AMD teases next-gen Zen 6 & 7 CPUs in new roadmap

AMD is seeking to continue the success of the Zen CPU architecture. The company has hinted at two new generations of Zen chips in the future.

The Zen architecture has been a big success for AMD. The Ryzen desktop CPUs have allowed the company to take big bites out of Intel’s market share. The AMD Ryzen 7800X3D is still our pick for the best gaming CPU, for instance.

During AMD’s Zen 5 tech day, the firm revealed that it intended to stick with the Zen branding for at least two more generations. A ‘Leadership CPU roadmap’ showed plans for Zen 6 and Zen 6c architectures. This is the first time that AMD has confirmed Zen 6 as a successor to Zen 5.

AMD CTO Mark Papermaster confirmed that a dedicated team within AMD was already hard at work on Zen 7.

There were some questions raised by ComputerBase. The outlet asked about how long AMD would keep supporting the AM5 socket, considering the revelations about the Zen 6 and 7. One engineer during an engineering roundtable indicated that “four generations” of CPU would be supported by socket AM5.

AMD did step in, however. The company clarified that the ‘four generations’ comment was actually meant as part of a hypothetical discussion. AMD confirmed it planned to keep supporting socket AM5 until at least the end of 2027.

The gap between Zen 4 and Zen 5 was roughly 22 months. If a similar cycle is maintained for Zen 6, it would be reasonable to expect that AM5 would still be supported by Zen 6 chips. Zen 7, however, would likely use whatever successor socket AMD has planned.

A new socket type would be a logical point to switch over to DDR6 memory and the PCIe Gen 6 standard. Few details on what AMD has planned for Zen 6 are currently available. Although considering AMD’s success with APUs, it could incorporate the RDNA 5 graphics architecture.