Polish news outlet Benchmark.pl received a statement from AMD that sheds some light on the recent rumor of a Ryzen 5000 refresh. According to the AMD spokesperson, there is indeed a new stepping for Vermeer, but it’s less significant than we initially thought.
Unlike Intel, AMD doesn’t use the term stepping for its processors. Instead, the chipmaker prefers the term “revision,” which is just another word for a similar idea. Current Ryzen 5000 chips are on the B0 revision. Apparently, AMD plans to transition to the B2 revision over the next period of six months. The B2 parts will not offer any new functionality or improved performance, laying to rest the speculation of the XT-series.
AMD has confirmed the statement to Tom’s Hardware, and also provided an English-language translation:
“In continuous efforts to enhance our manufacturing and logistics capabilities, AMD is gradually transitioning the AMD Ryzen 5000 Series desktop processors to a ‘B2’ revision over the next 6 months. There are no feature, function, or performance enhancements to the B2 revision, and no BIOS update is required.”
Normally, chipmakers put out a new stepping or revision when they’ve discovered minor bugs or new ways to improve the design and optimize yields. However, Ryzen 5000’s jump from the B0 revision to the B2 revision suggests that the changes are very minor. Obviously, the AMD spokesperson won’t reveal what has been changed. AMD recently confirmed that its Predictive Store Forwarding (PSF) technology could turn into a security liability for Zen 3 processors. Perhaps the new B2 revision comes with mitigations for PSF, but that’s just speculation on our part.
Although we won’t see faster Ryzen 5000 processors on the market, there is still good news for consumers. The B2 revision will seemingly help AMD improve the production and availability for the company’s Ryzen 5000 processors. This means that we may finally see the pricing for Zen 3 stabilize, and consumers might find the sought-after processors at their MSRP in the not so far future.
Update, May 19, 12:17 p.m. ET: Added confirmation and English-language translation from AMD.