Upcoming 12 nm AMD Picasso APU spotted online

The fact that UserBenchmark recently listed an item called "Radeon PICASSO Graphics" should be good news, but the truth is — unfortunately — a bit different. First, the listing does not come with any technical details; second, the AMD Picasso APU will probably arrive in 2019, although it could drop by the end of 2018 — in a very optimistic scenario, of course.

Details concerning the Picasso APU surfaced online a while ago, but it seems that some things have changed in the meantime. The AMD roadmap for 2017-2019 mentioned that this desktop/notebook APU would be based on the Raven Ridge architecture but would only come as a refresh of that lineup. Now, it seems that the AMD Picasso will debut as a new 12 nm power efficient Raven Ridge (Zen+)-based chip family with improved binning and a more optimized architecture.

Picasso is expected to arrive (more or less) alongside the AMD Matisse and Starship. The first one will be a new 7 nm Ryzen lineup for desktops, while the latter is also a 7 nm chip that aims servers and is expected to go against the Intel Xeon Phi series. Both will be based on the Zen 2 architecture.

The good part is that the AM4 platform will be used for the new chips as well, and even the Vermeer and Renoir processors, expected to arrive in 2020, are supposed to be compatible with it as well. The only problem is that everything needs to be taken with a grain of salt for now, so we should get ready for more Picasso/Matisse/Starship leaks and rumors in the coming months.