AMD Ryzen 7000 “Zen4/Raphael” CPUs could launch already in the third quarter

AMD Raphael sooner than expected?

In a series of tweets, Twitter info-sharer Greymon55 revealed that AMD plans for the AM5 platform have changed. 

AMD is pushing forward its original plans to launch next-gen Ryzen desktop CPUs before the fourth quarter. According to Greymon55 (who had published AMD’s internal roadmaps in the past), AMD is now planning to launch Ryzen 7000 series before September. This is contrary to previous rumors suggesting AMD’s AM5 platform might launch in the fourth quarter.

Greymon55 specifically mentions desktop Zen4 CPUs which are now commonly known under their codename “Raphael”. This is the first generation of processors for AMD’s new LGA1718 (AM5) socket debuting under the AMD 600 series. In a response to Hassan Mujtaba from Wccftech, Greymon55 confirmed that the launch is (currently) scheduled before September this year:

AMD Raphael CPUs are to benefit from the inclusion of DDR5 memory technology support, boosted by RAMP (Ryzen Accelerated Memory Profile). Furthermore, Ryzen 7000 desktop series will be AMD’s first consumer architecture to support PCIe Gen5 interface.

At CES 2022 AMD demonstrated Raphael CPU running Halo Infinite at 5.0 GHz on all cores. This marketing stunt has not given us any information on the CPU configuration though (for all we know it could have been a quad-core CPU). What was interesting about this demo is that despite the chip allegedly featuring integrated RDNA2 GPU, the test was running on discrete GeForce RTX GPU.

AMD Raphael will therefore launch before Intel Raptor Lake, a successor to Alder Lake featuring up to 8 big cores and 16 small cores. Just like Raptor Lake, AMD Raphael will also be used for laptops.

Assuming that AMD is targeting August/September for its launch, then Raphael would arrive just a few months after Ryzen 7 5800X3D (Zen3+ 3D V-Cache), which to this moment, still has no release date.

Source: @greymon55