AMD Ryzen 4000 leak hints at 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X successor

AMD Ryzen
(Image credit: AMD)

A new leak has revealed the specifications of AMD’s incoming Ryzen 4000 desktop CPUs, confirming a mammoth 16-core successor to the Ryzen 9 3950X. 

The leak comes courtesy of Igors Lab, which recently gave us the skinny on AMD’s Ryzen 4000 ‘Renoir’ APU lineup. It has now got the scoop on the Ryzen 4000 ‘Vermeer’ desktop CPUs, which unlike Renoir APUs, won’t feature an integrated GPU and will be built on AMD's new and improved Zen 3 microarchitecture. 

Though this will continue to use TSMC's 7nm process, it’s expected to offer a major performance boost compared to the current Zen 2-based Ryzen 3000 processors, with AMD allegedly touting 15% to 17% IPC gains.

AMD Ryzen 4000 specs leak

Specifications pulled from for the engineering samples (ES) show that the Ryzen 4000 Vermeer CPU lineup will be headed up by a 16-core, 32-thread successor to the Ryzen 9 3950X, and while these details are likely to change ahead of release, more information obtained via the Ordering Part Number (OPN) codes claim that the chip will boast a 3.7GHz base clock and 4.6GHz boost clock. 

When compared to the Ryzen 9 3950X, that’s a 200MHz increase in the base clock, and a 100MHz decrease in boost clock speed.

The Ryzen 4000 leak also details a second 16-core part, with the same 3.7GHz and 4.6GHz base and boost clocks, along with three 8-core, 16-thread chips. These appear to have 4GHz and 4.6GHz base and boost clock speeds, respectively; the Ryzen 7 3800X arrived with a 3.9GHz base clock and 4.5 GHz base clock. 

The AMD Ryzen 4000 desktop CPU lineup is widely expected to debut in September. Team Red had originally planned to showcase the Zen 3 processors at the now-cancelled Computex show this month, but sources claim the company will now show off its next-generation desktop processors later this year regardless of whether Taiwan’s delayed computing show goes ahead or not. 

Carly Page

Carly Page is a Freelance journalist, copywriter and editor specialising in Consumer/B2B technology. She has written for a range of titles including Computer Shopper, Expert Reviews, IT Pro, the Metro, PC Pro, TechRadar and Tes.