14 DAY TRIAL // Advanced Micro Devices is no more eager to comment on unannounced products than any other company is, but that's only the official stance. Unofficially, insiders tend to “leak” information to the press and Internet just as often as for all other brands of similar fame.
That is why we have some information on the upcoming FX central processing unit architecture, courtesy of certain third parties.
An AMD insider was able to provide some details on the chip core-logic that will act as basis for all the new FX-Series units in 2016.
That means that you can expect some nice new, powerful chips from AMD's camp, even if it won't happen as soon as the new year starts.
The Zen CPU architecture
The Zen is regarded as AMD's return on the high-end CPU front, which means that Intel's Skylake architecture could see competition.
Thus, AMD may be able to challenge Intel on the high-end processing front for the first time after years of not really bothering.
With current FX processors featuring 125W TDP, 220W on the 5 GHz series, the Zen will have to really improve here.
Fortunately, this is one hope that will supposedly be fulfilled, as the top TDP will not be above 95W, the same top limit as on Intel 22nm Haswell units.
It means that AMD will still be one generation behind, but the Sunnyvale company did say years ago that it was going to advance fabrication nodes in its own time and focus on other architectural matters more.
In fact, some more power-efficient chips will be created as well. Perhaps even some of as little as 4.5W for mobile devices. Moreover, Zen will possess a Simultaneous Multithreaded design.
Availability
This was the focus of the latest report actually. Zen AMD processors will be released in 2016, but server chips will come out first. Only later will workstation and mainstream chips be shipped. Globalfoundries will have a lot of work to do come next year.