Ok, let's start to become realist and not biasing Intel or AMD.
The situation of AMD is bad, However they have enough cash to land a last try.
Seeing the current situation... I see that:
- Zen alone will come at 2017, servers might get lucky and enters on Q4 2016 or Q1 2017
- Zen APU might come at H2 2017 let alone 2018. HBM2 will get.mainstream recently at 2H 2017.
- Intel Cannonlake will come at H2 2017 but considering how the desktop and laptop market are not in good shape and 10nm are still inmature, they might launch on servers first and few months later on desktop or even Q1 2018.
- Intel Kabylake is supposed to enter just on Q3 2016 to counter Pascal and Artic Islands (if there is not a shortage, Intel iGPU will get sodomized here)
Artic Islands and Pascal will come at any means by Q3 2016, but seeing that nVIDIA is using nVILiNK on HPC, the situation might say something from the greens on consumers. Artic might come with shortage BTW.
But anyways, the important thing is not that. Is that there might be a years empty on AMD CPU. They have 2 options:
- Release nothing, except the cards, and cut dramatically the prices of their current products
- Release the last generation of Bulldozer
We saw in leaks that AMD is doing the 2nd by releasing Bristol Ridge (Quads) and Stoney Ridge (low power duals)
Now we recieved lots of info that the socket used will be AM4. And the chips were supposed to be compatible with FM2.
However we saw also that Zen is using AM4 too... And seeing that is a HPC... And also, seeing that PGA is not good performer after all, AMD might move to LGA.
Also, AMD must test some of their iGPU advantage ... Because Tonga is already released on Kaveri. And Intel outmatched it.
Finally, 28nm already reached at their top with HDL. And HDL only works up to 35 watts... Bristol will go up to 95 w... And 14nm seems only made for Zen.
And there are rumors that AMD send an order to TSMC to do chips different than Artic.
Now my predictions about next year on AMD CPU comes:
- Bristol Ridge and Stoney Ridge will get released at 16nm made by TSMC
- It will come at Q2 or H2 2016 to compete Kabylake iGPU and to come with competitive CPU.
- Both chips will have a cut version of Artic Islands GPU, making the trope Roy debuted in Super Smash Bros and to explain the 40% GPU improvement.
- That means that AMD will go to have 10% advantage against Kabylake IGPU.
- Also that means that there won't be a low tier on dGPU from them since Artic Island minimun memory is 4Gb of HBM2 (nVIDIA will have a low tier card with 2GB on HBM1) and those chips are the new minimun.
- Both will use only DRR4 and LPDDR3 with high clocks (2133 on LPDDR3 and 3000 Mhz on DDR4)
- Since Zen is towards HPC and AMD will unify everything, AMD will move everything to LGA
- Bristol and Stoney are targeted to have Single Core Performance similar to Ivy Bridge and theorical Broadwell Multicore performance.
Now being specific on the Ridge family, except Summit.
- Bristol will be targeted to desktops and medium Steam machines.
It is suposed to get up to 95 Watts.
The max. GHZ avaliable might be up to 3.5 Ghz.
The brands will be A8, A10 and Fx (being the last one OCable)
Expecting from 10% up to 20% cost increase compared to the previous generation.
Goes to compete against Kabylake.
- Stoney will get to low cost machines, small factors machines and laptops replacing Carrizo and Carrizo-L.
It is supossed to have the range from 10 to 35 watts.
The max. GHZ avaliable might be up to 3.2 Ghz on turbo and 2.8 Ghz on normal work. Not hard to reach since It's a Dual Core.
The brands used could be E1 (or even Duron), E2 (Or Sempron), A4 (or even Athlon and A6 (don't think that Phenom will be used here) and all.of them won't be OCable
Expecting only up to 10 % cost increase on their chips compared to the previous gen.
Goes to compete Atom and Kabylake-U
And Well... That's my predictions by following AMD news. They don't have money, but they can't being stuck on the same tech.
The situation of AMD is bad, However they have enough cash to land a last try.
Seeing the current situation... I see that:
- Zen alone will come at 2017, servers might get lucky and enters on Q4 2016 or Q1 2017
- Zen APU might come at H2 2017 let alone 2018. HBM2 will get.mainstream recently at 2H 2017.
- Intel Cannonlake will come at H2 2017 but considering how the desktop and laptop market are not in good shape and 10nm are still inmature, they might launch on servers first and few months later on desktop or even Q1 2018.
- Intel Kabylake is supposed to enter just on Q3 2016 to counter Pascal and Artic Islands (if there is not a shortage, Intel iGPU will get sodomized here)
Artic Islands and Pascal will come at any means by Q3 2016, but seeing that nVIDIA is using nVILiNK on HPC, the situation might say something from the greens on consumers. Artic might come with shortage BTW.
But anyways, the important thing is not that. Is that there might be a years empty on AMD CPU. They have 2 options:
- Release nothing, except the cards, and cut dramatically the prices of their current products
- Release the last generation of Bulldozer
We saw in leaks that AMD is doing the 2nd by releasing Bristol Ridge (Quads) and Stoney Ridge (low power duals)
Now we recieved lots of info that the socket used will be AM4. And the chips were supposed to be compatible with FM2.
However we saw also that Zen is using AM4 too... And seeing that is a HPC... And also, seeing that PGA is not good performer after all, AMD might move to LGA.
Also, AMD must test some of their iGPU advantage ... Because Tonga is already released on Kaveri. And Intel outmatched it.
Finally, 28nm already reached at their top with HDL. And HDL only works up to 35 watts... Bristol will go up to 95 w... And 14nm seems only made for Zen.
And there are rumors that AMD send an order to TSMC to do chips different than Artic.
Now my predictions about next year on AMD CPU comes:
- Bristol Ridge and Stoney Ridge will get released at 16nm made by TSMC
- It will come at Q2 or H2 2016 to compete Kabylake iGPU and to come with competitive CPU.
- Both chips will have a cut version of Artic Islands GPU, making the trope Roy debuted in Super Smash Bros and to explain the 40% GPU improvement.
- That means that AMD will go to have 10% advantage against Kabylake IGPU.
- Also that means that there won't be a low tier on dGPU from them since Artic Island minimun memory is 4Gb of HBM2 (nVIDIA will have a low tier card with 2GB on HBM1) and those chips are the new minimun.
- Both will use only DRR4 and LPDDR3 with high clocks (2133 on LPDDR3 and 3000 Mhz on DDR4)
- Since Zen is towards HPC and AMD will unify everything, AMD will move everything to LGA
- Bristol and Stoney are targeted to have Single Core Performance similar to Ivy Bridge and theorical Broadwell Multicore performance.
Now being specific on the Ridge family, except Summit.
- Bristol will be targeted to desktops and medium Steam machines.
It is suposed to get up to 95 Watts.
The max. GHZ avaliable might be up to 3.5 Ghz.
The brands will be A8, A10 and Fx (being the last one OCable)
Expecting from 10% up to 20% cost increase compared to the previous generation.
Goes to compete against Kabylake.
- Stoney will get to low cost machines, small factors machines and laptops replacing Carrizo and Carrizo-L.
It is supossed to have the range from 10 to 35 watts.
The max. GHZ avaliable might be up to 3.2 Ghz on turbo and 2.8 Ghz on normal work. Not hard to reach since It's a Dual Core.
The brands used could be E1 (or even Duron), E2 (Or Sempron), A4 (or even Athlon and A6 (don't think that Phenom will be used here) and all.of them won't be OCable
Expecting only up to 10 % cost increase on their chips compared to the previous gen.
Goes to compete Atom and Kabylake-U
And Well... That's my predictions by following AMD news. They don't have money, but they can't being stuck on the same tech.