Microsoft has spilled the beans on AMD’s upcoming Zen 6 CPU architecture, revealing that the company’s new Epyc processors will boast frequencies of 5GHz and above. This represents a massive generational improvement in clock speeds over the current flagship, and could point to similarly large gains on consumer Ryzen processors.
AMD is still yet to formally announces its 6th-gen Epyc CPUs, but Microsoft has jumped the gun with its own Azure press release. In a blog post, the company details that its HXv2 virtual machines (VMs) will arrive with the aforementioned chips, complete with 176 Zen 6 cores and clock speeds of 5GHz+.
That clock speed claim is important as it represents a huge leap of at leas 35% in terms of frequency. For context, the AMD Epyc 9965 boasts a maximum boost frequency of 3.7GHz. While not particularly high in the world of consumer CPUs with fewer cores, that’s very fast for processors of this core density.
While not yet confirmed, we expect the new chip will sport 192 cores like the current flagship, the AMD Epyc 9965. Microsoft is likely reserving 16 cores for the Azure hypervisor, as it does on its HBv4-series servers, which would leave 176 available for use. In any case, there’s plenty of processing power here.
Regardless, Zen 6 is shaping up to be a highly performant architecture. These improvements should trickle down to an extent from the professional Epyc processors to consumer Ryzen chips, with rumours suggesting the 10,000 series will boast a suite of juicy upgrades. Chief among them are claims of 7GHz+ clock speeds, as well as increases to core count with up to 24 Zen 6 cores.
In the meantime, check out our best CPUs guide for recommendations on the best chips you can outfit your PC with today.
