AMD essentially confirms 5 nm Zen 4 CPUs and "advanced node" RDNA 3 GPUs will launch by 2021 in latest corporate presentation

Along with the Q2 earnings report, AMD also presented an updated set of slides with roadmaps for the next couple of years. Not much has changed from the slides we got to see in March, but we were able to spot some interesting additions here and there that basically confirm that AMD is pushing to transition most CPU and GPU lineups to TSMC’s 5 nm manufacturing process by the end of 2021.

First up is the Data Center CPU roadmap slide that shows a 5 nm Zen 4 EPYC “Genoa” lineup launching in 2021. This proves that AMD is seriously considering a consolidation for the server-grade lineup that now appears to be more and more profitable as it is bringing important revenues and increases market share for team red. On the other hand, the desktop/laptop Ryzen roadmap is still limited to the Zen 3 outlook, and AMD already confirmed that its Zen 3 Ryzen 4000 desktop CPUs will be launching later this year. We also know that AMD booked considerable 5 nm production capacities at TSMC for the remainder of 2020 and most of 2021, so there is still a chance to see 5 nm desktop CPUs in late 2021.

As for the upcoming GPU architectures, the new slides show that both CDNA 2 and RDNA 3 are to be released next year on an “advanced node.” We are not exactly sure why AMD does not mention 5 nm here. One of the reasons for this vague description could be the possibility of using both TSMC’s 5 nm and Samsung’s 5 nm nodes. The compute-oriented CDNA2 GPUs would thus extend the Infinity Architecture to exascale power via the TSMC 5 nm nodes, while the RDNA 3 gaming GPUs may be produced on Samsung’s 5 nm nodes, as the Korean giant intends to use a version of these graphics cores in the upcoming mobile Exynos SoCs.