AMD sheds light on its upcoming high-performance EPYC datacentre and Ryzen processors

AMD announced the next phase of its long-term growth strategy focused on delivering products and technologies for PCs, immersive devices, and datacenters.

"We are entering the next phase of our growth strategy through ramping our phenomenal new products across a diverse set of markets. Our long-term technology roadmaps position AMD to take advantage of the major shifts in the technology industry and deliver significant financial returns," said AMD President and CEO Dr. Lisa Su.

DatacenterPreviously codenamed "Naples", the new family of high-performance EPYC processors for cloud-based and traditional on-premise datacenters will deliver the "Zen" x86 processing engine scaling up to 32 physical cores. With its high core count, superior memory bandwidth, and support for high-speed input/output (I/O) channels in a single chip, EPYC aims to revolutionize the dual-socket server market while simultaneously reshaping expectations for single-socket servers.

“We believe that this new product line-up has the potential to reshape significant portions of the datacenter market with its unique combination of performance, design flexibility, and disruptive TCO,” said Forrest Norrod, senior vice president and general manager of Enterprise, Embedded & Semi-Custom Products.

The first EPYC-based servers will launch in June.

Client Compute

AMD's upcoming consumer and commercial Ryzen processors leverage the company's high-performance x86 "Zen" core architecture to deliver advanced feature sets, increased efficiency, and leadership performance on today's most demanding PC workloads.

Upcoming AMD client compute processors include:

Consumer desktop PC solutions- Ryzen Threadripper, a "Zen"-based CPU with up to 16-cores and 32-threads with a new platform with expanded memory and I/O bandwidth, designed for the High-End Desktop (HEDT) market to fulfill the insatiable desire for more cores and threads that permeates the extreme desktop market. It is scheduled for summer 2017. Ryzen 3 desktop CPUs are scheduled for availability in Q3 2017.

AMD provided an ecosystem update on its in-market Ryzen desktop processors – Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5 – noting that it expects Ryzen-powered Windows-based systems from the top five OEMs to launch in Q2 2017.

Consumer notebook PC solutions- Ryzen Mobile APUs (codenamed "Raven Ridge") integrate a 4-core, 8-thread "Zen"-based CPU and high-performance "Vega" graphics to deliver an expected 50 percent increase in CPU performance and over 40 percent better graphics performance, at half the power of its previous generation. Launching in the second half of 2017, Ryzen Mobile APUs are designed for premium 2-in-1s, ultraportables, and gaming form factors.

Commercial PC solutions- Targeted for commercial, enterprise, and public sector implementation, Ryzen PRO processors are designed to deliver powerful multi-threaded performance for premium business PCs with workstation-class performance, state-of-the-art silicon-level security, and reliable solutions with enterprise-class support and top-to-bottom manageability. Ryzen PRO desktop solutions are slated for availability in the second half of 2017. Ryzen PRO mobile is planned for first half of 2018.

Technology

Detailing its next-generation processor, graphics, and platform technologies that will power future high-performance server, client, graphics, and semi-custom products, AMD said it will follow up its current-generation "Zen" architecture with the 7nm "Zen 2" and "Zen 3" CPU architectures that combine smarter design with process technology advances and are expected to enable significant performance and performance-per-watt gains.

AMD plans to follow its "Vega" architecture with the introduction of "Navi" and its subsequent next-gen architecture, both of which are planned to be built using 7nm process technology.

In addition to adopting advanced transistor nodes, AMD will use a combination of on-chip integration, software, and system design engineering innovations to continue to create smarter, more efficient architecture designs to achieve improved performance and energy efficiency into the future.

Starting with new 2017 product introductions, future AMD products are also planned to harness the power of breakthrough AMD Infinity Fabric technology to efficiently create highly-scalable SoCs and platforms that meet the growing demand for high-performance compute and graphics technologies.

"Our engineering focus remains on delivering a steady drumbeat of new high-performance CPU and GPU architectures that build on the strong foundations we have set with 'Zen' and 'Polaris' to drive broader adoption of our products," said Mark Papermaster, senior vice president and chief technology officer, AMD. "Infinity Fabric is the secret sauce within each of our products that allows us to bring together our leadership x86 CPUs and graphics in an efficient way to deliver breakthrough products to meet the needs of the most demanding workloads."

AMD also announced the Radeon Vega Frontier Edition, its first graphics card based on the high-end Radeon Vega architecture and as a premier solution for both machine learning, advanced visualization and VR workloads. Radeon Vega Frontier Edition will be available for purchase in Q2 2017.