ryzen 5 8500G. It also includes six CPU cores, but with a wrinkle: two of those cores are regular Zen 4 cores, while four are smaller “Zen 4c” cores that are optimized to save space rather than run at high clock speeds. Zen 4c can do exactly the same things as Zen 4, but Zen 4c won’t be as fast, something to be aware of when you’re comparing the chips. The 8500G includes a Radeon 740M GPU.
The Radeon 780M uses 12 of AMD’s compute units (CUs), based on the same RDNA3 graphics architecture as the Radeon RX 7000 series dedicated graphics cards. The 760M only has eight of these CUs enabled, while the Radeon 740M uses four. All four CPUs have a TDP of 65W, which can be adjusted up and down if you have a socket AM5 motherboard with a B650 or X670 chipset.
CPU
MSRP/Street price
CPU/GPU Arch
Cores/threads
Radeon GPU
Clocks (Base/Boost)
Total cache (L2+L3)
Ryzen 7 8700G
$329
Zen 4/RDNA3
8c/16t
780M (12 CU)
4.2/5.1
24MB
Ryzen 7 7700
$329
Zen 4/RDNA2
8c/16t
Radeon (2 CU)
3.8/5.3
40MB
Ryzen 7 5700G
$198
Zen 3/Vega
8c/16t
Radeon (8 CU)
3.8/4.6
20MB
Ryzen 5 8600G
$229
Zen 4/RDNA3
6c/12t
760M (8 CU)
4.3/5.0
22MB
Ryzen 7 7600
$229
Zen 4/RDNA2
6c/12t
Radeon (2 CU)
3.8/5.1
38MB
Ryzen 5 5600G
$150
Zen 3/Vega
6c/12t
Radeon (7 CU)
3.9/4.4
19MB
Ryzen 5 5600GT
$140
Zen 3/Vega
6c/12t
Radeon (7 CU)
3.6/4.6
19MB
Ryzen 5 8500G
$179
Zen 4 and Zen 4c/RDNA3
6c/12t
740M (4 CU)
3.5/5.0
22MB
Ryzen 5 5500GT
$125
Zen 3/Vega
6c/12t
Radeon (? CUs)
3.6/4.4
19MB
A fourth processor, the quad-core Ryzen 8300G, will be available exclusively through PC OEMs. Expect to see it in lower-end desktop systems from the likes of HP and others, but you won’t be able to buy it at retail. It uses one large Zen 4 CPU core and three small Zen 4c cores.
The Ryzen 8700G and 8600G are priced at the exact same level as the 7700 and 7600, which have the same CPU architecture and core count. If you’re trying to decide which one to buy, note that the Ryzen 7000 chips’ higher boost clock speeds and larger pools of cache will help them outperform the 8000G processors, so they’re the ones to get if you plan to install a dedicated GPU right away or you just don’t care about integrated graphics performance.
Enlarge/ Four new Ryzen 5000 CPUs, all riffs on existing Ryzen 5000 CPUs.
AMD
AMD announced the first Ryzen 8000 desktop processors today: a new lineup of socket AM5 CPUs that bring RDNA 3 integrated GPUs and an AI-accelerating NPU to its desktop platform for the first time. But the company also spent some time on new budget chips for its last-generation AM4 platform. The four new Ryzen 5000 processors cover everything from budget office desktops with integrated GPUs to cost-conscious gaming systems.
At the top of the range is the Ryzen 7 5700X3D, an 8-core CPU with an extra 64MB slab of L3 cache stacked on top of the main CPU die. At $249, it will be a little over $100 cheaper than the 5800X3D, but with the same core count, cache size, and a slightly lower maximum clock speed (4.1 GHz, down from 4.5 GHz). AMD compared it favorably to the Core i5-13600K in gaming workloads, a chip that currently retails for a bit over $280.
The Ryzen 7 5700 is a $175 8-core processor without 3D V-Cache that should still perform reasonably well in most workloads, though AMD’s spec sheet says that it has less cache than the 5700X and only supports PCI Express 3.0 instead of PCIe 4.0. This indicates that the 5700 is actually a 5700G with the integrated graphics disabled; it will be a bit slower than the Ryzen 5700X, despite their similar names, core counts, and clock speeds. The Ryzen 5 5600GT and 5500GT are 6- and 4-core chips with Vega-based integrated graphics, both intended for lower-end systems. At $140 and $125, they essentially amount to minor clock speed bumps for the existing Ryzen 5 5600G and Ryzen 3 5300G.
The new chips are the latest in a surprisingly long line of last hurrahs. Early 2022 brought us some new budget processors and the Ryzen 5800X3D, just a few months before the AM5 platform launched. And in mid-2023, AMD released a limited-edition Ryzen 5600X3D for people who could get to a local Micro Center store and buy one (as of this writing, a quick spot-check of several east coast Micro Centers showed that 5600X3D chips were still broadly available at that price).
It’s hard to recommend that anyone building a new PC go with the socket AM4 platform at this point—even these “new” chips are still using the old Zen 3 architecture and are broadly similar to older products that have been available since late 2020. But they’re still decent cost-efficient upgrade options for people who already have an AM4 motherboard that they use with a Ryzen 1000, 2000, or 3000 processor; if you upgrade from a Ryzen 1000-series chip, it will also help your PC meet Windows 11’s official system requirements, if that’s something you care about.
“AM4 continues to be a key part of our product portfolio,” AMD PR Manager Matthew Hurwitz told Ars when asked why AMD was still releasing new Ryzen 5000 CPUs. “New SKUs give users more options to fit their budget or use case.”
Enlarge/ The complete, small-print list of all the AM4 and AM5 processors AMD will offer as of late January.
AMD
Hurwitz also told us that, unlike the 5600X3D, there would be no availability limitations for any of these new Ryzen 5000 chips. The company also doesn’t immediately plan to discontinue any other Ryzen 5000 CPUs that are still being sold, though “there is always a natural shift from older to newer SKUs as time passes.”
