Friday, May 19th 2017
AMD Ryzen 2000 Series Processors Based on Refined 14 nm Process
At its Analyst Day follow-up conference call, AMD confirmed that the company could build a new generation of Ryzen processors on 14 nm (albeit refined 14 nm) process, before transitioning to "Zen2," which will be built on the 7 nm process. As the first "Zen" based products built on the 14 nm process, the Ryzen "Summit Ridge" processors are based on the current-generation 14 nm FinFET process. AMD hopes to tap into a more refined version of this process before moving on to "Zen 2."
This could indicate that AMD's next generation of Ryzen processors, likely the Ryzen # 2xxx series, could be minor incremental updates to the current product stack, likely in the form of higher clock speeds or better energy-efficiency facilitated by the refined 14 nm process, but nothing major in the way of micro-architecture. Assuming the current Ryzen product stack, which will be augmented by Ryzen 3 series, Ryzen Pro series, and Ryzen APUs in the second half of 2017; last till mid-2018, one could expect a follow-up or refreshed Ryzen # 2xxx series run up to another year, before AMD makes a "leapfrog" upgrade to the 7 nm process with "Zen2," in all likelihood, by 2019.
This could indicate that AMD's next generation of Ryzen processors, likely the Ryzen # 2xxx series, could be minor incremental updates to the current product stack, likely in the form of higher clock speeds or better energy-efficiency facilitated by the refined 14 nm process, but nothing major in the way of micro-architecture. Assuming the current Ryzen product stack, which will be augmented by Ryzen 3 series, Ryzen Pro series, and Ryzen APUs in the second half of 2017; last till mid-2018, one could expect a follow-up or refreshed Ryzen # 2xxx series run up to another year, before AMD makes a "leapfrog" upgrade to the 7 nm process with "Zen2," in all likelihood, by 2019.
49 Comments on AMD Ryzen 2000 Series Processors Based on Refined 14 nm Process
Also, if AMD can manage to refine those 4c/8t CPU's far enough to pull 4.5 GHz from them, they could seriously threaten existence of 7700K...
That coupled with the ubiquity of 4000 MHz DRAM in 2018 will make them completely pull ahead of Intel. That is unless CoffeeLake turns out to be a decent upgrade (I don't think it will).
At this point we are all guessing, but no - Zen 2 will be a full upgrade. If you look at AMD's roadmap:
1. Late 2017 = 14nm+ Zen refresh. This indeed will just be a 5-10% clockspeed bump launched to keep AMD's advantage over Coffee Lake.
2) 2018 = 7nm Zen 2. Expect another 5% clockspeed bump, and some decent IPC increases (My guess is 10 - 20% higher IPC).
Remember that Piledriver launched just a year after Bulldozer and brought 15% higher IPC on the same process. There's no reasons Zen 2 couldn't do the same on 7nm; especially considering AMD Engineers have already said there are some obvious bottlenecks in the fabric, memory controller, and more that they will address.
What about that statement screams "MASSIVE IPC INCREASE!!!" to you?
I'd be surprised if we get anything beyond a fairly nice clock bump, frankly.
:toast:
Likely that is what it was always going to be, i think they already had a good plan layed out before zen launched, though their execution could have been better.
What I WOULD expect to see is maybe another 100mhz-200mhz top frequency, and better power usage, especially whilst within envelope (i.e. things you expect to see with a refined process).
Anything more than that would take either a fab drop, architectural improvements, or both IMO.
Maybe higher boosts, better overclocking and better power consumption.