AMD today has announced that they will be making a pair of consumer product presentations in October. The chipmaker, who has been fairly quiet since the spring, will be holding events for both their consumer Ryzen CPU and Radeon GPU product segments. Dubbing the events “A New Journey Begins”, the company will be announcing the first products based on their eagerly anticipated Zen 3 CPU architecture and RDNA 2 GPU architecture.

Leading the charge will be AMD’s CPU division. On October 8th at noon Eastern, the company will be presenting their Zen 3-based Ryzen desktop processors. AMD’s CEO, Dr. Lisa Su, will be among the presenters.

Following that up just under 3 weeks later will be AMD’s Radeon presentation, which again is at noon Eastern. There the company will be showing off its first products based on the company’s forthcoming RDNA 2 GPU architecture. Meanwhile, tipping their hand a bit early on naming, AMD has confirmed that this will be called the Radeon RX 6000 series.

Next Generation Ryzen Desktop Processors – 10/8, 12 p.m. ET

We are incredibly excited to invite you to learn more about the next wave of Ryzen desktop processors with “Zen 3” architecture, taking our PC gaming and content creation leadership to new heights. Dr. Lisa Su and other AMD senior executives will kick-off this new journey for “Zen 3” and AMD Ryzen at 12 p.m. ET, October 8th.

Next Generation Radeon Graphics – 10/28, 12 p.m. ET

Preparing to delight gamers globally with the next horizon of Radeon Graphics, we invite you to learn more about our RDNA 2 architecture, Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards, and our deep collaboration with game developers and ecosystem partners who will help us bring the best of Radeon to gamers. Tune in for the reveal of the future of Radeon PC gaming at 12 p.m. ET, October 28th.

AMD hasn’t disclosed any other details about these events at this time, but over the last several months the manufacturer has shared bits and pieces of information relating to its upcoming chip architectures. Based on AMD’s roadmaps, Ryzen Zen 3 processors will be built on an improved version of TSMC’s 7nm process, most likely TSMC’s N7P process given AMD’s comments clarifying that they aren’t committing to EUV for 7nm. Otherwise, for the moment AMD is remaining tight-lipped on the Zen 3 architecture itself, though given that AMD isn’t going to get the benefits of a full node shrink, we’re expecting Zen 3 to deliver some interesting and meaningful architectural improvements over Zen 2.

Meanwhile on the graphics front, AMD and partners have previously confirmed that RDNA 2 will be a DirectX 12 Ultimate (feature level 12_2) compliant GPU architecture, meaning that AMD will be making significant changes to the graphics side of their GPU designs. The Navi 2x family of GPUs will gain support for ray tracing, variable rate shading, and other features that will put AMD’s new GPUs at parity with the competition, both for consoles and PCs. Meanwhile from a performance standpoint, AMD is aiming for a hefty 50% jump in performance-per-watt, which could potentially eliminate the efficiency gap with NVIDIA. As well, the company has previously promised a high-end "top-of-stack" GPU for 4K gaming, so we're expecting some ambitious performance goals from AMD.

Be sure to check in on October 8th and October 28th for more details on AMD’s next generation of consumer parts!

Source: AMD

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  • sorten - Wednesday, September 9, 2020 - link

    Same here. Either Zen 2 or 3 will be a massive jump for me, but I'm looking for the best value plus some future proofing.
  • nathanddrews - Wednesday, September 9, 2020 - link

    If you want to be future proof, to the degree that it's possible, then at this point you may as well wait for the release of AM5/Zen4/DDR5 in Q4 2021 (2022?). Zen 3 is the last AM4-compatible chip, so you have nowhere to go except further up the 4000-series stack. That's not a terrible place to be, but five years from now it might be - I don't know how frequently you like to upgrade.
  • nandnandnand - Thursday, September 10, 2020 - link

    Rumor has it that there will be Zen 3(+) "Warhol" desktop CPUs in 2021, which could be the introduction to the AM5 socket. If that's true, it would be a way to future proof without having to wait until 2022.
  • mdriftmeyer - Saturday, September 12, 2020 - link

    Good luck. Zen 4 is the introduction to AM5 Socket.
  • nandnandnand - Sunday, September 13, 2020 - link

    You don't know that.
  • sorten - Thursday, September 10, 2020 - link

    Argh. Fair points, but it's taken all of my self control to not buy a Zen 2 system :)
  • lilkwarrior - Friday, September 11, 2020 - link

    Agree, it makes far more sense to skip initial Zen 3 chips until the one that will use the AM5 Socket comes out.
  • yeeeeman - Thursday, September 10, 2020 - link

    Zen 3 will be even a bigger jump from Zen 2 compared to Zen 2 vs Zen+. IPC should be ~20% better and frequencies also a bit higher, so a hypothetical 4900x with 12 cores should be 25% faster than a 3900x which very close to 3950x.
  • phoenix_rizzen - Thursday, September 10, 2020 - link

    I was hoping to hold out until Zen 3, but my Phenom II system bit the bucket a month or so ago and forced my hand.

    Ended up with a B550, Ryzen 5 3600, and 32 GB of RAM on sale (using PSU, GPU, drives, etc from the existing system). Took awhile for the parts to arrive, and I haven't had a chance to put it together yet.

    Here's hoping it lasts as long as the Phenom did!
  • Spunjji - Friday, September 11, 2020 - link

    That must feel like a mighty improvement!

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