AMD Zen 6 will have 6-Core processors – Intel ditched its budget tier, AMD isn’t

AMD’s next-generation Ryzen processors on the Zen 6 architecture are expected sometime in late 2026 or early 2027, and a new leak from insider HXL — posting as @9550pro on X — fills in a piece of the picture that earlier reports left blank: the full core count spread. According to HXL’s data, the Zen 6 lineup will cover configurations from 6 to 24 cores, including single-chiplet models at 6, 8, 10, and 12 cores, plus dual-chiplet variants at 16 (8+8), 20 (10+10), and 24 (12+12) cores. The 24-core ceiling had already surfaced in previous leaks; the 6-core floor had not, and its inclusion carries strategic significance given how Intel handled its own recent lineup decisions.

HXL has a credible track record on AMD and Intel hardware ahead of official announcements. HXL broke the RTX 4090 overclocking data, the Core i5-13400 specs, and Ryzen AI 300 iGPU details before their official reveals. That track record makes the Zen 6 core count data worth taking seriously. Pre-release specs can still shift before launch — but this source has earned the benefit of the doubt.

AMD is making a different bet than intel on Entry-Level

The most strategically interesting detail in the Zen 6 leak isn’t the 24-core ceiling — that was expected for AMD’s enthusiast positioning — it’s the 6-core floor. Intel’s approach with its current product stack has leaned toward retiring sub-8-core configurations from its leading-edge architecture, pushing budget buyers toward older generations or efficiency-focused mobile silicon rather than building fresh 6-core desktop parts on the latest process node. That decision simplifies Intel’s lineup and improves margins at the cost of leaving entry-level desktop buyers with less compelling upgrade paths.

AMD’s apparent choice to maintain 6-core Zen 6 variants runs contrary to that strategy, and it’s defensible from several angles. The AM4 platform’s success — covered in recent sales data showing B550 boards still topping Amazon bestseller charts in early 2026 — proved that AMD’s budget tier drives substantial volume even when premium tiers generate better margins. A 6-core Zen 6 CPU on AM5 would replace the aging Ryzen 5 5600X with something architecturally current — 48MB of L3 included. First-time AM5 buyers would get a real entry point, not a forced choice between last-gen silicon and an over-specced 8-core chip.

48MB L3 per chiplet changes the value equation across the entire stack

Earlier reporting had already surfaced the 48MB L3 cache figure per CCD (Core Complex Die) chiplet — a significant increase over the 32MB per CCD in current Zen 4 processors. That number deserves its own attention, because it reconfigures how AMD’s cache advantage works across the full lineup rather than concentrating it in X3D-suffixed premium models.

What 96MB without X3D actually means

With 48MB per chiplet in the base architecture, a single-chiplet 12-core Zen 6 chip ships with 48MB of L3 by default. The dual-chiplet 24-core model hits 96MB — no 3D V-Cache stacking required, unlike the Ryzen 7 7800X3D and 9800X3D today.

Titles that gained the most from X3D V-Cache — Microsoft Flight Simulator, Baldur’s Gate 3, strategy games with heavy AI workloads — could see meaningful gains on standard Zen 6 hardware. No X3D surcharge required. Whether AMD still releases X3D versions of Zen 6 on top of this elevated baseline is unconfirmed, but a 96MB or 128MB+ X3D configuration is plausible and would represent a substantial leap over today’s 3D V-Cache implementations.

What the symmetric Dual-Chiplet design tells us

The specific dual-chiplet configurations in the leak — 8+8, 10+10, 12+12 — indicate AMD is pursuing symmetric chiplet pairing rather than asymmetric designs like Intel’s Performance + Efficiency hybrid architecture. That’s consistent with AMD’s existing chiplet approach on Zen 4, where high-core-count Ryzen 9 models combine two identical CCDs rather than mixing different core types on one package. Symmetric designs simplify scheduling for the operating system — both Windows 11 and Linux can treat all cores as equivalently capable, avoiding the thread prioritization complexity that Intel’s hybrid architecture requires. For gaming workloads particularly, where frame consistency depends on predictable core behavior, symmetric chiplet designs have historically delivered cleaner performance than heterogeneous alternatives.

The 10-core single-chiplet and 20-core dual-chiplet configurations are less conventional — AMD’s current lineup skips 10-core desktop chips entirely — and suggest that Zen 6’s CCD might shift from 8 cores per chiplet to a maximum of 12, enabling the 10-core binned variant and the 20-core dual-chiplet configuration that don’t exist in the current architecture’s geometry.

Release timeline remains genuinely uncertain

HXL’s leak provides topology data but no confirmed release window, and the “late 2026 or early 2027” framing reflects real uncertainty rather than conservative hedging. AMD’s Zen 5 desktop chips launched in August 2024. A typical annual cadence points to Zen 6 desktop parts in mid-to-late 2026 — though AMD has slipped timelines before. Mobile silicon could also ship first, as it did with Zen 4 and the initial Ryzen 7000 rollout. Intel’s Nova Lake — the competing architecture expected in roughly the same timeframe — adds competitive pressure that could either accelerate AMD’s launch schedule or force the company to hold until Zen 6 is ready to compete on full specifications.

Until AMD announces Zen 6 officially, treating every detail in this leak as preliminary is the appropriate posture. Core counts, cache configurations, and chiplet designs can all change between architectural planning and tape-out, and pre-release leaks have been wrong about similar details before — including some of AMD’s own internal roadmap documents that showed specifications that didn’t survive to production.

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Sources: HXL / @9550pro on X, Videocardz