AMD: 7nm ‘Navi’ GPU & 'Rome' CPU to Launch in Q3

[harlan4096]

Offering a brief update on the state of future products as part of its post-earnings conference call this afternoon, AMD has confirmed that both their upcoming Rome (Zen 2) CPU and their first Navi architecture GPU will launch in the 3rd quarter of this year.

AMD's Rome of course needs no introduction. The first product out of AMD based on their Zen 2 architecture, the chip is built on TSMC's 7nm process and should offer some interesting performance and power efficiency improvements. Of particular note, the chip incorporates a new-to-AMD chiplet based design approach, using separate I/O and CPU dies to simplify manufacturing and allow for easier chip customization.

As AMD's second-generation EPYC processor, we're expecting Rome to be the big server fight for AMD – whereas first-generation EPYC was mostly to test the waters and prove AMD’s readiness, Rome will be where AMD can finally start winning major customer orders. Overall, AMD says that the CPU will be sampling this quarter and launching in Q3; though if it’s anything like Intel’s server CPU launches, then the ever-hungry major hyperscalers may end consuming all of the initial supply.

Meanwhile Navi is the codename architecture for AMD’s next generation of GPUs. The first Navi GPU, which is also being built on TSMC’s 7nm process, is set to launch in Q3 of this year. It should be noted that Navi isn’t a single GPU, but rather should be a family of GPUs (as is traditional for GPUs), so it’s not clear which exact model is launching – if it’s high-end, mid-range, or otherwise.

In other comments on their conference call, AMD did say that Navi will be priced lower than the Radeon VII, but at $699 for what's their most expensive consumer card, this doesn't really narrow things down. Overall, Q3 will be 2 years since AMD’s Vega GPU architecture launched and longer still since Polaris, so AMD’s entire GPU stack is potentially up for a refresh during the Navi generation.

In terms of technology we know very little about the Navi architecture thus far. But if there’s a Q3 launch then this will no doubt soon be changing.

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