AMD Raven Ridge desktop APUs and Ryzen Refresh set for March 2018 Launch

According to a new report from Japan, AMD’s Raven Ridge desktop APUs aren’t coming in January 2018 as stated earlier, but sometime in March. This means the new APUs will appear almost in time for the launch of next-gen Ryzen CPUs, codenamed “Pinnacle Ridge.”

AMD’s 12nm Ryzen Refresh Pinnacle Ridge Coming in March

AMD Pinnacle Ridge will succeed Summit Ridge, which is the codename for current Ryzen processors. The new Ryzen CPUs will be based on tweaked Zen cores offering increased clock speeds and better energy efficiency.

AMD has already confirmed the next-gen Ryzen will be using 12LP FinFET, and could be branded as 2000 series CPUs. The company is expected roll out Ryzen refresh starting with Ryzen 7 in late February, followed by Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 3 in March.

If a previous AMD roadmap is to be believed, Zen 2 will appear the following year with Matisse CPUs. They will be using the new 7nm FF process and will maintain compatibility with the existing AM4 socket, as do the upcoming Ryzen refresh.

The new Ryzen 2000 Pinnacle Ridge CPUs will be accompanied by the refreshed 400-series “Promontory ” chipsets, including the X470 and B450. These chipsets were recently spotted over at PCI-SIG, indicating the platform has been finalized and will be rolled out to AIBs soon.

Launch of Raven Ridge Desktop APUs Delayed

AMD originally promised its Raven Ridge desktop APUs for January 2018, but Japanese dealers claim the launch has been delayed by a couple of months. These desktop parts feature the same four CPU cores as Ryzen Mobile, but boast faster clock speeds along with a much larger GPU with up to 704 Vega cores.

Eventually, AMD will launch new motherboards for these APUs, as well as BIOS updates for existing AM4 motherboards to support them. Indeed, Asus has already made new BIOS updates available for several of its boards adding support for Raven Ridge APUs.

However, Raven Ridge won’t be the first APU lineup to work with the AM4 socket; Bristol Ridge made its way to retail back in July, after being released to OEMs in the summer of 2016. Specifically, AMD plans to support Bristol Ridge, Raven Ridge, and Picasso (which is essentially based on Zen+) APUs on the AM4 socket.

You can expect the team red to tease its new products at CES 2018, which is only a week away now. As always, DigiWorthy will be covering the event so stay tuned.