During an investor presentation, AMD confirmed that it plans to release the third generation of its top-tier Ryzen Threadripper CPUs before the end of the year. Although it didn’t clarify a specific launch date, the slide that accompanied its presentation suggested the debut would take place after that of the Ryzen 3000 desktop processors, which are currently slated for a mid-summer reveal.
In the same way that AMD’s first and second-generation Ryzen processors put immense pressure on Intel’s consumer market, driving up core counts in both camps across the board, Threadripper did much the same to high-end chips. With boosted core counts up to 32 with support for 64 threads, Intel was forced to refresh its most powerful chips with the 99XX line and the absolute monster that was the 28-core Xeon W-3175X. Threadripper 3000 CPUs will likely push the envelope even further.
Specifications for the new high-end chip line are almost non-existent. We do know it will be based on the Zen 2 architecture, as will the Ryzen 3000 desktop CPUs. That means they will be built on a 7nm process, which should confer a number of efficiency and performance advantages. Alleged leaks suggest a doubling of cores over second-generation Threadipper CPUs, which would see the most capable reaching 64 cores and 128 threads. That same leak suggested we could see frequencies topping out at 5GHz, but for that many cores that seems unlikely. Perhaps with the lower core-count options.
We’ll find out more about these CPUs before their release later this year, which AMD has now officially confirmed, via Toms Hardware. According to its slide, we’ll see its second-generation Ryzen Pro mobile CPUs based on the Zen+ architecture sometime in the spring, followed by the release of the mainstream Ryzen 3000 desktop CPUs in the middle of the year. AMD CEO Lisa Su previously slated them for a “summer” reveal.
Threadripper 3000 CPUs will seemingly release after that, though how late in the year is up in the air at this time. A previously leaked, rumored roadmap from AMD suggested that they would make their debut sometime between August and October. That would line up well with the mainstream Ryzen 3000 processor release and AMD’s own roadmap.
