Intel has been running away with processor market share these few years while AMD has struggled to recover from a series of bad business decisions. The FX family of processors, based on the Bulldozer architecture, haven't kept the company competitive when consumers compare its processors against Intel counterparts. Cue Zen, which is AMD hopes will change the game.

So what is Zen?

What CPUs will be available?

Have some questions?

Hold out for #TeamRed? So, just what is Zen? Zen is the codename for the architecture of AMD's upcoming family of processors, which are to succeed the current FX line. Slated for an early 2017 release, this new family of chips are a new direction for AMD, starting from the ground up in designing a new processor that can take on counterparts offered by Intel. Instead of going for increased clock speeds and higher energy consumption, AMD is cutting things back, instead going for efficiency and performance per clock. As well as new consumer CPUs, AMD is expected to release server processors and APUs in the second quarter and second half of 2017, respectively. Best VPN providers 2020: Learn about ExpressVPN, NordVPN & more The upcoming Zen-based processors will utilize a 14nm FinFET process, with the production contract going to Global Foundries. This more efficient process is a solid step for the company, replacing the previous 32nm and 28nm processes used for FX CPUS and APUs. The smaller process will also lead to reduced power consumption and heat output. Interestingly, AMD will be removing the north bridge chipset from the motherboard and deploying it on the CPU itself, becoming more like a SoC (system on a chip). Again, this aids with efficiency.

Zen is also slated to be more energy efficient than current AMD offerings, perform more instructions per cycle, and sport simultaneous multithreading (SMT), which should help AMD in bridging the gap between itself and its immediate rival. There will also be a new cache system that will aid overall efficiency. And it needs to be fast too as the company boasts substantial improvements over Excavator, the most recent microarchitecture and Zen's predecessor. AMD claims Zen to be 40% faster than Excavator, its predecessor These changes are fairly significant, especially the improvements to the L1 cache and introduction of SMT. AMD relied on a clustered multithread (CMT) design with its previous microarchitectures, and with this move the company will be able to have two logical CPUs per physical core, but don't mistake this for Intel's Hyperthread technology as AMD will be taking a slightly different approach called clock gating. The result, however, shouldn't be noticeably different. Should you be rocking a current-gen AMD processor, you'll be using the company's AM3 socket. Zen will introduce a new socket, AM4 that will bring with it DDR4 RAM support. Don't think you can save that 32GB DDR3 setup though as the new chips will not support third-generation.

All this development was made possible after the company re-hired Jim Keller back in 2012, who subsequently departed once again in 2015. Keller was involved in developing AMD's K8 architecture, the original Athlon 64 processor, coauthoring the specifications for the x86-64 instruction set, as well as spending time at Apple to work on the A4 and A5 processors that powered iPhones. AMD was clearly read to go all-out. Suffice to say, this could be the return of AMD as we once knew and worshipped it. However, it has been four years, Zen had better be good. What CPUs will be available?

So we know what Zen is, why it's in development, what AMD aims to deliver and when we can expect to be able to make a purchase, but just what will be available for consumers once everything gets announced? The company has already revealed "Summit Ridge," which is the codename for the upcoming consumer-grade chips. This family of processors will actually start as an octo-core. That's right, AMD will offer an 8-core CPU with multithreading, for a total thread count of 16. The company is gunning for the high-end, powerful computers here. Unfortunately, we don't know anything on pricing for the new chips. If AMD's previous launches are anything to go by though, we'd bet we'll start seeing Intel drop its prices slightly to better compete against AMD. And aforementioned, you'll need to hold out until 2017 for the Summit Ridge consumer processor. Get saving for that new rig you always wanted to build. FAQ