I really am curious if Zen 3 is going to be more of a Zen2+ then a whole new generation like Zen2 was. It seems really quick for them to have a major architecture change, since Zen 3 is supposed to be released in 2020. Then again, i feel like Zen 3 will be DDR5, and maybe that'll be the major reason it's not considered Zen2+.

Aura89:

I really am curious if Zen 3 is going to be more of a Zen2+ then a whole new generation like Zen2 was. It seems really quick for them to have a major architecture change, since Zen 3 is supposed to be released in 2020. Then again, i feel like Zen 3 will be DDR5, and maybe that'll be the major reason it's not considered Zen2+.

I hope not. I want Zen5 with AM5, DDR5, PCIe5, with a GPU having GDDR5X, with 5 FAN. Coming 5/5/202x (not 2025)

Im more interested in gpu segment and rdna2. Looks like thats a chip in ps5 and next xbox console coming next year with a raytracing support.

Aura89:

I really am curious if Zen 3 is going to be more of a Zen2+ then a whole new generation like Zen2 was. It seems really quick for them to have a major architecture change, since Zen 3 is supposed to be released in 2020. Then again, i feel like Zen 3 will be DDR5, and maybe that'll be the major reason it's not considered Zen2+.

Next Zen is going to be an iteration of Zen. Basically the same, with a few small changes here and there. Besides, DDR4 has only been a little while yet, and we don't know if the DDR5 controllers are fast and hot, or cool.

Undying:

Im more interested in gpu segment and rdna2. Looks like thats a chip in ps5 and next xbox console coming next year with a raytracing support.

Hopefully a big chip, or chiplets, to replace the high end 😉

maybe the chiplet design allow them to make changes to the I/O part and to the chiplets separately, allowing for faster iterations. I wish more details were shared, but i also not like the hype trains so much.

asturur:

maybe the chiplet design allow them to make changes to the I/O part and to the chiplets separately, allowing for faster iterations. I wish more details were shared, but i also not like the hype trains so much.

IO part will likely contain GDDR5/X and HBM controllers (edit : and IF and PCIe lanes), the chiplets should just interface via Infinity fabric. Good thing is they will likely be able to go to 8 chiplets, at least.

Evildead666:

Next Zen is going to be an iteration of Zen.

Where is information on this? I can't find really any real information about Zen3 other then it's been "announced". And if it is on AM4, i will be surprised, as that means Zen 3 APUs won't release until 2021, which will mean AM4 products will be released in 2021, which is beyond their claimed 2020 AM4 end-release. Not saying that'd be a "bad" thing, and they can do whatever they want, but they only stated AM4 will last till 2020, which since Zen2 APUs will release in 2020 on AM4, would be correct.

I am sure that Zen3 is similar step in performance as Zen+ was for Zen. So around +10% more performace compared to Zen2 (Ryzen3000) right now. And definetly more mature platform. Thats why I am skipping this Ryzen3000 series and X570/B550 boarda all together and stick with my Zen1 Ryzen1600'd and B350. There is no burning need to change anyway. And DDR5 will not come with the Zen3, I am very sure of that. Maybe Zen4 or even Zen5.

Aura89:

Where is information on this? I can't find really any real information about Zen3 other then it's been "announced". And if it is on AM4, i will be surprised, as that means Zen 3 APUs won't release until 2021, which will mean AM4 products will be released in 2021, which is beyond their claimed 2020 AM4 end-release. Not saying that'd be a "bad" thing, and they can do whatever they want, but they only stated AM4 will last till 2020, which since Zen2 APUs will release in 2020 on AM4, would be correct.

I Think there will be one more AM4 to go yet, then AM5 might make its debut. If it slips to 2021, then thats only a little slip. Good news for AM4 owners 😉 AM5 can debut the same year, with the same cores, at the same time, but on PCIe5 and DDR5. Thats only an IO chip change, even if PCIe5 happens that quick 🙂

I'm 95% sure at one of the conferences Lisa Su specifically said Zen 3 was another major iteration to the architecture, that they can't afford to slow down with half measures anymore. It's obviously going 7nm EUV on cores, I'm not sure if the IO die process is changing or not though as they still have a contract with GF. There were rumors about 4 way SMT (I don't believe this) - I'd expect AVX512 to be supported this go around. AMD really can't afford to sit around with Intel restructuring it's entire engineering division. Intel is going to start moving a lot of new designs down the pipe and it's already starting to show with things like foveros. AMD needs to be agile or they'll end up exactly where they were 5 years ago.

Denial:

I'm 95% sure at one of the conferences Lisa Su specifically said Zen 3 was another major iteration to the architecture, that they can't afford to slow down with half measures anymore. It's obviously going 7nm EUV on cores, I'm not sure if the IO die process is changing or not though as they still have a contract with GF. There were rumors about 4 way SMT (I don't believe this) - I'd expect AVX512 to be supported this go around. AMD really can't afford to sit around with Intel restructuring it's entire engineering division. Intel is going to start moving a lot of new designs down the pipe and it's already starting to show with things like foveros. AMD needs to be agile or they'll end up exactly where they were 5 years ago.

When there's competition, we all win!

Denial:

I'm 95% sure at one of the conferences Lisa Su specifically said Zen 3 was another major iteration to the architecture, that they can't afford to slow down with half measures anymore. It's obviously going 7nm EUV on cores, I'm not sure if the IO die process is changing or not though as they still have a contract with GF. There were rumors about 4 way SMT (I don't believe this) - I'd expect AVX512 to be supported this go around. AMD really can't afford to sit around with Intel restructuring it's entire engineering division. Intel is going to start moving a lot of new designs down the pipe and it's already starting to show with things like foveros. AMD needs to be agile or they'll end up exactly where they were 5 years ago.

I believe SMT4 is possible. There are limits to how much power a core takes, and how well fed it can be. We can now happily feed an SMT2 chip quite well, Zen has shown that. SMT4 would just keep one core alive for longer, but only one core, until more than 4 threads are needed. So that one core can be the same power draw as currently one core, but do twice as much. It might even take a bit more power than currently. Like 1.3x power for 1.8x perf.

Evildead666:

I believe SMT4 is possible. There are limits to how much power a core takes, and how well fed it can be. We can now happily feed an SMT2 chip quiote well, Zen has shown that. SMT4 would just keep one core alive for longer, but only one core, until more than 4 threads are needed. So that one core can be the same power draw as currently one core, but do twice as much. It might even take a bit more power than currently. Like 1.3x power for 1.8x perf.

It's possible but it requires changes to the address generation units (they'd have to double them) and obviously L1/L2 cache. For these 8 core and more chips they are shipping it would significantly increase the die size and power for a very minimal performance increase in most general workloads. For IBM and Xeon Phi it made sense because those chips are working in an area where it's nearly always beneficial to have more threads but for general purpose processors I don't think it's worth the trade so I don't believe that rumor is true.

Denial:

It's possible but it requires changes to the address generation units (they'd have to double them) and obviously L1/L2 cache. For these 8 core and more chips they are shipping it would significantly increase the die size and power for a very minimal performance increase in most general workloads. For IBM and Xeon Phi it made sense because those chips are working in an area where it's nearly always beneficial to have more threads but for general purpose processors I don't think it's worth the trade so I don't believe that rumor is true.

More cores is more power. You need more threads/core. We can't magically make a core consume a lot less power, but we can be sure it is well fed, and well used. It may not happen with AM5, but if AMD is shrude, they will have the Corporate chips pay for the consumer chip development. Server chips pay for the Dev, and consumers reap the benefits a year or so later. Win/Win. And makes Intel sit up and join the parteee once again. 😉

I'm interested on more details on their plans for gpus than anything else. Are they going to release rx5800/5900 based on higher navi gpus? If yes then when? Are they going to ditch 5xxx naming scheme and jump straight to 6xxx or change naming again to something different? 5xx to vegaxx and to 5xxx naming scheme can be confusing to average Joe. I was aiming towards top navi (rx5800/5900xt or whatever they would name them) hoping for these cards to be decent performers at 4k in many games and high fps performers in 2560x1440 resolution but now i am confused and have no idea what to wait for and for how long. I'm not going to buy 5700xt because these are mid-range and i want to jump from ancient r9 380 straight to latest top card from amd. I could jump to intel's gpu but their discrete gpu release is far from now and this probably also will be just mid-range gpu. Do they abandon releasing navi gpus and 5700s are the only ones and now only rdna2? To be honest these roadmaps tell me nothing and confuse me even more.

So no Zen 2+. Is Zen 3 going to be compatible with X470/X570? MSI probably won't provide support as they're barely supporting Zen 2 (16MB BIOS chip, 16 fracking megabytes, and they only provide ONE SOLDERED NOT SOCKETED chip too), but I assume other board manufacturers would support Zen 3 if there is no compatibility issue.

Neo Cyrus:

So no Zen 2+. Is Zen 3 going to be compatible with X470/X570? MSI probably won't provide support as they're barely supporting Zen 2 (16MB BIOS chip, 16 fracking megabytes, and they only provide ONE SOLDERED NOT SOCKETED chip too), but I assume other board manufacturers would support Zen 3 if there is no compatibility issue.

Nobody knows yet but I highly suspect Zen3 will be AM4 so it should be compatible. I say this based off of how fast AMD completed designs and the fact they should stick to AM4 until they support DDR5 which I would bet is not until Zen4. Personally I am holding on to my first gen ryzen just to see what comes next. Not that the Zen2 wasnt a nice jump but I think TSMC can do way better than they have on the first go at 7nm. So many cores not hitting very high clocks ie only one core will hit rated boosts on most 8 core chiplets is process immaturity. I fully expect Zen3 on 7nm+ to rectify that situation and have most if not all cores able to hit boost clocks which should also help temps a lot.

Here's what I think (not that that matters at all but I'll share). AMD explicitly noted they would be focusing on energy efficiency, and from that I can only assume they will shrink the I/O module to 7nm too now hopefully at 7nm+ which is responsible for 30% total power consumption of the current line-up. That would make a nice increase of efficiency and then think about slightly pushing core clocks a bit for a little bit of increased IPC on the new improved process. They already said the next series wont be focussed on increasing IPC much but mainly lowering power usage. Which makes me believe that they MIGHT increase core count instead. What I think MIGHT happen is something like this: 3600-3600X 6 cores -> 4600-4600X 8 cores 3700X-3800X 8 cores -> 4700X-4800X 12 cores 3900X 12 cores -> 4900X 16 cores 3950X 16 cores -> 4950X 24 cores at roughly the same TDP and prices as the current line up. This would be possible if the 7nm+ process pans out as expected, looking at Apples Bionic 7nm+ results. Ofcourse don't take my word for it. This is just assuming but it would be a logical next step for AMD and this would be really good for customers being able to dip into even more cores at the same price range since it will probably be the last AM4 line-up it would help with the life expectancy of your setup just upgrading GPU over time. Lets see what they come up with next year.

I hope AMD can actually get their frequencies up and their boost clocks to actually clock properly. They have the IPC to match Intel at the moment, now they only need to match Intel in actual clock frequency.

It’s really good to see AMD not sitting on there laurels. Lisa is obviously one smart cookie.