Leaks of Potential Zen 2-Based CPUs and Navi-Based GPUs from AMD Suggest Aggressive Performance and Pricing

Guest_Jim_* · December 5, 2018

It was about a month ago when AMD shared information on some of its upcoming 7 nm products; the Zen 2-based EPYC CPUs and Radeon Instinct MI60. While these products might be suggestive of what is to come, they are not consumer products, so some are waiting anxiously for leaks and rumors of what might be coming. Yesterday, AdoredTV's Jim revealed information that had been shared with him, covering the breadth of the Ryzen 3000 consumer parts (not Threadripper though) and three discrete GPUs based on the Navi architecture.

Focusing on the CPUs first, the information he received starts with a 6 core/12 thread CPU with a base clock of 3.2 GHz and a boost of 4.0 GHz. This will be the Ryzen 3 3300 with a TDP of 50 W and a price of $99.99, with parts the remaining CPUs all going up from there. This and many other CPUs mentioned will supposedly be announced at CES. The next CPU mentioned is the Ryzen 3 3300X with the same core count, but a base clock of 3.5 GHz and a boost of 4.3 GHz with a 65 W TDP and $129.99 price. Something he specifically points out about these CPUs is there die configuration has a single 7 nm Zen 2 chiplet, an IO die, and a dummy die. Also part of his leak is the Ryzen 3 3300G, which will have a 15 compute unit Navi die on it, in place of that dummy die, with the CPU portion having a base of 3.0 GHz and a boost of 3.8 GHz while keeping the 65 W TDP and $129.99 price of the 3300X

Stepping up to the Ryzen 5 series, we still have the single Zen 2 die, but now all of the cores are active, so they are 8 core/16 thread chips with the 3600 having a base clock of 3.6 GHz and a boost of 4.4 GHz with a 65 W TDP and $179.99 price. The 3600X raises the clock speeds to 4.0 GHz base and 4.8 GHz boost while having a 95 W TDP and $229.99 price. A 3600G is also described, combining that Zen 2 die with a 20 CU Navi die. It will have a CPU base clock of 3.2 GHz and a boost of 4.0 GHz with a 95 W TDP and $199.99 price.

Next we come to the Ryzen 7 3000 series, which will use two Zen 2 dies allowing both the 3700 and 3700X to feature 12 cores/24 threads. The base clock of the 3700 will be 3.8 GHz with a boost of 4.6 GHz and a 95 W TDP and $299.99 price. The 3700X pushes the clocks higher, to 4.2 GHz and 5.0 GHz while having a 105 W TDP and $329.99 price. It is worth noting these CPUs will all be using the same AM4 socket of Ryzen 1000 and Ryzen 2000 series processors and current motherboards. That means that following a BIOS update, it should be possible to drop these into existing systems. This is not necessarily true of the Ryzen 9 series though. Oh, the rumor also states there will be Ryzen 9 3000 processors.

The Ryzen 9 3800X will be a 16 core/32 thread processor, which means two fully active Zen 2 chiplets, and will have a base clock of 3.9 GHz and boost of 4.7 GHz. The Ryzen 9 3850X, apparently named for AMD's 50th anniversary, will have a base clock of 4.3 GHz and a boost of 5.1 GHz. These processors will be priced $449.99 and $499.99, respectively, with TDPs of 125 W and 135 W, respectively. It is these higher TDPs for why these two processors might not be able to just drop into existing motherboards, as they will need more power than all board may be able to provide.

That certainly seems like enough information, but there was more leaked to him, including some covering upcoming Navi graphics cards. It might be worth noting that in a previous video Jim explains that Navi may be a more significant shift than some expect. His reasoning is that it takes about five years to develop a new GPU architecture and it was five years ago NVIDIA launched the gaming-focused Maxwell architecture. Navi could therefore be AMD's gaming-focused architecture and thereby provide significant performance gains compared to currently available Polaris and Vega parts; beyond that a move to the 7 nm process node can be expected to provide.

At the low end, there will supposedly be a Radeon RX 3060 graphics card, based on the small Navi 12 design. It will be paired with 4 GB of GDDR6, cost $129.99, have a 75 W TDP, which means it will not need any additional power than the PCIe slot is specified to provide. Its performance is supposed to be approximately that of the RX 580. Next up is the RX 3070, still using Navi 12 but now with 8 GB of GDDR6, a 120 W TDP, $199.99 price, and matching the performance of the Vega 56. Lastly we have the RX 3080 using the larger Navi 10 chip, with 8 GB of GDDR6 and a 150 W TDP, priced at $249.99 with performance about 15% above the RX Vega 64.

Obviously these are all rumors and so none may end up being true. But then, a lot of it might be end up being true too, and thankfully, according to the rumors, many of these products will be launched at CES 2019, just a month away.