Just when Intel started getting some positive press for its 8th-gen Core processors with Radeon Vega graphics after having taken a lot of heat over its laissez faire attitude regarding the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities, AMD has managed to turn the spotlight squarely on itself.
The company has announced the roadmap for a bunch of exciting new products including 2nd-gen Threadripper, Ryzen Mobile APUs, Zen+, Zen 2 and Zen 3 processors and its next-generation 7nm (and 7 nm+) Vega GPUs. Here’s a closer look at what we can expect from AMD in 2018 and beyond.
2nd-gen Threadripper
AMD said that the 2nd-gen Threadripper CPUs will hit the market in the second-half of this year, but didn’t give out any further info. It’s also likely that Intel will release Coffee Lake-X at the same time, like it did in 2017, to tackle the Threadripper threat.
Zen+ (Ryzen 2000-series)
Called ‘Zen+’, the latest iteration of AMD’s Ryzen lineup will be built using a new 12nm process instead of the current 14nm process and, will be launched this April. It’s not entirely clear, however, if Ryzen Mobile or EPYC platform will also be updated as part of the refresh, though it remains unlikely since it’s not mentioned in the roadmap here.
Zen 2 and Zen 3
Zen 2 and Zen 3 will bring a major micro-architectural shift from the Zen/Zen+ chips. It will be built upon a new 7nm process and will be ready to hit prime-time in 2019, while Zen 3, built on an improved 7nm+ process, will only start rolling out the following year.
Ryzen 5 2400G and Ryzen 3 2200G
Next up are two new budget-friendly Ryzen chips that are being added to the existing lineup. While AMD CEO Lisa Su said that the company is going all-out in its attempt to woo the high-performance market with Threadripper 2.0, the company is not ignoring the budget gaming market. The all-new Ryzen 5 2400G and Ryzen 3 2200G APUs will offer quad-core, high-frequency processors at the $169 and $99 price-points respectively. Both will start shipping next month.
7nm Vega and Navi Graphics
Alongside its CPU lineups, AMD has also outlined the roadmap for its Vega and next-gen Navi graphics chips. While the first-gen 7nm Vega chips are expected to hit the market this year itself, they will be restricted to AMD’s machine-learning customers for the most part.
AMD didn’t give out a lot of details about its 7nm graphics chips based on the ‘Navi’ architecture, but they are unlikely to hit the market this year. As can be seen from the slide below, the company also announced a “next-gen” chip based on an improved 7nm+ process, but again, there’s no ETA for it either.
But Wait, There’s more
In addition to all of the above, AMD has also made a whole bunch of new announcements at the event, including, price cuts for current-generation Ryzen processors and 400-Series chipsets for AM4 Motherboards (will be compatible with Zen+ chips). The company also announced some new Laptops powered by Ryzen Mobile, as reported by Anandtech. In addition to the existing HP Envy x360 Ryzen laptop, notebooks such as the Lenovo Ideapad 720S, and the Acer Swift 3, Dell Inspiron 5000, and other HP devices will be released this year.
