What Will AMD Reveal at CES 2020?

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Some are expecting details on the Zen 3 CPU microarchitecture.

AMD Ryzen Processor

AMD Ryzen Processor (Image credit: AMD)

AMD is set to take the stage at the CES tech conference in Las Vegas next week, which leaves us all wondering about what exactly AMD CEO and president Dr. Lisa Su will reveal during the press event at January 6 at 2 p.m. PT.

As suggested by The China Times this week, it's possible that AMD will share details on the next-generation Zen 3 microarchitecture during its press conference at CES. Furthermore, the Chinese news outlet claimed that CPUs using Zen 3 will land in the second half of this year.

AMD started deploying its Zen 2 processors last year, so it seems unlikely that it would release a successor so soon. We more expect to see a teaser of Zen 3 or maybe AMD will indulge us with a roadmap. Realistically, we don't expect the company to fully detail or share a release date for Zen 3 at its press conference. 

The next wave of AMD processors, except for APUs, should leverage the Zen 3 microarchitecture. TSMC is expected to continue to produce AMD's processors but on its improved N7+ EUV (Extreme Ultraviolet) manufacturing process. TSMC started shipping N7+ EUV chips to its customers in October. Assuming that AMD is one of them, the chipmaker could very well unleash its Zen 3 chips in the latter half of 2020.

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Header Cell - Column 0 20192020 (Not Confirmed)
Server Processor2nd-generation Epyc3rd-generation Epyc
MicroarchitectureZen 2Zen 3
LithographyTSMC 7nmTSMC 7nm+
HEDT ProcessorRyzen Threadripper 3000Ryzen Threadripper 4000
CodenameCastle PeakGenesis Peak
MicroarchitectureZen 2Zen 3
LithographyTSMC 7nmTSMC 7nm+
Mainstream ProcessorRyzen 3000Ryzen 4000
CodenameMatisseVermeer
MicroarchitectureZen 2Zen 3
LithographyTSMC 7nmTSMC 7nm+
APURyzen 3000Ryzen 4000
CodenamePicassoRenoir
MicroarchitectureZen+Zen 2
LithographyGlobalFoundries 12nmTSMC 7nm

The list of upcoming offerings that should be Zen 3-based include the third-generation Epyc Milan processors, Ryzen Threadripper 4000-series Genesis Peak parts and Ryzen 4000-series Vermeer chips. 

For the time being, we're looking forward to seeing AMD's confirmed Renoir APU lineup, which will usher in the company's first-ever eight-core APUs. And let's not forget about the already-announced, 64-core AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X that's rumored to arrive in January as well.

You can watch the livestream of AMD's CES press conference on AMD's YouTube channel on Monday. 

AMD promises to push the envelope this year again, and we don't doubt that the chipmaker has some big surprises in store for the hardware world.

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Zhiye Liu
Zhiye Liu
News Editor and Memory Reviewer

Zhiye Liu is a news editor and memory reviewer at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

6 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Dark Lord of Tech
    They will reveal that they aren't worried about what intel releases.
    Reply
  • tiggers97
    Dark Lord of Tech said:
    They will reveal that they aren't worried about what intel releases.
    If what rumors we are hearing about what the Intel 10th gen desktop "improvements" will offer, I think you are probably right. AMD keeps pushing the envelope, while Intel seems satisfied with the incremental tiny steps.
    Reply
  • Mileta Cekovic
    tiggers97 said:
    If what rumors we are hearing about what the Intel 10th gen desktop "improvements" will offer, I think you are probably right. AMD keeps pushing the envelope, while Intel seems satisfied with the incremental tiny steps.
    Well, Intels 10th gen will mostly close the gap to Ryzen 3000 in multithreading. And given that clock-for-clock Intel and AMD are now trading blows (AMD better in productivity by few percents and Intel in memory intensive apps - i.e. games), parity on number of cores/threads will actually close the gap and it will be just up to pricing who will do better overall. Only advantage Zen2 will have is in number of cores in the very high end Ryzen 9's 12 and 16 cores vs Intel's Core i9 10 cores). But in mid-range, Ryzen 5/7 vs Core i5/i7 would be equal. If Intel can match AMD in price then it would be the draw...
    Reply
  • cryoburner
    tiggers97 said:
    If what rumors we are hearing about what the Intel 10th gen desktop "improvements" will offer, I think you are probably right.
    Actually, if the rumored specifications are accurate, Intel's 10th-gen processors should definitely heat up competition. By adding/restoring SMT across the lineup, they're once again increasing thread counts at any given price point much like they did with their initial Coffee Lake release in response to Ryzen. The new i3s should perform like Coffee Lake i5s, the i5s should perform like i7s, and the i7s should perform like i9s. It's effectively like they're cutting the prices of their processors by $100 or so.

    While AMD's current lineup is strong against Intel, that primarily comes down to them offering higher thread counts at each price point, something Intel's new lineup appears to address. With AMD and Intel offering the same number of cores and threads at similar price points, it will come down to performance per core. AMD offers very competitive IPC now, but Intel can clock their chips higher, so I suspect Intel's new offerings should have a slight performance advantage over AMD's current processors at most tasks. AMD should be pretty close, but if they want to maintain momentum, they'll need to lower prices. They have their next-generation Zen 3 processors coming eventually, which may turn the tides, but Intel's new CPUs are rumored to be coming within the next couple months, while Zen 3 desktop chips won't likely launch until at least half a year later.

    I wouldn't say that AMD is "worried" about Intel's processor lineup for this year, but they will undoubtedly need to adjust prices in response to it.
    Reply
  • Gillerer
    Haven't AMD stated that they're aiming for a 12 - 18 month cadence between CPU generations? From the 7/2019 Zen 2 release it could be anywhere within 7/2020 to 1/2021 - with six of the seven months falling into H2/2020.

    Now "release" and mass public availability may be different things again... Having said that, AMD may have learned their lesson from the last time, and prepare by ordering and stockpiling enough silicon to meet at least a sizable portion of the demand.

    But I think the most likely announcement would be Zen 2 based APUs, and those could be coming sooner - mid H1/2020, maybe?
    Reply
  • cryoburner
    And of course, new graphics cards, which were not actually mentioned in the article. The RX 5600 XT will most likely be announced, as it is rumored to be coming this month, and I wouldn't be surprised if we hear about a new enthusiast-level card from them, as the existence of "big Navi" has been rumored for a while, and it's been a year since they announced the Radeon VII. A 300 watt Navi card with performance in the 2080 SUPER to 2080 Ti range seems plausible. Maybe with hardware raytracing?
    Reply