AMD's new roadmap confirms that both the next-generation Ryzen 8000 CPU with Zen 5 technology and the updated Navi 3.5 graphics architecture will arrive next year. According to some rumors, Navi 3.5 could deliver integrated graphics with performance equivalent to the Nvidia RTX 3070.

AMD has mentioned the Zen 5 before, but this is the first mention of the Ryzen 8000 (via Videocardz). It is also the first official listing for the new Navi 3.5 graphics architecture.

The official roadmap does not mention Navi 3.5 in detail. However, according to a recent Twitter post by serial leaker Kepler_L2, Navi 3.5 is largely an RDNA 3 architecture, with a few bits from RDNA 4. How this will affect actual performance is honestly anyone's guess.

The definitely big news related to this new Navi 3.5 graphics is that it is rumored by several sources, including RedGamingTech, to be on the new mega APU called Strix Halo or Sarlak, which we have mentioned before. Everyone agrees that the integrated graphics on this new chip will be up to 40 compute units. [This is the same as the current AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT, which equates to 2,560 shaders or stream processors. Rumor has it that graphics performance will be on par with the Nvidia RTX 3070. If true, this would be phenomenal for an integrated graphics solution and much faster than any previous product. [Of course, one thing integrated graphics has always struggled with is memory bandwidth: both the CPU core and graphics share a memory controller, and that controller is usually a narrow CPU-spec solution, whereas high-end GPUs have a wide bus with much wider bandwidth

Now, the GPUs are not the same as the CPUs.

Now, this rumored APU is said to run a 256-bit memory bus, rather than the usual 128-bit bus found in most, if not all, CPUs and APUs for PCs. However, AMD's roadmap clearly shows that AM5 will continue through 2026, including new CPUs with Zen 5 cores and Navi 3.5 graphics, as well as existing chips for the AM5 desktop CPU socket.

AM5 only supports a 128-bit memory interface, so this roadmap and the rumored mega APU with RTX 3070 graphics performance are not entirely consistent, at least in terms of desktops. At this point, however, there are enough rumors to get us excited about this new Strix Halo or Sarlak APU. It is probably genuine.

An APU with RTX 3070 level performance would be a pretty big game changer. Not only could it form the basis for more affordable laptops with decent gaming performance. Applied to desktops, they could nearly kill low-end graphics.

One caveat remains that it is difficult to reconcile the rumored specs of this large APU with the AM5 socket, which will last until 2026; the AM5 socket does not appear to be capable of the 256-bit memory bus rumored for desktops. This large APU would need to run on a socket other than AM5. This is not a problem for mobile applications with their own socket implementations. However, it is problematic for desktop ecosystems built around AM5.

In any case, as for what we can expect from the Zen 5 and Ryzen 8000 CPU bits, current rumors are that they will retain the existing AMD desktop CPU configuration of up to two CPU dies and 16 cores, inheriting the same cache memory allocation, but with about 20% better IPC performance and clock speeds will increase up to 6 GHz.

If true, this would mean that Zen 5 is a modest but fairly incremental improvement over Zen 4 and the currently available Ryzen 7000 family of CPUs. As a side note, the new roadmap also seems to support the fact that AMD's Phoenix APUs will be coming to desktops for the AM5 socket at some point this year. According to the roadmap, the Ryzen 7000 will include both Zen 4 and Navi 3.0 and will be available for the AM5 socket in 2023.

Currently there is no AM5 desktop chip that makes sense for that definition as all Ryzen 7000 desktop CPUs use RDNA 2 (aka Navi 2.0) graphics. both Ryzen Z1 and Ryzen 7040 series brands. Only Phoenix laptops and gaming handheld APUs with both the Zen 4 and RDNA 3 currently combine.

Whatever, it won't take much time to find out as all of these chips that are rumored and officially roadmapped should be available by the end of next year.