AMD unveils graphics cards and processors built on 7 nanometers during CES 2019

In early 2018, during this year’s edition of the CES show, AMD talked about the future of its processors and graphics cards. Both take a step down when it comes to manufacturing technology, from 14 to 7 nanometers, and for graphics cards it is both about the architecture Vega and the upcoming Navi, while on the processor side it is about Zen 2 and Zen 3.

Now the company announces that they will also talk about the future during next year’s edition of CES and officially unveil the first processors and graphics cards made at 7 nanometers. Based on the company’s previous product plans, these are probably Vega and Zen 2 at 7 nanometers, and it is likely that the focus is on server and workstations, but also gaming and VR are mentioned in the statement.

In 2019, AMD will catapult computing, gaming, and visualization technologies forward with the world’s first 7nm high-performance CPUs and GPUs, providing the power required to reach technology’s next horizon. During her CES keynote, Dr. Su and guests will provide a view into the diverse applications for new computing technologies ranging from solving some of the world’s toughest challenges to the future of gaming, entertainment and virtual reality with the potential to redefine modern life.

On the processor side, Zen 2 will be used for the third generation Ryzen processors, which goes by the code name Matisse, as well as new server processors in the Epyc family with the code name Rome. The transition to the new architecture is expected to offer support for new functions as well as better performance at a given clock frequency (IPC), and on the processor side, the number of cores is stated to increase from 32 to 48.

For graphics cards, Vega at 7 nanometers is expected to be the first in a new model in the calculation family Radeon Instinct, which was previously planned to be released towards the end of 2018. However, in its statement it is mentioned that during CES 2019 they will uncover “the world’s first processors and graphics cards built on 7 nanometer “, indicating that the Radeon Instinct model has been slightly postponed.

The successor to the 7-nanometer Vega will be the Navi architecture, which according to previous information will be the sixth generation Graphics Core Next (GCN). Navi is believed to be the last to be based on GCN before AMD in 2020 moves to what is somewhat cryptically called “Next-Gen”.

AMD has previously communicated that 7 nanometers is the future of the company and that they are investing heavily in the technology. For the production, they hire TSMC, as Globalfoundries recently ceased production of 7 nanometers. According to AMD, however, this has not had any impact on the company’s product plans and the development of future architectures is on schedule.