Although the events surrounding Intel’s processor innovations are not developing positively (Alder Lake, which until recently was referred to as the September product of this year, has moved to the fourth quarter, and next year Intel is only preparing its refresh under the name Raptor Lake), neither the bad news nor AMD have been avoiding lately.
Recently, the release Zen 3+ with 6nm production and increased IPC it seems less and less probable and we will probably see only Zen 3 XT, so a little overclocked models present 7nm offer with current Zen 3 architecture (although in fact it has not yet been explicitly stated that the IPC 6nm enhancements Zen 3+ they do not transfer to the 7nm process, although the chances are not high). A release report followed Zen 4 in the second half of 2022.
Now we learn that architecture Zen 4 will be introduced later in the third quarter (September to October) 2022 and the products will be released a month later, in the fourth quarter (October to November) 2022. Zen 4 it thus appears as a purely pre-Christmas product, which we will wait for almost a year and a half. Formally, however, we can not talk about a postponement, AMD has never been more specific than that Zen 4 will be issued in 2022, which according to this report will be observed.
However, this does not change the relatively negative impact on the market. Hopes to increase processor supply due to the release of 6nm Zen 3+ (distribution of production among several factories) and that sometime in the spring of next year, production volumes could be further increased by the involvement of new 5nm lines, they are falling. Supply volumes thus depend only on increasing the 7nm production capacity and with a little hope of moving part of the APU to the 6nm process (Rembrandt) at the end of this year.
Zen 4 is a significant shift in all respects, brings a new process (5nm), a new architecture with the highest increase in IPC in a row to date Zen (20-22%), new interfaces (DDR5, PCIe 5.0) and in the server segment also an increase in the number of cores (up to 96). It is therefore a cumulation of a number of novelties into one generation, which increases the probability of a complication that may affect the date of issue.
Intel, on the other hand, remains on the current process (10nm), although it is rumored to be with the generation Alder Lake may be forced to cut clocks, so it will have an architecture increasing by ~ 20% the IPC market a year earlier. Although this is not a disaster for AMD, due to the 10nm process Intel is not able to get more than 8 large cores with this level of IPC into the processor (the rest will be taken care of by a new generation of Atoms with IPC at the maximum level Skylake, but on average rather 70-80%), so in terms of multi-core performance Intel will not surpass last year’s top model with cores Zen 3. However, Intel will return to the top of single-core / gaming performance and AMD will catch up next year in this regard.
At a purely speculative level, we can return to older sketchy reports that said that AMD with central chiplets will move to the 6nm TSMC process in the future. If that were true and it was about plans Zen 4, it would explain a lot. If AMD assumed it would use a 6nm line “inherited” after Zen 3+ (CPU Warhol, HELP Rembrandt), however, due to covid-initiated complications, these products (like most others) have been delayed or canceled, which means that 6nm lines for the central chiplet will not be available at the required time. Zen 4. Whether transferring the design for another process (12nm + GlobalFoundries, 8nm Samsung, 7nm TSMC…) or waiting for the release of 6nm lines logically means a later release of the final product.
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