Possible details of AMD’s 14nm Zen-generation APUs appear
The first possible details of AMD’s Zen apus, which should be released in 2016, have surfaced online. The line will initially consist of 14nm chips for the high-end, which use an FM3 socket.
According to Sweclockers, a site that is fairly reliable in terms of rumors, two new apu series from AMD will be released in the third quarter of 2016. The first is codenamed Summit Ridge and is aimed at the high end. These are 14nm APUs with a maximum of eight cores that are built around the Zen architecture, which the former AMD CEO Rory Read announced six months ago. The chips will be equipped with L3 cache, but the size of the cache is unknown.
Bristol Ridge should appear at the same time as Summit Ridge. These chips are still produced at 28nm and will have a maximum of four cores that are still based on the Excavator architecture, just like the Carrizo generation of APUs, which should appear in the first half of 2015. Nevertheless, if Sweclockers’ information is correct, Summit and Bristol Ridge share a number of features: they both support ddr4 and pci-e 3.0 and both have a tdp of 95W. In addition, both will support the upcoming FM3 socket. This socket must follow FM2+ from Kaveri and Carrizo.
Furthermore, the two series share the southbridge, which would be codenamed Promontory and developed in collaboration with ASMedia. However, there are no details about the southbridge yet.
| Performance | Mainstream |
| 14 nm | 28 nm |
| Zen | Excavator |
| Maximum 8 | Maximum 4 |
| Yes (unknown MB) | – |
| – | next gen. GCN |
| – | Maximum 512 |
| ddr4 | ddr4 |
| Yes (unknown number of channels) | Yes (unknown number of channels) |
| 95W | 95W |
| FM3 | FM3 |
| promotion | promotion |
| third quarter 2016 | third quarter 2016 |