Zen is composed of a 14nm FinFET architecture that’s not only smaller, but also more power effective while delivering 40% better performance and reduce wasted power. AMD Zen also introduces a new cache hierarchy, advanced branch prediction, and simultaneous multithreading. AMD Zen “Summit Ridge” will have SMT architecture that guarantees high data transfer rates, a cache system with low latency, is able to achieve 40% more instructions per clock cycle compared to the previous generation cores, it has eight cores and 16 threads AM4 platform. According to the sources, Summit Ridge desktops will utilize AM4 Socket and will be compatible with motherboards that are designed for 7th generation A-Series CPUs. The 4K-based systems will include DDR4 main memory, PCIe Generation 3, USB 3.1 Gen2 at 10 gigabits a second, NVMe, and SATA Express. The performance comparison between Zen and Intel chips is important because it helped to confirm the power of the new architecture. The demonstration took place between a Summit Ridge and an Intel Broadwell-E Core i7-6900K, with both operating at 3 GHz. The test showed that Zen is as fast as the competing chip. In fact, AMD Zen Summit Ridge was half-second faster.
For now, two CPUs using the new chip have been announced. “Summit Ridge” a version for desktops and “Naples” created for servers. It is expected to be launched in early 2017, but there is no information about a specific date or final price.
