Well this is good news (AMD skipping 7nm for Ryzen 4000) - Rumour

[AluminumHaste]

This isn't confirmed, but I ran across this.

 

 

Only downside is that instead of having Ryzen 4000 around september it will be delayed until end of the year/early next year on 5nm.

God I hope it's true, Ryzen 4000 will be a BEAST!

[nbohr1more]

It does sound plausible. AMD kept all the best foundry experts when the split Global Foundries off and

they seem to be quite good at handling new process nodes.

I guess both AMD and Nvidia have some big GPU's coming out around September too. (more rumours)

[AluminumHaste]

Pretty sure Nvidia confirmed theirs, not sure about AMD though.

[jaxa]

The rumors are all over the goddamn place. Your rumor:

RUMOR: AMD Zen 3 Based Next-Gen Ryzen 4000 ‘Vermeer’ Desktop CPUs To Utilize TSMC’s 5nm Process Node, Launching at CES 2021

but then, hours later:

AMD ‘Warhol’ Ryzen 5000 CPUs Will Succeed Vermeer On The TSMC 7nm Process

Big discrepancy there, obviously. The first rumor is far better than we expected, the second is far worse.

What was previously expected was that Zen 3 (Ryzen 4000) would use a 7nm+ process. Then Zen 4 (Ryzen 5000) would use a 5nm process.

Later, it was reported that Zen 4 would use an exclusive/custom 5nm node (basically 5nm+) from TSMC. Which makes sense because AMD is now TSMC's biggest customer with a close relationship, and TSMC basically wants to nurture AMD so that it takes more business away from Intel. The custom node might be something like 5-15% better on performance or efficiency.

Zen 3 (Ryzen 4000) is the last release for the AM4 socket. It's not expected to boost core counts, so 16 cores for the top CPU again. I don't think it makes sense for it to suddenly be on a 5nm+ node. Zen 4 (Ryzen 5000) will be on the brand spanking new AM5 socket. That is when AMD should pull out the big guns. It will probably increase core counts, thanks to 5nm having around 84% more transistor density than 7nm. I would expect only a 50% core count increase, so a 24-core mainstream CPU, and up to 96 cores for Epyc or Threadripper. Maybe more cache or smaller chiplets. AMD could also introduce a 1 GB or larger "L4 cache" stacked on the I/O die with Zen 4 or Zen 5. Maybe only for Epyc at first.

One thing that could explain the madness would be a rapid introduction of Zen 4. For example, Zen 3 released around October, and Zen 4 released relatively soon in 2021 instead of end of the year 2021 or early 2022. The reasoning is that AMD can go ahead and release Zen 4 as quickly as it can since people who want Zen 3 probably want it as a last upgrade for their AM4 motherboards that they already own. Maybe the rumors are getting jumbled up because of a tight release schedule.

Now is the time to decide if you want AM4 or AM5 (unless you have a lot of money to burn). If you don't already have an AM4 system, maybe you should skip it and wait for AM5. Or you could wait and take advantage of price cuts and presumably cheaper DDR4 memory vs. the expensive DDR5 memory that AM5 will use. Just don't buy Intel.

Next time please use the 2016+ CPU/GPU News thread. I try to keep it fresh. I didn't think to put the latest rumors in there because they seem flimsy.

Edit, alternate explanations: youtu.be/UMJZOjbsMeE?t=1096

(BTW, Matisse 2 = the refreshed versions of 3900X, 3800X, and 3600X, expected to be announced in June and released on July 7)

Edited May 29, 2020 by jaxa

[peter_spy]

Meanwhile, Intel releases 10600K and 10600K chips that are still 14 nm

[OrbWeaver]

My motherboard died in December so I'm now running a Ryzen 3700X (with just the stock cooler) on a B450 motherboard and I love it.

Intel seem like the Levi's designer boxer shorts of the CPU world — you're just paying for the name, but the product isn't any better (and according to many reviews is actually worse). Unless AMD seriously drop the ball I can't see myself going back to Intel processors any time soon.

[peter_spy]

Intels still beat AMDs in games, but they are more expensive too. AMDs seem great at rendering, encoding and all that kind of stuff. This is where intel doesn't seem to keep up.

[HMart]

1 hour ago, peter_spy said:

Intels still beat AMDs in games, but they are more expensive too. AMDs seem great at rendering, encoding and all that kind of stuff. This is where intel doesn't seem to keep up.

IMO that advantage will slowly erode in the next versions of game engines, for decades programmers, optimized their code to Intel architecture, for obvious reasons, Intel has more users and that fact is still giving it a advantage, plus next to slightly faster IPC (Instructions per clock) makes it faster in many games, not by much but faster.  But now that AMD hardware is gaining more and more users, I believe that will change.

[AluminumHaste]

Now that both consoles are going with basically a custom Ryzen 3700X, that's going to push developers to use more CPU cores interior engines, which will benefit AMD CPUs on the desktop.

[jaxa]

3 hours ago, peter_spy said:

Intels still beat AMDs in games, but they are more expensive too. AMDs seem great at rendering, encoding and all that kind of stuff. This is where intel doesn't seem to keep up.

The Matisse 2 refresh CPUs could help AMD beat Intel in at least some games. Clock speed increases of 200-300 MHz. But they don't seem like a good value proposition.

Zen 3 later this year sounds like it will finally take the gaming crown, and hold on to it for a while.

[jaxa]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/antonyleather/2020/06/09/amds-zen-3-ryzen-will-definitely-be-7nm-rumors-of-5nm-quashed/

https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-4000-zen-3-vermeer-cpu-and-radeon-rx-big-navi-rdna-2-gpu-october-launch/

https://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Ryzen-7-3800XT-Upcoming-8-core-desktop-processor-spotted-with-the-NVIDIA-GeForce-RTX-2080-in-Ashes-of-the-Singularity-benchmark.469422.0.html

Rumor is dead. Zen 3 will be on 7nm (probably enhanced node), Zen 4 will be on 5nm.

RDNA 2 will be on 7nm. No confirmation of 5nm for RDNA 3 yet.

Launch of Zen 3 and RDNA 2 should still be around this October. Matisse 2 (Zen 2 refresh) could launch on July 7.

Edited June 11, 2020 by jaxa