AMD may run Phoenix APUs with a hybrid architecture. This is according to company documents. The chips will have performance cores and efficiency-focused cores. Intel already uses a similar architecture in its processors.
References for AMD APUs with performance and efficiency cores can be found in the AMD Processor Programming Reference for Upcoming Phoenix APUs, Well-known Twitter user InstLatX64. Mention this document Series of AMD Family 19h Model 70h CPUs. These will support two different types of cores: Performance and Efficiency. Both types of cores get a different feature set. The document “identifies differences between the architectural features of each core, which may result in different performance, boost clocks, and power characteristics.”
With the arrival of a possible hybrid architecture, Intel will follow AMD’s competitor. Intel introduced its Alder Lake processors in 2021, which also feature performance and efficiency cores. Intel’s more efficient e-cores take up less chip space and consume less power than the more powerful P-cores. Intel’s efficiency cores also lack support for hyper-threading.
How the most efficient AMD cores work is unknown. AMD previously showed Zen 4c cores, a variant of Zen 4 with higher core density and lower power consumption. However, Zen 4c is primarily designed for use in cloud applications. AMD offers EPYC CPUs with up to 128 Zen 4c cores. AMD provides up to 96 “normal” Zen 4 cores, which it integrates into its current server processors. AMD did not say at the time of filing whether it would also make processors that would combine Zen 4 and Zen 4c on a single chip.
AMD has previously shared details about its Phoenix APUs. These will be based on the Zen 4 architecture and are intended for laptops. AMD provides the chips with an integrated RDNA 3 GPU and its own AI engine. The chip designer didn’t talk about efficiency cores at the front. Variants with these electronic cores may follow at a later date. VideoCardz talks about it Accessibility of Phoenix 2 chipset with two performance cores and four efficiency cores. When these processors should appear is unknown.
