Looks like the rumors about Phoenix APUs coming to the AM5 platform are getting stronger each day. From recent reports that mention Phoenix CPU ID in Gigabyte’s leaked documents to Gigabyte’s own words about Ryzen 7000 “Successor”, the indication of the 4nm exclusive laptop chips coming to desktop is nothing less than a joy for a lot of gamers.
That said, it looks like AMD is working on a new project called BIG.little for preparing Phoenix 2 APUs for smaller devices. The recent leaks suggest that the new AMD Phoenix 2 APUs are supposedly featuring a Hybrid architecture design just like we have on Intel’s Alder and Raptor Lake family.
The reports come from a leaker on Twitter by the username @InstaLatX64 who spotted the new SKU on milkyway@home. Now, even though there isn’t any model name for this new CPU, the user found out that this info was related to the CPU ID A70F80 which belongs to Phoenix APUs.
#AMD in the Phoenix1 Processor Programming Reference (PPR) uses the same phraseology for the big and little cores as #Intel https://t.co/4gWXpC8Bkg https://t.co/2RbTR2DRWV pic.twitter.com/8JmBB0RIzt
— InstLatX64 (@InstLatX64) March 24, 2023
According to the document, this particular APU is featuring 12 threads for a combination of 2+4 cores. While it is known that these cores are based on the Zen 4 architecture, there seems to be a bigger change we did not expect.
In AMD’s recent PPR document, the user noted that the company is going to use different types of cores for these APUs. Possibly, the combination will be 2 Performance cores and 4 Efficient cores just like we have on Intel’s 12th and 13th gen processors. The difference here would be that both types of cores on these Phoenix 2 APUs are going to use the same Zen 4 architecture where the Efficient cores are going to feature lower clocks or L3 cache.
According to another leak by a Twitter user called @Xinoassasin1, this APU was tested in Cinebench R23 where all six cores can be seen in action. From the clocks graph, it is clear that the Performance and Efficient cores have a significant difference in their clock speeds.
Credit- @Xinoassassin1
Here the Core 0 and Core 5 are supposedly the Performance cores running between 4.0-4.8GHz whereas Cores 1-4 are running between 2.4-3.0GHz. As for the power consumption, Xino says that the Performance cores consume just 7-8W while the Efficient cores stay around 5W.
What this means is that most likely this APU is going to be used for handheld gaming and portable devices that feature lower power consumption.
