Can’t wait for AMD’s next-gen Ryzen CPUs? Zen 6 sighting hints they could arrive late in 2026, possibly packing a dream gaming chip

Zen 6 CPUs now have “preliminary support” in a system monitoring toolTypically that support comes into play around 12-18 months before releaseGiven that, we could be looking at Zen 6 chips going on sale late in 2026

AMD’s Zen 6 desktop processors are more fully on the radar now in that the chips have been mentioned in a popular piece of software, hinting that they may not be too far away.

Things have been pretty quiet around the next-gen Ryzen chips to date, but the Zen 6 range has just shown up in AIDA64, a widely used system monitoring and diagnosis tool (that offers a famous stress test for CPUs).

As Tom’s Hardware spotted, HXL posted on X to share the release notes for the new beta version of AIDA64, which state that it brings in “preliminary support” for next-gen AMD desktop (and laptop) processors.

This is just the groundwork for supporting the next range of Ryzen CPUs, but it suggests that the follow-up chips to AMD’s Ryzen 9000 processors are inbound sooner than the rumor mill previously believed.

Typically, this kind of early support for a new range of CPUs will arrive in AIDA64 around 12 to 18 months before the silicon in question is available to buy.

Analysis: A new gaming champ CPU on the horizon?

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

That means we could conceivably witness AMD reveal its Zen 6 desktop processors at Computex 2026, in around a year, perhaps ahead of a release date for late in 2026, or maybe early in 2027. These chips are codenamed Medusa Ridge, and rumors around them claim we could see CPUs that have chiplets with 12 cores on board (as opposed to Ryzen 9000, which has 8 cores on its chiplets).

If that’s true – and it’s a sizeable if, of course – we could see the mainstream X3D processor for the next generation offer 12 cores that are all boosted by the 3D V-Cache (in a single chiplet), making that a potentially heavyweight gaming offering. The current workhorse Ryzen 9800X3D has 8 cores that can tap that crucial cache – and yes, the higher-tier Ryzen 9 X3D chips have more cores still, but don’t forget that only half of those cores get access to the 3D V-Cache (as it’s placed atop just one of the two chiplets these CPUs feature).

In theory, the name of the next series of desktop CPUs from AMD will be Ryzen 10000, although given the possibility of mistaking that for Ryzen 1000, it’s perhaps possible Team Red might divert to another naming convention.

Finally, it’s worth making it clear that I’m talking about the arrival timeframe for desktop processors here, not mobile chips. APUs for laptops are rumored to be called Medusa Point, and they likely won’t debut until sometime after the desktop offerings land, but expect them to be equally as promising.

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