An engineering sample of a processor codenamed AMD Plum-MDS1 has been discovered in the database of the popular benchmark Geekbench. The chip, built on the next-generation Zen 6 architecture, demonstrated results that force a re-evaluation of expectations for 2025 mobile chips. Despite its early silicon status, the new product confidently outperformed current market flagships.

Architecture and Specifications

The tested sample is a hybrid solution with a 4+6 configuration. Experts assume this consists of 4 high-performance Zen 6 cores and 6 energy-efficient Zen 6c cores. In total, the processor features 10 cores and 20 threads.

The cache subsystem is particularly noteworthy. The chip is equipped with 10 MB of L2 cache and a substantial 32 MB of L3 cache. Such a volume of third-level memory is atypical for compact mobile AMD solutions of the current generation and indicates a serious architectural overhaul.

A key innovation is the support for the AVX-VNNI (FP16) instruction set. This is the first appearance of this technology in this architecture, which should significantly accelerate local work with artificial intelligence algorithms.

Benchmark Results

In synthetic tests, Plum-MDS1 showed the following results:

  • Single-core mode: 3,174 points.
  • Multi-core mode: 15,092 points.

For comparison, the engineering processor was 22% faster in single-core performance than the current 12-core flagship based on Zen 5 (Ryzen AI 9 HX 370). In multi-threaded load, the increase was about 13%.

Comparison with Competitors and Frequencies

The most striking fact of the leak concerns operating frequencies. During the tests, the chip ran at only 2.0 GHz. Even with this limitation, it outperformed the top-tier Ryzen AI Max+ 395 (Strix Halo) in single-core performance by more than 400 points. In the multi-core test, the sample lagged behind Strix Halo, which is logically explained by the lower core count.

These data confirm that the Zen 6 architecture will bring a significant increase in per-core performance, allowing AMD to dominate the mobile processor segment even at early stages of development.