AMD confirms Ryzen and Vega launch timeline, is working on 7nm processors

AMD confirms Ryzen and Vega launch timeline in Q4 earnings call

AMD CEO Lisa Su has announced in a Q4 earnings call the launch schedule for the company’s hotly anticipated CPU and GPU products. Ryzen CPUs will roll out in early March, while Vega GPUs will arrive slightly later in the second quarter of the year. Other chips slated for launch in 2017 include the Raven Ridge APUs in the second half of the year, which will be based on AMD’s Zen core, and Naples server chips in Q2.

AMD intends for Ryzen to go head-to-head with Intel’s Core i5 and i7 chips in the performance desktop space, and Su said Ryzen chips will find their way into OEM products as well.

When Ryzen launches, consumers are likely to find support for the new hardware fairly quickly. CES 2017 already saw the unveiling of various AM4 motherboards from vendors, while cooling solutions manufacturers also made known that they were ready to support the upcoming AM4 socket.

The hope is that Ryzen and Vega will help AMD reassert itself in the high-performance CPU and GPU segments, where it has lost ground in recent years. However, it will not be abandoning the mainstream either, and it has lower-end chips planned that will address the rest of the market.

And even though Ryzen represents AMD’s leap to a new 14nm process, Su said that AMD is also pushing ahead with next-generation 7nm Zen products. That said, processes between companies aren’t exactly comparable, so there’s no way of knowing at this point how that compares with Intel’s scheduled 10nm chips.

Su referred to these next-generation products as Zen 2 and Zen 3, calling also the 7nm foundry roadmaps “competitive” and expressing confidence in a “strong multi-generational roadmap”.

AMD is also doing quite well on the financial front. It posted US$4.27 billion in revenue in 2016, a 7 per cent improvement year-on-year. Operating losses were trimmed from US$419 million in 2015 to US$117 million, and the company is close to returning to profitability with just a US$51 million net loss in Q4.

Its firmer financial standing lays the ground for Ryzen’s debut, but the company’s eventual success will of course rest on how good Ryzen actually turns out to be (which we’ll have to wait till March to find out).

Source: Tom’s Hardware