AMD issues correction statement regarding Ryzen 7000 170W TDP and PPT data

AMD gave a glimpse of its upcoming Ryzen 7000 (Raphael) CPUs powered by the Zen 4 architecture at the Computex 2022 event. The company also talked about the accompanying Socket AM5 (LGA1718) and its chipsets. During this, one of the slides highlighting the features of AM5 mentioned support for 170W, though it wasn't mentioned whether this power was the thermal design power (TDP) or package power tracing (PPT). PPT is the actual maximum power any socket can deliver to a processor and is generally 1.35 times the TDP value.

When inquired about the matter, AMD had confirmed earlier to Paul Alcorn from Tom's Hardware that the 170W figure was indicating PPT and not TDP. This would imply that the maximum TDP for a Socket AM5 CPU could be ~125W.

In a recent interview with the PCWorld, AMD's Robert Hallock once again repeated this detail that the 170W figure was implying the PPT.

However, it looks like AMD had made a mistake perhaps due to some internal communication issue. The company has issued a new statement to Tom's Hardware and has confirmed this time that the 170W number is in fact TDP and not PPT. Here's what the AMD representative has stated:

AMD would like to issue a correction to the socket power and TDP limits of the upcoming AMD Socket AM5. AMD Socket AM5 supports up to a 170W TDP with a PPT up to 230W. TDP*1.35 is the standard calculation for TDP v. PPT for AMD sockets in the “Zen” era, and the new 170W TDP group is no exception (170*1.35=229.5).

This new TDP group will enable considerably more compute performance for high core count CPUs in heavy compute workloads, which will sit alongside the 65W and 105W TDP groups that Ryzen is known for today. AMD takes great pride in providing the enthusiast community with transparent and forthright product capabilities, and we want to take this opportunity to apologize for our error and any subsequent confusion we may have caused on this topic.

Like Socket AM4, which still has some life left as confirmed by AMD itself, the company also plans to make AM5 a multi-generation socket. Therefore, AMD explains that the 170W TDP will provide plenty of headroom for upcoming Ryzen generations for years to come. In fact, according to a leaked MSI slide, the upcoming Ryzen 7000 CPUs too could have SKUs featuring 170W TDP.

The slide also seems to confirm AMD's EXPO memory overclocking technology which had leaked earlier.

Source: Tom's Hardware via PCWorld (YouTube) | Image: Andreas Schiling (Twitter)