That's Ryzen AF: Some Old AMD Chips Might Be Getting a 12nm Makeover

[harlan4096]

First-gen chips are popping up with AMD's second-gen 12nm "Zen+" Process

AMD's first-gen Ryzen processors are selling at all-time low pricing, but it turns out that some of these chips are filtering out into the hands of enthusiasts with an unexpected surprise: The 12nm process, which is more efficient and faster than the original manufacturing process used with AMD's freshman Ryzen chips.

The original Ryzen 5 1600 landed with six cores and twelve threads powered by the 14nm GlobalFoundries process, but a new "AF" version has appeared at retailers for a mere $85 and apparently comes with the 12nm Zen+ architecture.

AMD's second-gen Ryzen processors debuted with the new 12nm die, and while the new process didn't offer smaller transistors or a new grounds-up architecture, it did bring performance and efficiency gains compared to the original Ryzen's 14nm LPP process. AMD tweaked the Zen architecture, which it dubbed Zen+, to support higher frequencies, more sophisticated multi-core boost rates, and faster memory/caches that together yielded a ~3% increase in instruction per cycle (IPC) throughput.

All of these advances made the Ryzen 5 2600 a solid step forward over the 1600, and though it certainly isn't a given, it's logical to assume the AF versions of the Ryzen 5 1600 could benefit from some of those same advantages.

First, you need to look no further than the box, or the chip itself, to spot a new AF model. The original 14nm Ryzen 5 1600 models (released in 2017) come with the YD1600BBAEBOX product identifier, while the new models (released circa November 2019) come with the YD1600BBAFBOX part number.

As we can see in the picture above (posted by redditor u/_vogonpoetry to Imgur), the first line of code on the IHS of the processor now also ends in "AF" for the impacted parts. As you can see from the second image, which is of our original 1600 sample we received from AMD, the older version comes with "AE" at the end of the code.
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