AMD New Zen Processor Lineup Part of Summit Ridge Family; Similar to ‘Unclocked’ Series of Intel?

AMD is coming up with a new Zen processor lineup aimed at the overclocker and enthusiast market. The new Zen processor lineup is rumored to be based on the successful Zen architecture and will be part of the Summit Ridge family.

Rumor also has it that the new enthusiast-grade parts will feature 8 cores and will ensure high OC margins. The new Zen processor lineup will be shipped with higher frequencies compared to the garden variety 95W variants. TDP, however, will remain at 95W throughout the higher-clocked variants, given that these will be specially chosen.

It would appear that the new Zen processor lineup is similar to the "Unlocked" series of processors from rival Intel. The Intel K-series processors are also targeted to appeal to a similar market. However, these are the only chips from the Intel Core series lineup that can be overclocked compared to AMD's new Zen processor lineup that offer an unlocked multiplier across all chips. These special variants however will generally be designed for the overclockers and enthusiasts.

In designing new Zen processor lineup engine, the simultaneous multi-threading has been introduced which basically is Intel's hyperthreading. The new Zen processor lineup has an impressive 40% performance gain.

The special overclocked variants are also rumored to ship at higher prices compared to the standard 8 core chips and would require some higher-end AM4 motherboards to release their maximum potential. Also absent from the package would be the otherwise standard heatsink cooler available with the other standard variants. AMD released the Wraith cooler recently however so it would seem you'll need bigger guns with OC chips.

The new Zen architecture-based chip lineup is expected to appear in the first quarter of 2017 and will be available to a wide range of buyers aiming to build a good gaming and enthusiast-grade PC. The Summit Ridge platform appears to be impressive enough to rid AMD of their existing and old AM3+ and FM2+ platforms.

The AM4 platform that will support the new chips are also rumored to come with a slew of new features and capabilities like support for the latest DDR4 memory, PCI-e Gen 3.0, and the next-generation I/O support. Several SKUs will be in the works at AMD ranging from quadcore to octacore models but all will be multi-threaded with overclocking support.