Ryzen 8000 Series APU: A New Era of Performance Dawns with Phoenix and Phoenix 2 Cores

AMD is gearing up to introduce the Phoenix and Phoenix 2 APU cores to the desktop market, with support already added in the AGESA 1.0.0.7 BIOS version and further optimized in the AGESA 1.1.0.0 version. Initially speculated to be part of the Ryzen 7000G series, the latest information confirms they will most likely be named the Ryzen 8000G series, with AMD set to release at least four models.

According to wccftech, the AMD Ryzen 8000 series APU will feature 14 models, including the 65W TDP G series, the 35W TDP GE series, and the commercial PRO series, with the highest specification being the Ryzen 7 (PRO) 8700G equipped with the Phoenix core. This model boasts eight cores and sixteen threads, a base CPU frequency of 4.2GHz, a boost frequency of up to 5.1GHz, support for manual overclocking, and is equipped with RDNA 3 architecture integrated graphics (Radeon 780M and 760M). Notably, only the Ryzen 7 8700 and Ryzen 5 8600 series will feature the Phoenix core, while the lower-positioned Ryzen 5 8500 and Ryzen 3 8300 series will utilize the Phoenix 2.

Unlike the Phoenix, which uses a full Zen4 architecture design, the Phoenix 2 APU will adopt a hybrid architecture design of Zen4+Zen4c. Both Zen4 and Zen4c cores share the same IPC, but the Zen 4c has a more compact design with a much smaller individual core size, a significantly lower operating frequency, and better thermal performance. The Phoenix 2 APU will also feature the slightly lower-positioned Radeon 740M with only 4 compute units (CUs). The CPU does not support manual overclocking but allows for Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) automatic overclocking.

Furthermore, the integrated graphics performance of the AMD Ryzen 8000G series has been revealed, showing up to approximately 2.5 times improvement in gaming and benchmark scores at 1080P resolution compared to the Ryzen 5000G series. The Ryzen 7 8700G’s RDNA 3 integrated graphics feature 12 CUs (768 SPs), while the Ryzen 7 5700G’s Vega integrated graphics have only 8 CUs (512 SPs). The former not only establishes an advantage in integrated graphics architecture and CU count but, supported by the higher bandwidth and enhanced performance of DDR5 memory in the CPU, a significant gap in performance is expected.

Barring any surprises, the AMD Ryzen 8000 series APU is set to be unveiled at CES 2024 in early 2024.