AMD's upcoming 16 core enthusiast Ryzen "Whitehaven" CPUs have been spotted. The new processors will come in variations of up to 16 cores and 32 threads and will support quad-channel DDR4 memory.

The first CPU of the new enthusiast Ryzen family was spotted several weeks back, today two additional chips have surfaced. Both engineering samples feature 16 cores and 32 threads, a boost clock speed of 3.6GHz and a base clock speed of 3.0GHz. They've been designated the 2D3101A8UGAF4_36/31_N & 1D3101A8UGAF3_36/31_N device IDs. This leak comes courtesy of VCZ who spotted the new AMD Ryzen engineering samples.

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CPU ID Boost Clock Base Clock Cores Threads Platform 2D3101A8UGAF4_36/31_N 3600 3100 16 32 AMD Whitehaven 1D3101A8UGAF3_36/31_N 3600 3100 16 32 AMD Whitehaven 2D2701A9UC9F4_32/27_N 3200 2700 12 24 Alienware R3

AMD Aiming For Intel's Jugular - Rolling Out 16 Core Behemoths For The Enthusiast CPU Market In Mid 2017

The upcoming family of enthusiast Ryzen CPUs are considerably larger than the current Ryzen lineup and will not be compatible with AM4 due to this fact. It's still unclear what the new socket - internally code named "S3" -- will officially be named but we do know it's going to be LGA, rather than PGA. In other words, the pins will be on the socket rather than the CPUs unlike current Ryzen chips.

The new family of CPUs will feature a variety of core and thread counts. 16 cores and 32 threads is the maximum, but other configurations with 12 cores also exist. There has also been talk that 10 and 14 core SKUs will also be made available, but we have not yet seen any such engineering samples.

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AMD's New High-End Desktop "Whitehaven" Ryzen CPUs Will Take On Intel's X299 & Skylake X

The new chips will launch on AMD's new S3 platform. The new HEDT -- high-end desktop -- platform will include support for quad-channel DDR4 memory support, more PCIe lanes and more storage compared to AM4. It will compete directly with Intel's upcoming HEDT X299 platform and Skylake X CPUs which will feature up to 12 cores."Whitehaven" offers significantly more cores, threads and L3 Cache. Combined with the commanding power efficiency lead that Ryzen has already established, AMD's got a truly potent product on its hands.

With a 16 core Ryzen in the high-end desktop the Zen architecture is well on its way to displacing Intel's Extreme edition processors from the performance throne that they've long held on to. "Whitehaven" may be the first CPU family from AMD to win the ultimate performance crown since the aptly code named "hammer" architecture hammered Intel's Pentiums nearly 14 years ago in the form of the Athlon 64.

16 Core "Whitehaven" Ryzens Landing In The Middle Of The Year

AMD's new enthusiast desktop CPU platform will reportedly be showcased at Computex (May 30th - June 2nd). According to sources in the upstream supply chain, the S3 platform will launch alongside AMD's 32 core Naples processors in the middle of the year.