While we’re all busying ourselves with Ryzen, behind the scenes AMD is already prepping for the second generation of Zen-based CPUs. Codenamed ‘Pinnacle Ridge’, the Zen 2 processors are allegedly being lined up for an early 2018 launch.

Speaking in a recent Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything), AMD CEO Lisa SU said "In new product development, you always learn a lot and we have our list of things that we are adding to Zen 2 and Zen 3 to get even more performance going forward".

The core focus of both Zen 2 and Zen 3 will be to improvement on the IPC (Instructions per Clock) gains already achieved by Ryzen. AMD Ryzen currently offers a 52% IPC boost over the previous Bulldozer architecture, while Zen 2 and Zen 3 will each achieve IPC improvements between 5-15%. This will lead to an incremental performance improvement coupled with an further optimization AMD can achieve in gaming applications.

According to Su, AMD already has a large team working on Zen 2 ‘Pinnacle Ridge’, all in the aim of further improving on the incredible price to performance currently offered by the Ryzen 7 lineup.

With performance gains likely to be less than 20% over the current Ryzen it’s probably not going to be worth holding out if you’re already planning a CPU upgrade. Likewise, current Ryzen owners aren’t going to miss out a great deal until Zen 3 arrives with further gains. The good news is that it looks as if all three generations of Zen processors will make use of the AMD 4 Socket, meaning full backwards and forwards compatibility between the chips.

A little reminder as well that we're currently running an AMD Ryzen 1700X CPU giveaway. There's a whole bunch of ways you can enter and we'll be randomly selecting the winner in a couple of weeks.





