It will be released next year with a TDP of up to 95W

Jan 28, 2015 07:45 GMT  ·  By

Last week, we dared trust a hope that maybe Advanced Micro Devices was nursing thoughts about returning to the high-end CPU market. Now we have received a tentative confirmation, albeit indirectly.

The central processing unit market has been rather skewed lately, with Intel having the high-end segment more or less to itself for years.

Even the best AMD FX CPUs are being built on the 32nm fabrication process, while the mid-to-performance Kaveri and Carrizo APUs are designed on 28nm bulk silicon.

Not exactly the ideal production node considering that Intel has already moved to 14nm with the Broadwell Core-M chip.

Fortunately, it has been revealed that the upcoming Zen processor from Advanced Micro Devices will be designed on the 14nm node as well.

The main new assets of the AMD Zen processor will be Simultaneous multithreading, DDR4 support, and the 95W TDP.

Simultaneous multithreading

SMT is not a new technology, but it is an approach AMD has been reluctant to use, as opposed to the Cluster Multithreading from Bulldozer (CMT for short).

In CMT, a unified front end sends instructions to two separate integer pipelines, so that the benefits of having two full integer pipelines would be gained while also saving die space and power draw.

SMT, or Hyper-Threading as Intel calls it, can schedule and execute two different instructions in the same clock style. CMT should have given AMD Bulldozer an advantage, but the chip's low efficiency killed that possibility.

Using SMT in Zen (though perhaps not like in Hyper-Threading) could be a saving grace if the underlying CPU architecture is OK with a die size increase. 15-20% performance boosts can be achieved, as Intel has revealed repeatedly.

DDR4 support

This is something that AMD can hardly do without, although it could do what it did with the DDR2/DDR3 transition and implement a hybrid DDR3/DDR4 controller. It could win the hearts of many people that way.

The TDP of 95W

This is the part that supports the rumor about AMD eyeing the enthusiast market again. A high TDP always means higher overclocking headroom. Even if a GPU is included in the Zen, 95W should still be enough for competition in the gaming, overclocking, server and enterprise sectors.

Availability

Whether or not the Zen chip does integrate some or all of the above characteristics, the processor will only be launched in 2016. Possibly the later parts of the year. All this information is still just rumors, however, so don't base any decisions on it.