Speculation: Zen 4 (EPYC 4 "Genoa", Ryzen 7000, etc.)

[turtile]

Has there been any new info on when Zen4 (Ryzen) might be hitting the retail market?
There was noise for a while about 'Warhol' which made me think 2022 - but not many rumors have popped of recently (AFAICT).

Probably March or April 2022.

 

[Tuna-Fish]

I think they will probably officially launch in late December of this year, just to maintain the release per year schedule, but with actual availability only next year.

 

[Gideon]

I think they will probably officially launch in late December of this year, just to maintain the release per year schedule, but with actual availability only next year.

Not going to happen. AMD never had release per year, but release per roughly 15 months.

• Zen 1 was released in February 2017
• Zen+ in May 2018
• Zen 2 in July 2019
• Zen 3 in November 2020

One could always hope for miracles and stubbornly deny precedents, but it's way more probable to expect February/March release at the earliest with wide availability not before Q2. After all, if it arrives sooner it's a nice surprise.

Based on the track-record of the last 4 years, and what AMD higher ups have said: "keeping the 12-15 month cadence", e.g. not changing anything, there isn't any rational reason to expect anything in 2021.

Based on what's currently happening with foundries and Apple hogging 5nm, AMD needing to counter Saphhire Rapid in servers (with DDR5 and PCIe 5 solution of their own) I'd not be surprised if actual wide availability of consumer CPUs will only be later in the latter half 2022.

 

[uzzi38]

Oh and before anyone wonders about where Milan is - it's been ready to launch for a while. ServeTheHome has had a sample since like November last year. AMD have held off it's launch simply because they can with Ice Lake-SP being so late.

Lets them fix up the smaller platform bugs related to new features whilst also building up more supply. The delay of Milan's global availability launch doesn't mean we should expect Genoa to be pushed back. Rather, Milan and Genoa will probably have to co-exist for a while anyway, the same way ICL-SP and SPR will for at least a couple of years.

 

[jpiniero]

Oh and before anyone wonders about where Milan is - it's been ready to launch for a while. ServeTheHome has had a sample since like November last year. AMD have held off it's launch simply because they can with Ice Lake-SP being so late.

You don't think they aren't just selling to Cloud? Intel's sales to "Enterprise & Government" was down 40% last quarter. And while I suppose those groups could still be buying AMD I think it's more likely they aren't buying period. If you are selling to just 7 or 8 customers you don't really need to make all the details public.

 

[moinmoin]

You don't think they aren't just selling to Cloud? Intel's sales to "Enterprise & Government" was down 40% last quarter. And while I suppose those groups could still be buying AMD I think it's more likely they aren't buying period. If you are selling to just 7 or 8 customers you don't really need to make all the details public.

Yeah this. I don't remember where I read this, but it appears plenty Milan chips are already being shipped to cloud partners. AMD may just wait until availability for Milan is better before launching it publicly.

 

[Ajay]

I guess I was just trying to see if there were any credible rumor floating around on a release date (sometime in 2021 seems the most obvious).
Also, whether or not Warhol is actually real or not. Haven't seen any updates on either. Thanks for the guesses.

 

[moinmoin]

Since after the launch of Zen 2 AMD is a very tight ship indeed. Aside the one leaked roadmap we really have only patent applications (which won't help with dates, lol) to go by anymore. AMD's CES keynote this year was really disappoint regarding new information as well.

 

[Ajay]

Since after the launch of Zen 2 AMD is a very tight ship indeed. Aside the one leaked roadmap we really have only patent applications (which won't help with dates, lol) to go by anymore. AMD's CES keynote this year was really disappoint regarding new information as well.

Yes, very disappointing. But, they have proved themselves to the enthusiast community; now they just need to feed internal roadmaps to the higher ups at OEMs. Boo hoo. Hopefully, they will throw up a bone at some investor conference call (since they are 'public').

 

[soresu]

Based on what's currently happening with foundries and Apple hogging 5nm, AMD needing to counter Saphhire Rapid in servers (with DDR5 and PCIe 5 solution of their own) I'd not be surprised if actual wide availability of consumer CPUs will only be later in the latter half 2022.

Especially when they have already reserved a ton of chips for a supercomputer order which is likely Zen4 + CDNA2.

 

[moinmoin]

Especially when they have already reserved a ton of chips for a supercomputer order which is likely Zen4 + CDNA2.

Great point. El Capitan was announced to be deployed in late 2022, so we can expect consumer Zen 4 chips to launch sometime before. Let's see what's the time frame between Ryzen 5000 and the deployment of Frontier, that may well give us a first hint for the date of launch of a Zen 4 based successor.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I guess I was just trying to see if there were any credible rumor floating around on a release date (sometime in 2021 seems the most obvious).
Also, whether or not Warhol is actually real or not. Haven't seen any updates on either. Thanks for the guesses.

If Warhol exists, its launch window is getting pretty tight. Zen4/Raphael is probably Jan-Mar 2022.

 

[NTMBK]

Soooo... did they confirm SMT4 yet?

 

[moinmoin]

Soooo... did they confirm SMT4 yet?

Well... due to the scarcity of any info one could claim the probability is the same for all kinds of rumors, including SMT4.

 

[Justinus]

Pretty sure you're missing the connection here - AM5, DDR5, PCI-e 5, and yes, SMT5.

 

[DrMrLordX]

SMT5.

Mind blown.

I used to have a 5-cylinder car, too. Woulda gone nice with my future SMT5 Zen4.

 

[Ajay]

If Warhol exists, its launch window is getting pretty tight. Zen4/Raphael is probably Jan-Mar 2022.

Ugh! I forgot it was 2021 already, duh. So Zen4 for 2022 makes much more sense, Geez, I must have sounded like an idiot.
And, I agree about Warhol, at this point, seems like launching 'XT' variants late summer with +200 MHz higher clocks would suffice for a refresh.

 

[Ajay]

Soooo... did they confirm SMT4 yet?

Oh, you are going to invoke the presence of 'he who shall not be named'.

 

[Thunder 57]

Oh, you are going to invoke the presence of 'he who shall not be named'.

He who shalt not be names has been mysteriously absent for awhile. I'm OK with it. Maybe they finally realized they didn't know crap.

 

[CHADBOGA]

He who shalt not be names has been mysteriously absent for awhile. I'm OK with it. Maybe they finally realized they didn't know crap.

I doubt that is why they are absent.

 

[amrnuke]

I doubt that is why they are absent.

Also, there's a suspiciously similar username who has been posting as well. Though given post content I'm not sure any relation but it's interesting!

 

[NostaSeronx]

Don't forget about Zen4 supporting RISC-V, with AMD joining RISC-V in 2021. 2+0+2+1 = 5 aka roman numeral V!!!

DirectPath Instructions = RISC-V G, B, T, P, V, etc.
FastPath Instructions = Bland ole x86.

DirectPath instructions get decoded in the processor core, while FastPath instructions get decoded into DirectPath CISC-encoded ops in the processor front-end.

Q extension converts into truncated x87 80-bit.
P extension converts into MMX/SSE.
V extension converts into SSE2-AVX256.

Enhanced range only appears in supported RISC-V operating systems and programs.

 

[Tarkin77]

https://chipsandcheese.com/2021/02/05/amds-past-and-future-cpus/ popped up on Reddit...

Zen 4: "over 25% IPC gain" (up to 40%, Genoa 29% faster than Milan with same number of cores)
Zen 5: jump as large as from Piledriver to Zen 1. Zen 5’s original design goal was 2.5 to 3 times the IPC of Zen 1

 

[uzzi38]

Just as a reminder, let me post the author of the article's own words here. Grain of salt as always.

 

[Tarkin77]

Just as a reminder, let me post the author of the article's own words here. Grain of salt as always.

who is this "cheese"???