The company AMD prepared a nice surprise for its press conference today – except presentation of new APUs and Radeon 400 graphics cards based on the Polaris architecture, the manufacturer also praised the new Summit Ridge processor based on an entirely new Zen architecture.
Table of Contents
AMD Shows Zen Processor – Up To 8 Cores And 16 Threads
The new desktop processors are manufactured under 14 FinFET technology and are based on an entirely new Zen architecture, which is expected to deliver 40% more instructions executed per clock cycle (IPC).
Versions for desktop PCs (Codenamed Summit Ridge) will cooperate with the AM4 socket – what’s important is that, on the same socket you can also use new 7th Generation APUs, but the current stock coolers will not be compatible with it.
During the conference, Lisa Lu praised the engineering sample of the Summit Ridge CPU- presented model is equipped with 8 cores / 16 threads, so you can already see a clear distinction between the cores and threads (probably we will have to deal with the SMT system – Simultaneous Multithreading, not as current CMT models – Clustered Multithreading).
Work on processors based on Zen architecture began three years ago and later this year we will see the official launch – originally they will land for the desktop platform, but later also in servers and laptops.
Below you can see the picture of engineering sample of processor – ZEN will start sampling in a few weeks to selected partners, and in the third quarter to other partners.
AMD Summit Ridge Vs Intel Kaby Lake
AMD Summit Ridge | Intel Kaby Lake | |
---|---|---|
Segment | Enthusiast and Mainstream Desktop PCs | Enthusiast and Mainstream Desktop PCs |
Architecture | x86 Zen (+40% IPC compared to Excavator) | 7th Gen Kaby Lake (+10% IPC compared to Skylake) |
Manufacturing Process | 14nm | 14nm |
Max CPU Cores/Threads | 8/16 | 4/8 |
GPU Architecture | N/A | Next Gen HD Graphics |
TDP | TBD | Up to 95W |
Socket | AM4 | LGA 1151 |
PCH | Promontory | Z270 |
Memory Support | DDR4 | DDR4 |
Launch | Q4 2016 | Q4 2016 |