Radeon RX 6000 And Zen 3 October Surprise: AMD Sets Dates For A New Journey
Ryzen 4000, AMD’s Incoming Desktop-Class Zen 3 “Vermeer” Processors
Not to be confused with AMD’s existing Ryzen 4000 APUs used in laptops (and some desktops), the Zen-3 based Ryzen 4000 family will strictly be for desktop duty. These processors lack integrated graphics and will be geared for high-performance productivity and gaming applications, especially the inevitable Ryzen 4000 Threadripper family. AMD says that Zen 3 will “[take] our PC gaming and content creation leadership to new heights.”
Recent rumors have suggested that Ryzen 4000 processors will for the first time be available in 10-core/20-thread configurations, which would put those SKUs in more direct competition with similar offerings from Intel. Other rumors have suggested that the all-new Zen 3 architecture will be good for up to a massive 20 percent uplift in IPC performance compared to Zen 2, while maintaining compatibility with existing AM4 motherboards like the X570 and B550.
With the next wave of AMD Ryzen processors and the all-new Zen 3 architecture, @AMD is taking its PC gaming and content creation leadership to new heights. Learn more October 8. pic.twitter.com/PAvA5m3FGo
— AMD Ryzen (@AMDRyzen) September 9, 2020
Although we can’t independently confirm this information, an alleged Ryzen 9 4950X processor with a 16-core/32-thread configuration was spied back in early August with a 3.5GHz base clock and a boost clock of 4.8GHz.
Radeon RX 6000 “Big Navi” Is Being Groomed To Fight NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 30 Series
The other big announcement from AMD is that the Radeon RX 6000 family will launch on October 28th. “We invite you to learn more about our RDNA 2 architecture, Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards, and our deep collaboration with game developers and ecosystem partners who will help us bring the best of Radeon to gamers,” writes AMD.
Radeon RX 6000 is what we have all been calling “Big Navi” for the past year, and is expected to provide a huge leap in performance over the existing Radeon RX 5000 Series family of Navi-based graphics cards. AMD first revealed its Radeon RX 6000 branding within its custom Fortnite map late last week.
AMD #RDNA2 architecture and Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics cards will bring the best of Radeon to gamers worldwide. Learn more October 28. pic.twitter.com/CZJRxTBe6m
— Radeon RX (@Radeon) September 9, 2020
Radeon RX 6000 uses AMD’s new RDNA 2 GPU architecture, which is also shared with the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5. With that comes native hardware support for real-time ray tracing and variable rate shading. Performance is an unknown at this time, but we’re hoping that Radeon RX 6000 will be competitive with NVIDIA’s new Ampere family of graphics cards which consist of the GeForce RTX 3070, RTX 3080 and RTX 3090.
Rumors swirling around the internet at the moment suggest that AMD will be targeting the $699 GeForce RTX 3080 with a 16GB Radeon RX 6000 priced at $549. It’s also rumored that an 8GB version of the card could be priced at just $499, putting it in direct competition – price wise – with the GeForce RTX 3070.
It’s going to be an exciting October for enthusiasts; that’s for sure. Between Zen 3 and Big Navi, AMD is looking to prove that it is still at the top of game when it comes to PC hardware.
