After a Long Wait – AMD Zen CPUs Are On Their Way!

After years in the wilderness, AMD is finally coming back with a truly competitive CPU architecture. Later this year, AMD will be releasing Zen, their long awaited CPUs that are reported to bring a 40%+ IPC boost compared to current chips. As part of the preparations for a general release, the company is reportedly sampling Zen chips to a few select customers as soon as this quarter.

From all the information AMD has released so far, the indications are that they will keep the late 2016 launch date. Shipments are set to begin late in the year, with a launch late in the year and early 2017 depending on the specific segment. AMD is already getting partners and device manufacturers ready for Zen with chipset and motherboard support. There are no named companies yet which is expected given the many months till the launch.

With Zen out in the hands of more users, we may soon see more leaks. From all of the information that has leaked out surrounding the architecture, it sounds like AMD has a real winner on paper. How the 14nm LPP process and real world results play out though, remains to be seen. Hopefully, we will see some desktop Zen CPUs out late this year.