AMD Ryzen 4000 ‘Zen 3 Vermeer’ Desktop CPU And Radeon RX Navi 2X ‘RDNA 2’ Graphics Cards Expected To Launch In October 2020

AMD announced its brand new Zen 3 CPU and RDNA 2 GPU architectures which would end up powering its next-generation desktop Ryzen 4000 processors and Radeon RX Navi 2X graphics cards at FAD 2020. Now reports from one of our sources suggest that both the desktop CPU and graphics cards are scheduled for launch in October of 2020.

AMD Ryzen 4000 'Zen 3 Vermeer' CPUs and Radeon RX Navi 2X 'RDNA 2' GPUs Expected for Desktop Launch in October 2020

According to the source, the announcement for the Zen 3 based Ryzen 4000 'Vermeer' CPUs and the RDNA 2 based Radeon RX Navi 2x graphics cards would be held prior to their release so we're looking at either an August or September as an announcement platform but the most surprising thing to hear is both the CPU and GPUs would launch simultaneously.

It looks like AMD wants to have both high-end CPU/GPU platforms available on the same day so that people building new PCs can go all-AMD based on the performance of its next-generation product lineup. That would be very impressive for AMD if they can pull it off on the GPU side which might be true given the latest reports which suggest that AMD's RDNA 2 flagship GPUs are going to be super competitive in the high-end 4K department. There's still some time till Q3/Q4 2020 so we will be given more information along the way by AMD on its next-generation products but the info we have till now is mentioned below.

Here's Everything We Know About AMD's Zen 3 Based Ryzen 4000 'Vermeer' Desktop CPUs

The AMD Zen 3 architecture is said to be the greatest CPU design since the original Zen. It is a chip that has been completely revamped from the group up and focuses on three key features of which include significant IPC gains, faster clocks and higher efficiency.

AMD has so far confirmed themselves that Zen 3 brings a brand new CPU architecture, which helps deliver significant IPC gains, faster clocks and even higher core counts than before. Some rumors have even pointed to a 17% increase in IPC and a 50% increase in Zen 3's floating-point operations along with a major cache redesign.

When asked about what kind of performance gain Milan's CPU core microarchitecture, which is known as Zen 3, will deliver relative to the Zen 2 microarchitecture that Rome relies on in terms of instructions processed per CPU clock cycle (IPC), Norrod observed that -- unlike Zen 2, which was more of an evolution of the Zen microarchitecture that powers first-gen Epyc CPUs -- Zen 3 will be based on a completely new architecture.

Norrod did qualify his remarks by pointing out that Zen 2 delivered a bigger IPC gain than what's normal for an evolutionary upgrade -- AMD has said it's about 15% on average -- since it implemented some ideas that AMD originally had for Zen but had to leave on the cutting board. However, he also asserted that Zen 3 will deliver performance gains "right in line with what you would expect from an entirely new architecture."

Other rumors have pointed out to a 50% increase in overall floating-point performance. We also got to see a major change to the cache design in an EPYC presentation, which showed that Zen 3 would be offering a unified cache design which should essentially double the cache that each Zen 3 core could have access compared to Zen 2. In Zen 2, each CCD is comprised of two CCX, with each CCX having a separate 16 MB L3 cache, even though the CCD contains a 32 MB L3 cache. With Zen 3, the entire 32 MB+ L3 Cache will be available to both CCX's and do note that Zen 3 could also carry more than just 32 MB of cache as pointed out in the slide.

The CPUs are also expected to get up to 200-300 MHz clock boost which should bring Zen 3 based Ryzen processors close to the 9th Generation Intel Core offerings. That, along with the massive IPC increase and general changes to the architecture, would result in much faster performance than existing Ryzen 3000 processors, which already made a huge jump over Ryzen 2000 and Ryzen 1000 processors while being an evolutionary product rather than revolutionary, as AMD unveiled very recently.

The key thing to consider is that we will get to see return of the chiplet architecture and AMD will retain support on the existing AM4 socket. The AM4 socket was to last until 2020 so it is likely that the Zen 3 based Ryzen 4000 CPUs would be the last family to utilize the socket before AMD goes to AM5 which would be designed around future technologies such as DDR5 and PCIe 5.0. AMD's X670 chipset was also hinted as to arrive by the end of this year and will feature enhanced PCIe Gen 4.0 support and increased I/O in the form of more M.2, SATA, and USB 3.2 ports.

As for competition, the AMD Ryzen 4000 'Zen 3 Vermeer' lineup would compete against Intel's soon to be released Comet Lake-S and its upcoming Rocket Lake-S desktop processors. Tackling the Intel Comet Lake-S won't be so hard since the Ryzen 3000 CPUs are competitively positioned against the entire lineup as evident from the recent performance leaks but Rocket Lake-S seems to be a major architectural uplift for Intel (although still based on 14nm process) which might just be Intel's way back in the desktop mainstream market.

With that said, Rocket Lake-S is still something that needs to be evaluated prior to its release before we can call it a Zen 3 challenger but time would make it clear. As for now, the competitive advantage that AMD has with its Zen 2 based Ryzen 3000 is just way too big compared to whatever Intel has in their sleeves for this year and Zen 3 based Ryzen 4000 processors are going to push that envelope even further.

AMD CPU Roadmap (2018-2020)

Ryzen Family	Ryzen 1000 Series	Ryzen 2000 Series	Ryzen 3000 Series	Ryzen 4000 Series	Ryzen 5000 Series
Architecture	Zen (1)	Zen (1) / Zen+	Zen (2) / Zen+	Zen (3)	Zen (4)
Process Node	14nm	14nm / 12nm	7nm	7nm+	5nm?
High End Server (SP3)	EPYC 'Naples'	EPYC 'Naples'	EPYC 'Rome'	EPYC 'Milan'	EPYC 'Genoa'
Max Server Cores / Threads	32/64	32/64	64/128	TBD	TBD
High End Desktop (TR4)	Ryzen Threadripper 1000 Series	Ryzen Threadripper 2000 Series	Ryzen Threadripper 3000 Series (Castle Peak)	Ryzen Threadripper 4000 Series (Genesis Peak)	Ryzen Threadripper 5000 Series
Max HEDT Cores / Threads	16/32	32/64	64/128	64/128?	TBD
Mainstream Desktop (AM4)	Ryzen 1000 Series (Summit Ridge)	Ryzen 2000 Series (Pinnacle Ridge)	Ryzen 3000 Series (Matisse)	Ryzen 4000 Series (Vermeer)	Ryzen 5000 Series
Max Mainstream Cores / Threads	8/16	8/16	16/32	TBD	TBD
Budget APU (AM4)	N/A	Ryzen 2000 Series (Raven Ridge)	Ryzen 3000 Series (Picasso 14nm Zen+)	Ryzen 4000 Series (Renior)	Ryzen 5000 Series
Year	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021?