AMD today detailed its forthcoming roll-out plan for its new and next generation of high-performance computing and graphics products during an event in Las Vegas.

2018 product roadmap

AMD revealed the roadmap of its CPU and GPUs. The company also announced Ryzen APUs (Accelerated Processing Unit) that integrate both the CPU and GPU.

The "Zen" core, currently shipping in Ryzen desktop and mobile processors, is in production at both 14nm and 12nm, with 12nm samples now shipping. AMD's Thread Ripper also be revamped with the new ZEN generation. Moving on, the 7nm "ZEN 2" and the 7nm+ of "ZEN 3" platforms follow (GLOBALFOUNDRIES). AMD says that the "Zen 2" design is complete and will improve on the "Zen" design in multiple dimensions.

In graphics, AMD announced the expansion of the "Vega" family with "Radeon Vega Mobile" for ultrathin notebooks and that its first 7nm product is planned to be a Radeon "Vega" GPU specifically built for machine learning applications. "Radeon Vega Mobile" platform, which brings improved power efficiency and employs HBM2 memory.

AMD also detailed the full line up of Ryzen mobile APUs including the new Ryzen PRO and Ryzen 3 models, and provided a first look at the performance of its upcoming 12nm 2nd generation Ryzen desktop CPU expected to launch in April.

Evolution of Zen

The current ZEN core products are based on the GLOBALFOUNDRIES's 14nm "14LPP" process. However, in the 2nd generation of ZEN or "ZEN +" the manufacturing process technology is the 12nm "12LP", which offers a further reduction of the die area, and about 10% higher clocks than the current ZEN core.

The ZEN + microarchitecture also brings support for the "Precision Boost 2 Technology". The ZEN+ CPU are alreasy sampled and are scheduled to be officially announced in April 2018.

The "ZEN 2" CPU core is produced using the 7nm process.

Following the "ZEN 2" is "ZEN 3", based on the EUV version of the 7nm process (7nm+).

Following the 7nm version Vega, AMD will release the "Navi" architecture,based on 7hn process. Navi will be followed by an unnamed architecture based on the 7nm + process (EUV version).

Ryzen PRO Mobile Processors with Radeon Vega Graphics

• Targeted for commercial, enterprise, and public sector implementation, Ryzen PRO mobile processors are designed to power sleek and powerful enterprise notebooks featuring fast processor for commercial ultrathin notebooksiv, silicon-level security, and reliable solutions with enterprise-class support and product stack top-to-bottom DASH manageability.
  • Up to 22% more competitive productivity performance (according to AMD)
  • Up to 125% more competitive graphics performance than Intel i7-8550U and 150% more competitive graphics performance than Intel i7-7500Uvi
    
  • Targeting Up to 13.5 hours of battery life (according to AMD)
  • SenseMI features including Precision Boost 2 technology and Mobile Extended Frequency Range (mXFR)
• Ryzen PRO mobile solutions are expected to launch in Q2 2018.

Mobile APU line-up

AMD Ryzen (Raven Ridge) APU intergates the latest CPU and GPU cores.

The 14LPP Raven Ridge features a four ZEN CPU core and a Vega GPU core featuring 11 CU (Compute Units). The amount of L3 cache is 4MB and has a dual-channel DDR4 memory interface.

The APU version Ryzen Mobile already includes the "Ryzen 7 2700U" and the "Ryzen 5 2500U". Both are 4 CPU cores / 8 threads, clocked as follows: 2700U boost 3.8GHz / base 2.2GHz, Ryzen 5 2500U is 3.6 GHz / 2.0GHz. The Ryzen 7 2700U has a GPU with 10 CU (Compute Unit)s, while the Ryzen 5 2500U has 8 CUs.

AMD also announced the new "Ryzen 3 2300U" and "Ryzen 3 2200U" mobile APUs.

• 2300U - 6 CU GPU 4 core / 4 threads
• 2200U - 3 CU GPU 2 Core / 4 threads.

Ryzen 3-based notebook PCs are coming in the first quarter.

Desktop APUs

The desktop versions of the APUs include the "Ryzen 5 2400G" and the "Ryzen 3 2200G" models. The Ryzen 5 2400G has 4 cores / 8 threads, Boost 3.9GHz / base 3.6GHz, 11 CU GPU. Its price will be 169 dollars.

The Ryen 3 2200G has 4 cores / 4 threads, Boost 3.7GHz / base 3.5GHz, 8 CU GPU, priced at just $99.

In terms of performance, the 11 CUs operate at 1,240MHz (base), and the FP32 performance reaches the 1.75TFLOPS. Combined with the CPU cores, the overall operation performance of the APU hits the 2TFLOPs.

AMD SVP and General Manager, Computing and Graphics Business Group Jim Anderson detailed upcoming AMD client compute processors including:

The Ryzen desktop processor with Radeon graphics

Desktop Ryzen APUs combine the latest "Zen" core and AMD Radeon graphics engine based on the "Vega" architecture, bringing:
- The highest performance graphics engine in a desktop processor
- Quad core performance with up to 8 processing threads
- 1080p HD+ gaming performance without a discrete graphics card
- Display features with Radeon FreeSync technology
- Full benefit of Radeon software driver features including Radeon Chill, Enhanced Sync and Radeon ReLive

Planned to be available starting February 12, 2018.

Cutting prices

AMD announced updated 'suggested etailer pricing' across most of its Ryzen processor SKUs. This affects the spectrum of the Ryzen 3, Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 range of desktop processors and even a Threadripper variant.

A full list of the new wave of AMD Ryzen pricing can be found below.

The only Threadripper to see a price drop is the 1900X, from $549 to $449. The 1700X gets a $90 drop, while the 1600X/1600 are reduced by $30.

With these cuts, each model dropped in price in line with the relative and similarly priced Intel options. The pick of the bunch, however, has to be the Ryzen 7 1700X ($309) which gets a massive reduction of $90 which puts it into direct competition price-wise with the Intel Core i7-7700K ($350) 4c/8t. However, at this price the AMD chip boasts four more cores and eight more threads.

In addition, AMD announced a production-level machine learning software environment with AMD's MIOpen libraries supporting common machine learning frameworks like TensorFlow and Caffe on the ROCm Open eCosystem platform. The open heterogeneous software environment, which is making it easier to program using AMD GPUs for high performance compute and deep learning environments.