With the reveal of AMD's next-generation Zen 2 CPU core soon approaching, the latest rumors have revealed that Radeon Technologies Group already received one sample for optimizations. The rumor comes from a forum member at HardOCP who's known to have some reputation on the forums when it comes to AMD related leaks.

AMD Zen 2 "3rd Gen Ryzen" CPU Arrived in RTG Labs - 8 Cores, 16 Threads, Up To 4.5 GHz Early Sample

There are not a lot of details mentioned but first of all, you may be wondering why does the AMD RTG (Radeon Technologies Group) have the sample this early. The reason is said to be changes to the interconnect which requires RTG to make adjustments for their video card drivers. The sample in question was based on the new Zen 2 core architecture which AMD had completed the design of earlier this year.

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The Zen 2 CPU featured 8 cores and 16 threads. Judging by the configuration, we can tell that this would be part of the third generation Ryzen mainstream family. The chip featured a base clock of 4.0 GHz and a boost clock of 4.5 GHz. It was tested with DDR4-3600 MHz (CL15) memory along with a Radeon RX Vega 64 Liquid graphics card. The test platform was an engineering motherboard with an AMD logo. It may be based on the new chipset but AMD did confirm when they launched Ryzen that their AM4 socket is designed to be future proof so the possibility of current motherboards to support next-gen Zen 2 CPUs is highly likely.

Some performance tidbits were also talked about with the Zen 2 CPU sample already proving to be great versus Intel's Core i7-8700K. But since it is a very early sample, it currently crashes a lot as mentioned by the forum member. It is said that the chip crashed so often that testing had to be done multiple times to complete otherwise the chip just crashed before the test finished.

AMD CPU Roadmap (2018-2020)

Ryzen Family Ryzen 1000 Series Ryzen 2000 Series Ryzen 3000 Series Ryzen 4000 Series Ryzen 5000 Series Ryzen 6000 Series Architecture Zen (1) Zen (1) / Zen+ Zen (2) / Zen+ Zen (3) / Zen 2 Zen (3)+ / Zen 3? Zen (4) / Zen 3? Process Node 14nm 14nm / 12nm 7nm 7nm+ / 7nm 7nm+ / 7nm 5nm / 7nm+ Server EPYC 'Naples' EPYC 'Naples' EPYC 'Rome' EPYC 'Milan' EPYC 'Milan' EPYC 'Genoa' Max Server Cores / Threads 32/64 32/64 64/128 64/128 TBD TBD High End Desktop Ryzen Threadripper 1000 Series (White Haven) Ryzen Threadripper 2000 Series (Coflax) Ryzen Threadripper 3000 Series (Castle Peak) Ryzen Threadripper 4000 Series (Genesis Peak) Ryzen Threadripper 5000 Series Ryzen Threadripper 6000 Series Max HEDT Cores / Threads 16/32 32/64 64/128 64/128? TBD TBD Mainstream Desktop Ryzen 1000 Series (Summit Ridge) Ryzen 2000 Series (Pinnacle Ridge) Ryzen 3000 Series (Matisse) Ryzen 4000 Series (Vermeer) Ryzen 5000 Series (Warhol) Ryzen 6000 Series (Raphael) Max Mainstream Cores / Threads 8/16 8/16 16/32 16/32 TBD TBD Budget APU N/A Ryzen 2000 Series (Raven Ridge) Ryzen 3000 Series (Picasso Zen+) Ryzen 4000 Series (Renoir Zen 2) Ryzen 5000 Series (Cezanne Zen 3) Ryzen 5000 Series (Rembrandt Zen 3) Year 2017 2018 2019 2020/2021 2020/2021 2022

AMD 7nm Zen 2 CPU Rumors – Up To 15% Increase in IPC, Up To 16 Cores For AM4, 32 Cores For TR4 and 64 Cores for SP3 Platform

Earlier this year, AMD reported that their Zen 2 design was completed and the first processors will start sampling to customers in the second half of 2018. The server aimed EPYC ‘Rome’ CPUs will be the first to make use of the new Zen 2 cores when they are officially introduced in early 2019. Following is what Lisa Su, the CEO of AMD, had to say on the completion of their Zen 2 design:

In the server market, we will continue to work closely with major cloud vendors and OEMs to ramp their first generation EPYC-based systems while also completing key development milestones on our next generation Zen 2 based server platforms. Our Zen 2 design is now complete and we will be sampling to our customers later this year. Su at AMD

While AMD hasn’t shared much information about their Zen 2 core yet, the latest rumor seems to point out what we should expect. Starting off with the performance expectations, the rumor alleges that Zen 2 will feature a 10% to 15% improvement in IPC (Instructions Per Clock). The IPC bump is over the current 12nm Zen+ based processors which delivered around 3% IPC increase over 14nm Zen. The Zen core itself was the biggest IPC increase for AMD, taking a jump of over 50% compared to their past CAT cores, all of which were revisions and tweaked variants of Bulldozer.

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A 10-15% IPC improvement can yield some good results considering we are also expecting to see some clock rate bumps in the next-generation processors too. That coupled with architectural changes and higher memory frequency support will end up delivering much better performance than current CPUs.

Of course, these are all just rumors but they are still interesting for users who are looking forward to the next-generation AMD Ryzen CPUs. Expect more details in the coming months when AMD is ready to unveil their next-gen CPU design to the public.