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AMD-Wafer-Porn

AMD had a banner year in 2017, with the successful ramp and launch of its Ryzen CPU and APUs in desktop (CPUs) and mobile (APUs). Meanwhile, the visitor's new Vega GPU as well gave AMD competitive silicon in college-end desktop graphics and machine learning — both fields it had all but completely ceded to Nvidia. The chip designer wants to sustain that momentum through 2018 and its kick off CES with a broad range of announcements.

According to AMD'due south CTO, Mark Papermaster, AMD is now edifice its 2nd-generation Zen core. This second generation Zen core is not the same every bit Zen 2, and we volition refer to information technology as Zen+ to avert defoliation. Zen+ is built on 12nm and launches on April 18 alongside a new X470 chipset. Continue in listen, what AMD and GlobalFoundries are calling 12nm is ameliorate understood as a refinement and comeback of GF's existing 14nm technology. According to Papermaster, 12nm offers a ten per centum operation improvement over 14nm, with additional opportunities to optimize performance per watt.

AMD hasn't disclosed anything about enhancements to either CPU or chipset, simply we're expecting the visitor to employ that ten percent performance gain to push 2nd Generation Ryzen clock speeds upward slightly, or to improve all-core Turbo speeds on its top-cease fries. Papermaster does mention that Zen+ will launch with support for Precision Boost 2.

Papermaster-Zen2

Equally for the actual Zen two, AMD has completed the pattern already, but gives no formal appointment for product introduction. GlobalFoundries has previously indicated it wants to exist in 7nm production by the end of 2018, which would foursquare with a 2019 introduction for Zen 2. There'due south no information on how much Zen 2 volition meliorate performance over Zen.

Before Zen+ arrives on Apr 18, AMD will launch Zen APUs for desktops and flesh out its mobile product family. The new desktop APUs (2400G and 2200G) volition fill a hole in AMD's product family that'due south been weakening Ryzen 3. Unlike Intel'southward Core i3, Ryzen 3 has no integrated GPU. The 2400G will offer 4 cores, eight threads, and a iii.9GHz max heave, while the 2200G is four cores, iv threads, and a 3.7GHz max heave.

In mobile, AMD will launch two new Ryzen 3 SKUs on January 9. The Ryzen 3 2300U is a 4C/4T flake with a 3.4GHz boost clock and a 2GHz base with 6 CU units, while the Ryzen 2200U is a 2C/4T flake with a ii.5GHz base clock, 3.4GHz boost, and just 3 CUs. That core seems primed to get upward confronting Intel's Apollo and Gemini Lake, which offer four Atom cores and fairly weak GPU operation.

AMD'due south Vega roadmap is a bit less clear. The company specifically stated its first 7nm hardware will be a Vega GPU designed specifically for machine learning workloads, with cards sampling in 2018. There's no discussion of any down-marketplace Vega introductions that would push button it into Polaris' territory, and it'south not articulate if AMD will bring its 7nm Vega to market place as a consumer production.

Papermaster-Vega

AMD is besides planning a new Radeon Mobile family with HBM2 on-dice, but revealed zero specific near these SKUs. We've put together a slideshow with AMD'south major announcements and CPU information, shown below. Each slide can be clicked on to enlarge and open up it in a new window.

Overall, AMD's CES 2018 was mostly about filling in the cracks and corners where its 2017 Zen CPUs and APUs didn't quite reach, with a modest desktop refresh in Zen+. That's more than or less what we expected. With a pocket-size clock bump, Zen+ should do well through the year, and 7nm offers AMD the chance to deliver a meliorate Vega than it landed with 14nm.