Last month AMD launched the first refresh of Ryzen CPUs on a new 12nm+ process node, the 2000-series. However the rumour mill is a hungry beast, ever eager for new news of questionable veracity even if the needs of consumers have been temporarily satiated. Now the mill has new grist: alleged features of the mainstream desktop 3000-series, set to arrive some time in the first half of 2019.
The broad strokes of AMD's roadmap are fairly well known at this time. With Zen+ released the next major update to Ryzen CPUs will be in the form of the Zen 2 architecture, likely on TSMC or Global Foundries' 7nm process. Moving to this process should see improved clock speeds and, just as importantly, better power efficiency. So far, so expected.
AMD Zen Architecture Roadmap
The major rumour however - coming from perennial rumour-mongers WCCFTech - is that Zen 2 Ryzen Desktop CPUs will be comprised of between 12 and 16 cores. The design of Zen and Zen+ CPUs is of a 'Zepplin' die with two 4-core CCX modules for a total of eight cores, some of which will be disabled depending on the SKU. Threadripper HEDT and EPYC Server CPUs are configured to use two or four Zepplin dies.
Current Ryzen CCX Design - 4 Cores Per CCX, 2 CCX Per Die
Assuming that mainstream Ryzen continues to use the AM4 socket (a safe assumption given AMD's preference for keeping socket specifications static), Ryzen based on Zen 2 would therefore need to feature either two die-shrink 8-Core Zepplin dies, or a new die with different number of cores per die (correlating with Zen improving on 'multiple dimensions'). The latter would also indicate a change to the underlying CCX module, or an increase to three CCX's per die.
WCCFTech's sources indicate that a 12-core Ryzen is probable, rather than 16. That would also imply Zen 2 Threadripper will nudge up to 24 cores, and EYPC hitting a monster 48-cores per socket. A mouth-watering possibility if it also comes with other underlying improvements in architecture.
It seems unlikely that Zen 2 will be discussed publically by AMD at Computex, where the focus will likely be on Ryzen 2000-series, Threadripper 2 and EPYC.
SOURCE: WCCFTech.com
