With the launch of AMD Zen based CPUs just around the corner, the rumor mill continues to churn out more interesting details about the company’s next generation family of processors. Recently, a new report has hit the web which suggests that the AMD 6850K will be the Zen flagship chip featuring 8 physical cores and 16 CPU threads. What’s more interesting is that this octa-core chip will be available for just $300.

The 6850K features AMD’s own version of Intel’s HyperThreading dubbed SMU, which has the same efficiency as Intel’s HT. This basically means each processor core can handle two threads–we have discussed this in detail in our AMD Zen analysis here.

Performance-wise, the AMD 6850K is supposed to be a bit of a monster with the chip capable of reaching 4.2GHz boost clock and speeds in excess of 5.0GHz when used with liquid nitrogen. With multithreading performance, the product is at the very least equivalent to the Intel Core i7-5960X, which is indeed impressive considering the latter sets you back $1000.

The aforementioned slew of rumors come via the website Carbonite.co.za. I don’t know how accurate they are, but these seem to be more than just the rants and ramblings with majority of them having some credit behind them. That being said, here’s all the latest details about the AMD Zen based CPUs as popped up on the website [1, 2]:

There are some errata issues present in the current testing samples, similar in a way to the TLB bug of the Phenom. The workaround right now is done via the BIOS. The workaround however, strips around 30 ~ 40% of the CPU performance.

The CPUs are well behind schedule and every day there’s real progress and bug fixing being done. Unlike with INTEL’s E0 CPUs which make it to the wild that are almost completely final silicon. AMD’s samples will continue to get bug fixes right up until retail spec sampling to partners.

In August Clock speeds were 3.8GHz, right now 4.2GHz overclocking is possible, with LN2 5GHz is doable. Again this will change of course, but it is just the current silicon that is behaving like this.

AM4/ZEN uses an SOC design, that means even CMOS/BIOS configuration is on package (not necessarily on silicon, I can’t confirm this) so it is possible to clear the “BIOS” and still have old value applied 30 minutes later. How this will be addressed remains to be seen. Perhaps it won’t be the same scenario for final silicon

Operating voltages (nominal) are 1.3v and all the way up to 1.5v should be fine it seems for AIO cooling. Frequency scaling isn’t a strong point but again that may have everything to do with the process at this point rather than an inherent design limitation.

Performance is particularly strong at this point vs. INTEL’s latest offerings. Single thread performance is matching Haswell-E and of course multi-threading performance as well. Tests that are memory bandwidth dependent may go to the INTEL platform simply as a result of having more memory channels, but I can’t confirm that right now and have no info on that. The important thing here is that the 16Thread/8-Core CPU is minimum 5960X performance if not better actually. (Based on Cinebench R15) with the error fix disabled.

Can’t speak to how well the IMC is working as current samples are locked to low DRAM frequencies (2133MHz and lower) and of course this has an impact on performance.

As stated in the beginning, every week is progress and AMD is working at an unprecedented rate to get these ready by March.

You’re unlikely to see any high end boards for the CPUs prior to launch or at launch, simply because no vendors can commit to too much right now as plenty is changing at a rapid rate.

All overclocking is done via Overdrive, you can’t change any performance features at all in the BIOS (on to that next) at all.

BIOS or UEFI is actually built into the CPU, so only AMD can update the “BIOS” or microcode. All overclocking must take place within the Operating system

Right now it takes up to 30 minutes to clear the BIOS. If you remove the CPU and place it on another motherboard, it’ll have the same settings applied as on the previous board. So debugging is a nightmare

6850K SKU (May not be final designation) is wait for it…. $300 roughly. That’s 8 Cores and 16 Threads

AMD’s Hyper Threading is called SMU and it is ************ good. The same efficiency as Intel’s HT.

Performance is really good, be it SuperPi, Cinebench, 3DMark etc, it’s FPU performance is incredibly good and easily matching that of what Intel offers.

Current performance is staggering even though it is limited to 2133MHz (as mentioned before) and NorthBridge Frequency is limited to 2400MHz

There will be a nigher SKU than the 6850K, but it is a higher bin so it will certainly overclock better than 6850K and that may carry a premium price, but unlikely to be double.

There’s plenty of excitement from all board vendors about the platform, so we will see how it all pans out. (Especially with the hot mess that INTEL has in store for us H2 2017, that we can leave to another thread)

For Gaming, the CPU is neck and neck with INTEL, even at low res where CPU bound.

I can image a lot of this stuff is pretty accurate, especially the performance side of things given the fact that we’ve already seen some benches showing the Zen CPU on par with the Intel’s.

I’m not sure about the pricing though because this $300 price tag for the 8 core / 16 thread Zen based chip is really insane. I mean even if we add $50-$100 to the rumored price, that still makes the Core i7-6900K and all other chips look awful in terms of pricing. I guess we just have to wait and see on that. Only time will tell.

That is all we have regarding the latest AMD Zen rumors. As always, I would recommend to treat this with a grain of salt until we hear something official.