AMD Zen specs rumors: Processor will be faster than Intel Core i5? Boasts of scalabiity?

The past few months have seen Advanced Micro Device (AMD) keeping vital information regarding its latest AMD Zen processor under wraps. Nevertheless, talks are rife that the highly anticipated processor will be faster than the Intel Core i5 and boasts of scalability.

On Wednesday, PC World conducted an interview with AMD's chief technical officer (CTO) Mark Papermaster after the company's demonstration of the Zen processor. According to Papermaster, the Zen has been in development for not more than four years, and as much as possible, they will try to make its prices competitive with Intel products. He said they "don't want any of that fear, uncertainty, and doubt" on the part of consumers once the AMD Zen is officially released.

Papermaster likewise shared that the AMD Zen will scale, which means consumers can get it into a laptop with reasonable power.

"It's designed for scalability. The key points I made are twofold: microarchitecture and design methodologies. I showed you this whole history of our prior cores; there was no FinFET. What I showed you was a bigger gap in [our] foundry versus Intel's foundry capabilities. That drove us to really hone the techniques in energy efficiency. We applied all of that to the Zen core design. Then we leveraged FinFET. That combination gives us tremendous scale."

Little is known about the AMD Zen as far as specs go. The electronics company is keeping mum about the processor's overall clock performance and speed. However, an engineering sample conducted recently is giving tech savvies an idea how fast and competitive the AMD Zen is compared, particularly, to Intel processors.

WCCF Tech reported the benchmark results showing the AMD Zen is indeed faster than the Intel Core i5 processor. Proof of this is the Order Part Number (OPN) of the leaked sample, which is 1D2801A2M88E4_32/28_N. Apparently, this unique identifier of the AMD Zen slyly reveals the base and turbo clocks of the processor. The numbers following the long series of numbers, 32/28, show that the Zen processor boasts of a 3.2 GHz turbo clock and a 2.8 GHz base clock.

The AMD Zen's capability to battle it out against Intel Core on a clock-for-clock basis is proof of how impressive and remarkable the Zen processor is. Many tech-savvy consumers are hoping it gets released soon so they can experience its performance firsthand.