At Computex 2022, CEO of AMD, Dr. Lisa Sui, its Ryzen 7000 series of processors as well as the associated AM5 platform. But while we were discussing specific details about its new platform for Zen 4 and beyond, AMD inadvertently ended up creating a confusion around the AM5 platform by quoting different power figures to different groups. In the end, AMD cited at various points 170 watts as both the highest rated TDP supported by the platform, as well as the Power Package Tracking (PPT) rating, which is the absolute highest amount of power a chip can draw under load. It goes without saying that these two claims should not both be true and a correction was needed.
As first reported by Tom’s Hardware team, AMD has released a statement addressing the confusion and proving the correct values. In short, the 170 Watt TDP was correct. Meanwhile, the PPT value is actually 230 Watts – which with a 1.35x TDP rating is typical of AMD’s Ryzen processors.
AMD’s full statement is below:
AMD would like to issue a fix for socket power and TDP limits for the upcoming AMD Socket AM5. AMD Socket AM5 supports up to a 170W TDP with a PPT of up to 230W. TDP * 1.35 is the standard calculation for TDP v. PPT for AMD connectors in the “Zen” era, and the new 170W TDP group is no exception (170 * 1.35 = 229.5).This new TDP group will enable significantly more computing performance for high-core CPUs in heavy-duty computer workloads, which will sit alongside the 65W and 105W TDP groups for which Ryzen is known today. AMD takes great pride in providing the enthusiast community with transparent and straightforward product features, and we would like to take this opportunity to apologize for our errors and any subsequent confusion we may have caused on this topic.
The overall increase in power specification figures for the AM5 platform was not unexpected – part of the benefit of the transition to LGA connectors are extra pins for power supply – but this finally determines the question of how much power AMD’s new socket and platform are designed. to deliver. Motherboard vendors will no doubt go (well) past this on their high-end boards, of course, but 170W / 230W will be the baseline for any motherboard that officially wants to support advanced AM5 chips.
CPU power consumption has been increasing for the last many years as we are now well into the Dark Silicon era. While an individual CPU core still draws only a modest amount of power – in the range of 20W to 30W for a high-performance core – the total power requirement increases rapidly for advanced processors, which pack up to 16 cores. As a result, power supply limits are typically the limiting factor for highly multi-wire workloads, as CPUs have to go back at clock speeds to stay within their power frame. Increased platform power limits, in turn, provide more ground clearance to keep multiple cores clocked higher more often.
While it should be noted that AMD’s specifications today are for the AM5 socket, not the first Ryzen 7000 series chips to use it. AMD does not necessarily have to take full advantage of the plug’s TDP right away – although for the aforementioned MT performance reasons there is good reason for it. So officially we still do not know what the TDPs for the advanced Ryzen 7000 processors will be; but unofficially it would not be surprising to see the top chips approach 170 watts.
Finally, it looks like we should expect to see the Ryzen 7000 family hit the full TDP out of the gate. According to a comment from an AMD spokesman on Reddit, the top TDP in the Ryzen 7000 series will actually be 170 Watts, with PPTs reaching 230 Watts.