Advanced Micro Devices, Inc (NASDAQ: AMD), is set to launch high-end CPUs made to compete with Intel’s latest releases. The company unveiled two new products based on its upcoming Zen microarchitecture, first is the Summit Ridge CPU, featuring eight cores and 16 threads of processing power for high-performance desktops.
The second unit, code-named “Naples” is a 32-core 64-thread server processor. AMD officials demonstrated the Summit Ridge at a private press conference in San Francisco last night, and a possible release date would be scheduled in the first Q of 2017, according to the officials during the event. As for the Naples, the company just demoed it and gave no information regarding its arrival.
The Zen microarchitecture is a computer processor core designed by AMD from scratch, instead of being an overhaul of the previous and well-known, Bulldozer.
“Zen” is built on a 3D 14 nanometer Fien Field Effect Transistor (FinFET) made to complement the latest AM4 socket as the basis for the next generation of CPU’s from the company.
The Zen features a new cache hierarchy, improved branch prediction, and simultaneous multithreading (SMT) dedicated to a wide range of applications such as embedded systems, high-performance computing, fanless 2-in-1s, and data centers, according to a press release on AMD’s newsroom posted today.
The Summit Ridge vs. Intel Core i7
The demonstration consisted of using the multi-threaded Blender rendering software to run the Summit Ridge against Intel Core i7-6900K Broadwell-E chip.
Both CPUs were set on similarly configured PCs locked at 3GHz of clock base to even the playfield, with AMD finishing ahead of Intel, closely. A showcase of the Naples followed by running the 32-core hardware in a Windows-based dual processor server.
AMD proved it can retake the CPU market during the press conference
The attendees were enthusiastic about the tests results and the future of AMD. Tirias Research’s principal analyst commented on the matter after the experiment.
“THIS IS THE MOST EXITING AMD LAUNCH IN A DECADE,” he continued, “THEY REALLY HAVE HIT THE MARK ON THIS”.
The company is confident after years of developing Zen
AMD seems to share the same feeling, as Dr. Lisa Su, president and CEO of the business, made some remarks about the intention and next steps of the Zen architecture on AMD’s official website. “THE PERFORMANCE AND EFFIENCY OF OUR ZEN CORE SHOWCASES AMD-AT ITS BEST,” she said. Over four years have been invested in the development of a multi-generation CPU roadmap to power high-demanding computers, according to today’s press release.
The Summit Ridge will support DDR4 memory, USB 3.1, Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe), Sata Express, and PC.e 3.0.
Source: AMD