AMD will launch its Zen 3 based Epyc Milan CPUs before the end of 2020, as per the marketing slides from the company’s Financial Analyst Day (5th May 2020). This is something Dr. Lisa Su (CEO and President, AMD) has already confirmed multiple times. However, at the same time, there was not a single mention of the Ryzen 4000 “Vermeer” desktop CPUs in any of the slides.
While the 3rd Gen Epyc Milan server chips keep showing up across multiple presentations more than once, Vermeer or the 4th Gen Ryzen lineup is completely missing from AMD’s Financial Analyst Day 2020 update. This means that the Epyc Milan processors might be the only Zen 3 lineup we’ll see in 2020 while their consumer counterparts, the Ryzen 4000 chips might get delayed to early 2021.
This isn’t that far-fetched. In fact, if you look back on Dr. Su’s CES comment, she didn’t say anything about Ryzen 4000 or Vermeer. All she said was that we’d see Zen 3 in 2020, nothing about 4th Gen Ryzen. By this she probably meant Milan, which is the server lineup based on Zen 3.
Like the Epyc Rome and Matisse chips, Milan will be fabbed on TSMC’s 7nm+ (enhanced not EUV) node. This means most of the performance and efficiency gains will come from the new core architecture. You can expect nearly the same kind of IPC uplift as Zen 2, markedly higher boost clocks, all the while doubling down on the efficiency.
AMD really seems to be going all-in into the Data Center market. That’s not surprising at all considering that it’s a $35 billion market, with Intel and NVIDIA leading across most fronts. With Milan, the company is going to offer 100% coverage of the Data Center market, including HPC, Cloud and Enterprise IT. That’s 20% more than Rome and nearly twice as much as the 1st Gen Naples CPUs.
Regardless, it looks like gamers and enthusiasts will most likely have to wait till 2021 to get a taste of Zen 3. Considering the shipping and travel restrictions imposed due to the pandemic, that does seem like the right decision. We’ll update this post in case we hear anything from AMD. Cheers!
