According to AMD, the upcoming Ryzen core requires 10 percent less space than Kaby Lake cores from Intel although Kaby Lake is already using a refined version of Intel’s 14nm process that was first introduced with Skylake. In theory this should allow AMD to produce Ryzen more cost effective than Intel can manufacture Kaby Lake cores.


Looking at the raw data, we see that AMD's Ryzen cores could be slightly cheaper to produce than the Intel counterparts. AMD’s Ryzen quad core comes with 512KB of L2 cache while Intel’s Kaby Lake features 256KB. Despite the fact that there is only half the amount of L2 cache on Kaby Lake based chips the Die requires significantly more space.

It’s certainly good to see that AMD is making good use of Die space but at this point it’s too early to jump to conclusions. Apparently saving space on silicon means more chips can be squeezed on one wafer and that in the end results in improved cost effectiveness.




Source: OC3D