AMD At Computex 2018: 32 Core 2nd Gen Threadripper, 7nm Vega GPUs & Zen 2 CPUs

Before Computex 2018 kicked off, quite a few of us in the tech press were fairly sure that AMD would be announcing a new Threadripper, and possibly an update on some new Vega GPU tech to come. What we got was some surprises, as well as confirmation of what we already knew.

Cutting to the good bits, the 2nd generation Threadripper was confirmed, but the surprise was not just a 24-core CPU as we were expecting, but also the full 32-core announcement too. This might be AMD being taken by surprise by Intel’s 28-core mystery CPU that was shown earlier.

However, when you dig into things a bit, a 32 core Threadripper is not unexpected either. The current generation Threadrippers make use of only two dies on the chip, the other two under the IHS are dead chips used for mechanical strain relief. Second, the server market EPYC CPUs came in 32 core packages and used the same system as Threadripper, so it’s not entirely unexpected to see these HEDT chips coming out with the full core counts.

Of course, there is more to the 2nd Gen Threadripper than all 4 dies being active, as there are other improvements along the way. Most notably it caries over the same improvements as the 2nd Gen Ryzen Zen+ architecture, and 12nm manufacture process, so there will be clock boosts, memory timing adjustments, and all that good stuff. Best of all, it’s a drop-in replacement for existing TR4 systems with just a UEFI update. It’s expected to launch Q3 this year.

Vega 7nm was mentioned, but as part of the same Instinct card that was mentioned a few months ago at CES. This is AMD trying to break into the deep learning and professional markets. Interestingly, this Vega 7nm Instinct card was shown with 32GB of HBM2, being used in Cinema 4D for iterative rendering using AMD’s ProRender engine, which we explored a few times and found to be quite a powerful rendering engine that works cross-platform. Vega 7nm for gaming is still largely up in the air at this point, but AMD said that it was on track.

Another surprise was a laptop by ASUS, the X570ZD, which featured AMD’s latest APU series, a Ryzen 2700U , but also a discrete graphics card, an NVIDIA GTX 1050. In effect, the laptop has two different GPUs, from two different vendors, in the same system. Yes, we’re just as curious as you are as to how it all works together.

Briefly on show was the Vega 56 Nano which will be released soon by Powercolor. This card has been on show for almost a year now, at various AMD press events, and has been a long time in the making – still, better late than never. A demo was also shown regarding FreeSync being implemented into Samsung TVs, which will also work with the Xbox One (since they use AMD hardware inside).

Also briefly mentioned was 7nm Zen 2 architecture, rather than the newly released Zen+ with the 2nd generation Ryzen chips that are out now. Zen 2 will make use of the same 7nm process as the new Vega chips, and AMD expects to start sampling the chips towards the end of the year, with a formal release some time next year. Further details are still somewhat limited though.

In all, there was a fair bit to take away, with the 32 Core Threadripper stealing the show (pretty much like it did last year). You can check out the full press event for yourself on AMD’s live stream.