AMD has initiated the release of its Zen 6 architecture, starting with the new generation of Epyc server processors. The Epyc 9996 model, featuring 256 Zen 6c cores, was recently evaluated in Geekbench 7, providing early performance data for the upcoming architecture.
In single-threaded testing, the Epyc 9996 achieved a score of 2847 points. When compared to the Ryzen 7 9700X, which scores 2444 points at a fixed frequency of 4.1 GHz, the new architecture demonstrates a performance increase of approximately 17%.
Additional testing indicates that the Zen 6 architecture delivers single-threaded performance gains ranging from 8.6% to 25.7% over previous iterations. These results suggest a potential 10–20% improvement for future consumer-grade Ryzen processors.
While Zen 6c cores are designed to operate at lower frequencies, they share the same fundamental architecture as standard cores. Industry reports suggest that the maximum core count for upcoming consumer Ryzen chips may increase from 16 to 24.
