To sustain its meteoric rise at the stock markets, AMD needs to keep investors convinced it has a competitive edge over Intel, even if it means investing heavily on short-term roadmap changes. According to an Elchapuzas Informatico article, AMD could be working on a new 10-core/20-thread processor for the AM4 platform, to compete with the upcoming Core i9-9900K 8-core/16-thread processor from Intel. The said processor is being labeled "Ryzen 7 2800X" and plastered over CineBench nT screenshots, where due to the sheer weight of its 10 cores, it tops the nT test in comparison to Intel's mainstream-desktop processors, including the 2P Xeon X5650 12-core/24-thread.

The Forbes article that cites the Elchapuzas Informatico, however, is skeptical that AMD could make such a short-sighted product investment. It believes that development of a 10-core die on existing "Zen+" architecture could warrant a massive redesign of the CCX (Zen Compute Complex), and AMD would only get an opportunity to do so when working on "Zen 2," which AMD still expects to debut by late-2018 on its EPYC product line. We, however, don't discount the possibility of a 10-core "Zen+" silicon just yet. GlobalFoundries, AMD's principal foundry partner for CPUs, has given up on 7 nm, making the company fall back to TSMC to meet its 7 nm roadmap commitments. TSMC already has a long list of clientele for 7 nm, including high-volume contracts from Apple, Qualcomm, and NVIDIA. This could force AMD to bolster its existing lineup as a contingency for delays in 7 nm volume production.

Many of you might have noticed that the Ryzen 7 2800X wasn't part of the initial Ryzen 2000 Series launch yesterday. Jim Anderson, Senior Vice President at AMD, has hinted that AMD might release the Ryzen 7 2800X processor at a later date. The main reason for the move is that the current Ryzen 7 2700X and 2700 models already cover the performance and price points. Therefore, AMD doesn't see the need to release a more powerful model at this time. And they're not wrong. Our review of the Ryzen 7 2700X revealed that AMD's current flagship processor has surpassed Intel's Core i7-8700K in multi-threaded workloads while also closing the gap in single-threaded workloads. While Intel still has the advantage when it comes to gaming performance, the difference in performance is slim and gets even smaller as you climb the resolution ladder. Basically, the ball is in Intel's court right now. Whether the Ryzen 7 2800X see the light of the day is going to depend on Intel's response to the Ryzen 7 2700X.