Quote:Spanish website Informatica Cero have gotten their hands on what they say is an exclusive, real piece of information from inside AMD, which shows the company's CPU roadmap until 2019, bringing some new details with it. On the desktop side, there's mention of AMD's "Pinacle Ridge" as succeeding the current Zen-based "Summit Ridge" Ryzen CPUs in 2018. These leverage the same Summit Ridge architecture, but with a performance uplift; this plays well into those reports of 12 nm being used to manufacture the second-generation Ryzen: it's an AMD tick, so to say. As such, the performance uplift likely comes from increased frequencies at the same power envelope, due to 12 nm's denser manufacturing design.

Another interesting tidbit from this slide is the confirmation of AMD's Zen 2 processors being released in 2019. Based on the company's revised Zen 2 cores (which should see those architectural improvements we were talking about in the beginning of this piece), AMD also seems to be doing away with the ridge-like codenames they've been using in recent times, and taking a more artistic approach. Matisse seems to be the code-name for AMD's Zen 2 architecture, and if you know your painters, it looks like AMD is betting on its Zen 2 cores to further define and influence CPU design. There is no mention of increased Zen threads, however, which likely points towards AMD keeping the same 8-core, 16-thread design as with their current Summit Ridge. This likely plays into AMD's plan for keeping the AM4 socket relevant - while good for consumers who might want to see longevity in their platform, it does prevent AMD from making more radical design changes to their architecture.