According to a report by Phoronix, (opens in new tab) AMD has released a new set of Linux patches for supporting a mysterious new processor with the “Pink Sardine” codename. The patches aim to support version 6.2 of AMD’s Audio Coprocessor unit (ACP) on Pink Sardine. Unfortunately, we cannot fully confirm what Pink Sardine is, but it appears to refer to AMD’s upcoming Ryzen 7000 mobile APUs codenamed Phoenix.
What we know for sure, however, is that Pink Sardine will support version 6.2 of AMD’s audio chip built into its microprocessors. It is the latest version we’ve seen to date, with current Ryzen 6000 (Rembrandt) chips supporting ACP version 6.0. However, no current AMD microarchitecture supports version 6.2, so Pink Sardine must be referring to a future CPU architecture.
AMD’s previous codenames also point to Pink Sardine being Phoenix. For example, Green Sardine was the codename for Ryzen 5000 (Cezanne) mobile APUs, and Yellow Carp was the codename for Ryzen 6000. With all this in mind, it appears almost certain that Pink Sardine is referring to Ryzen 7000 mobile.
For reference, AMD’s fishy codenames represent the company’s Linux enablement work for that architecture. You’ll commonly see multiple codenames for a single CPU generation. Specifications surrounding AMD’s Ryzen 7000 mobile processors remain a complete mystery. But with Ryzen 7000 desktop still in its preparation phase, it is expected that AMD will keep its mobile variant under wraps until after the desktop launch.
But, we expect Ryzen 7000 mobile to share a lot of similarities with Ryzen 7000 for desktop. For example, the Zen 4 architecture should come back with Ryzen 7000, with more powerful RDNA2 integrated graphics options. We also suspect AMD will be re-implementing all of its Ryzen 6000 Zen 3+ power enhancements back into Ryzen 7000 mobile, which should bring its power savings up to par — if not better than Ryzen 6000 while providing more performance at the same time .
Ryzen 7000 desktop already has some of these enhancements taken from Zen 3+, but they are reportedly limited to the I/O die alone. As a result, it is not a stretch to think that AMD will add both core and I/O die enhancements to its mobile version.
Again though, Pink Sardine is not fully confirmed to be Ryzen 7000 mobile, so take this info with a grain of salt. But there’s a huge chance it is based on previous AMD codenames.