First credible leak of an AMD Zen 6 processor pops up on Geekbench — ten-core CPU seems to have 32MB of L3 cache

CPU leaks are a dime a dozen, and if we reported on every one, we'd report on nothing else. This latest one from the ever-watchful BenchLeaks bot is pretty notable, though, because it appears to be an early leak for an AMD Zen 6-based "Medusa Point" processor. That'll be part of the next-generation mobile family; seemingly, it's a 28W ten-core CPU meant for laptops.

How do we know? Well, for starters, it's a ten-core processor, which simply isn't a configuration that exists outside of the Strix Point family, and this isn't that. Moreover, it's listed as running in an "AMD Plum-MDS1" system. "Plum" has previously been linked to the FP10 socket for next-generation AMD mobile parts, while "MDS1" is fairly evocative of "Medusa". Leakers have previously indicated that "MDS1" and "MDS2" would refer to the big and little Medusa Point processors, similar to Strix Point and Krackan Point.

Another key detail is the cache configuration. This ten-core CPU seems to have 32MB of L3 cache, which is simply not available on any of AMD's standard mobile processors. Chips that use the standard Zen CCDs, including the Ryzen AI Max and "Fire Range" desktop-on-laptop CPUs, have 32MB of L3 cache per CCD, but there's no way to have ten cores with one CCD as it stands. That alone pretty much marks this as a Zen 6 processor.

The CPU is identified as "AMD Eng Sample: 100-000001713-31_N". That long string of numbers is called an "OPN", or Ordering Part Number. You won't find that OPN in any public AMD database just yet, although WCCFTech points out that the boys over at Planet 3DNow have it in their list (albeit with no details.) You will find it if you search that number on the NBD Data shipping logs, though.

As spotted by Videocardz, this listing at NBD directly connects the "1713" OPN to Medusa Point, the FP10 BGA package, and a 28W TDP. Though curiously, the NBD listing describes 1713 as "4C4D", which would seem to imply that the chips have four Zen 6 cores and four Zen 6C dense cores. It's possible that AMD is taking a page from Intel's book with its next-generation parts and including a pair of low-power CPU cores in the processor I/O die; we have seen it leaked that Medusa Point will be a chiplet design, unlike Strix and Gorgon.

As far as the actual benchmark result goes, there's not much to take away from it. This is obviously an early engineering sample, and the clock rates are very low. There's simply no way 3nm parts are limited to circa 2 GHz clock rates in their final form. In fact, looking at the actual result data, while it peaked at just over 2 GHz, the chip was in the 1.39 GHz range for most of the testing. We're tempted to be impressed at the score it achieved in that context, but the more honest and practical truth is simply that it's too early to say anything.

AMD has committed to launching the Zen 6 architecture this year, but most likely, we're only going to see EPYC 'Venice' processors in 2026. Consumer parts, including the Medusa Point mobile chips as well as Olympic Ridge desktop parts, will probably come later, likely to be announced at CES next year, with a release shortly after. We're expecting Olympic Ridge to go head-to-head against Intel's Nova Lake, which looks like it will be a beast CPU; we can't wait for the showdown early next year.

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