(Rumor) AMD to delay Ryzen 4000 (Zen3) until January 2021 due to Zen2 success

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nguyen704

nguyen704

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Update: Rumor debunked. Zen3 still set for 2020 release. See Zen3 coming in 2020 thread.

If you were waiting to upgrade to Zen3 this year, it looks like you'll have to wait some more. Zen2 refresh looks like its set to be announced on July 7th.

Update: AMD just announced the XT lineup. See AMD Ryzen™ 3000XT Series Processors thread.

I have the 3900X and have been extremely happy with it since I got it last year.

Annotation 2020-06-15 140121.png


Source: https://twitter.com/chiakokhua/status/1272426307628892163?s=20
 
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I thought it was weird as hell they'd release these XT parts in mid 2020, then release the 4000 series in late 2020.

Hell, the 3000 series launched less than a year ago.

If the 4000 series ends up launching about 1.5 years after the 3000 series, with meaningful performance improvements, then that's great!

Hard to be upset at this 'delay' - in fact, my wallet's grateful.
 
Bummer for those who were waiting on zen3 this year, but it makes sense for a bunch of reasons:

- no real competition except more skylake

- zen2 manufacturing is a known quantity, yields probably very good at this point

- allows for more time to improve yields at 7nm euv

One thing I’d like to see them do is redo the numbering on the APUs so they all line up. This delay means the desktop zen3 CPUs could be coming around the time AMD announces zen3 APUs on laptop (Assuming they stick to yearly-ish announcements for those). They could take the opportunity of the delay to just make all zen3 parts “ryzen 5000“.
 
Will we see price reductions on the "non-refresh" cpus? What do you guys think?
 
Chimpee said:
Not surprise by the decision as we have the XT release for the 3000 series. If Intel isn't competing, no need to rush it.
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I think it depends on what is going on in the background. If this gives them more time to prepare 4000 series Ryzens making them even better at launch, I think it's a sound strategy.

Otherwise, I'm a little concerned. They have a limited window to cement their newfound leadership. Once Intel fixes their process mess and gets off of 14+++++++++ they are in for a real challenge. The question is if it wouldn't make more sense to take even more market share now and build up their war chest so they are better prepared for the future. Then again, if they feel they have gained all the market share they are going to gain already with 3000 and 3000 xt, and that launching 4000 sooner won't gain them any further inroads, then this could be the right approach.


SeymourGore said:
Sounds like they're activating "Market Leader Mode".

I need to search my feelings before I can say how I feel about this. Understandable, but not very fun.
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Well, I've been saying this forever.

I know we like thinking of AMD as the adorable underdog which supports open standards and fair pricing, but in the end they are a corporation like any other, and when they are in the position, they will do things like enter "market leader mode" and release products at higher prices, just like Intel and Nvidia. Just like they did the last time in the k8 dual core era. It may seem funny now, but back in 2005 (just before Intel caught with the Core2 Duo) it was crazy for the time that AMD was selling $1000+ dual core Athlon 64's, especially considering just 2-3 years earlier, you could buy the fastest CPU they sold for ~$250...

AMD is a corporation like any other, looking to maximize shareholder returns. They are not your friend.
 
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Zarathustra[H] said:
[...]

I know we like thinking of AMD as the adorable underdog which supports open standards and fair pricing, but in the end they are a corporation like any other, and when they are in the position, they will do things like enter "market leader mode" and release products at higher prices, just like Intel and Nvidia. Just like they did the last time in the k8 dual core era. It may seem funny now, but back in 2005 (just before Intel caught with the Core2 Duo) it was crazy for the time that AMD was selling $1000+ dual core Athlon 64's, especially considering just 2-3 years earlier, you could buy the fastest CPU they sold for ~$250...

AMD is a corporation like any other, looking to maximize shareholder returns. They are not your friend.
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As long as the next power shift doesn't end up with yet another lost decade, I'll be fine with it. :D
 
So this is only Zen3 4000 Ryzen series, not Renoir 4000 series, correct? They really need to fix the APU naming to match the Zen generational nomenclature.
 
I agree with the gist of your post but...

Zarathustra[H] said:
AMD is a corporation like any other, looking to maximize shareholder returns. They are not your friend.
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They are not our friend, but not all corporations are as hostile to consumers as Intel has been the last decade. Trivial performance improvements year after year requiring new socket after new socket? F that S. If it weren't for AMD, we'd still be buying the same old lame old quad cores for $200.

AMD did us a MAJOR solid by offering some Zen 2 support on B350 & X370 boards. Those 300-series boards supported a minor CPU improvement and a major CPU improvement - three iterations. And AMD reversing course and officially supporting 4000 series CPUs on B450 & X470 boards did us another solid.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
it was crazy for the time that AMD was selling $1000+ dual core Athlon 64's, especially considering just 2-3 years earlier, you could buy the fastest CPU they sold for ~$250...

AMD is a corporation like any other, looking to maximize shareholder returns. They are not your friend.
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sometimes they just smoke some good green herb, and do the same without reason (AMD FX 9590 1000$ launch).

At least this time it's justified the increased price, (they were jus too cheap) and now they have a market leader product..
 
vegeta535 said:
It is funny how if Intel did this you all be ripping into them. AMD does oh it is ok. Very understandable. AMD still the good guys and cares about the consumers.
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Like any company they have their reasons for doing what they do, most of the AMD guys have the latest processor anyway so it's not a huge deal if we have to wait a bit longer. It's not like the Intel wait for 10nm and now 7nm that has ended in a string of broken promises.
 
The part about switching to 5nm is silly. Takes more than 3 months to do that.

Guess my HTPC upgrade will have to settle for a 3300x.
 
You know it does make sense for them to wait to bring out 4000 series, and possibly 5nm. The problem is the source of all this information. Now, since we do know of a refresh coming out in 3 weeks it totally makes sense to wait. It is not like Intel has anything to really go against AMD right now. Even with the refresh coming soon Intel will be hard pressed to sell the chips.

Interesting times indeed.
 
I'm ok with this mainly because I just bought my 3700x a couple months ago and would like a little longer to enjoy having the top end line CPU for a little while longer. I know it's petty but feels kinda good looking down on all the people with last gen CPU's. 😎
 
and im suddenly not slightly annoyed about buying my 3950x back in january.

i picked it up like 2 days before cyberpunk was delayed, and ive been slightly annoyed since then. figured at this point i could have grabbed a 4950x in fall instead. but now that its been delayed, im perfectly ok with when i got it.
 
vegeta535 said:
It is funny how if Intel did this you all be ripping into them. AMD does oh it is ok. Very understandable. AMD still the good guys and cares about the consumers.
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There is a world of difference between delaying a few months to take advantage of a successful product line (and watch where the economy goes) and spending a decade refreshing the same product line. But, hey, don’t let context get in the way of your little rant.
 
I've not been up to speed, but could this be motivated in part to avoid troubles with the whole "socket support through 2020" thing? (lawsuits, class-actions, etc)
 
AMD has too many unsold chips on the market if they were to release a new one now they would have to reduce the costs of those already well selling chips, makes 0 financial sense to do that. Wait till existing supply dwindles and you have a stockpile of the new ones so you can get to the market strong.
 
Interesting. I wonder what else is going on when it comes to chipset updates and whatnot.
 
A good CEO maximizing r&d dollars spent to help drive innovation in the future. Seems reasonable. Milk your good product for a few more months, alleviate pressure on future project timelines and improve profitability to ensure RTG gets something decent out the door.
 
Yeah, of all the silicon release this year, Zen 3 was the least needed. A clock bump will add enough performance improvement to match any performance increase from Skylake++++.

Ampere and Big Navi are a lot more important (along with the new consoles.) But they will have to wait until they match the clock speed of these core refreshes before they release the new chips (or they will be pointless for consumers looking for somethign better than the XT chips).
 
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If this is true, this is a horrible decision. Get lazy and give Intel time to catch up, wow. We need AMD to keep the pressure on Intel in order to make the market competitive so everyone wins.
 
Milk the cash cow before you buy a new one. Makes perfect business sense if the XT series are as fast as reported. It's good business and consumers don't need more than the current offering presently.
 
I was going to wait for Zen 3 but if this rumor ends up being true I may just go ahead and pull the trigger on a Zen 2 chip. Maybe once the XT parts are released we'll get some discounts on the current Zen 2 chips.
 
Happy with my 3700x but already itchy. Was really looking forward to bumping up to a 12-16 core 4000 series to "finalize" my setup]

c'mon amd!
 
Axman said:
Didn't people want AMD to support AM4 through 2020?
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That boat sailed long ago. Too many vendors having ricer UEFI setup with fancy charts and graphics eating up all of the ROM space.

Wouldn't bother me one bit if they went back to the ubiquitous blue setup screen with white text, at least the settings were usually easy to find and not hidden behind nonsensical menu layouts. I think Dell is the only one that has a sensible UEFI setup, it's nicely laid out and doesn't have stupid animated graphics distracting you constantly. Not like I want to stay in UEFI configuration for hours.
 
Keljian said:
Milk the cash cow before you buy a new one. Makes perfect business sense if the XT series are as fast as reported. It's good business and consumers don't need more than the current offering presently.
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Except in some cases like mine it just means I wait longer. Plan on replacing my 7700k with Zen 3. Not going to go to Zen 2.
 
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