AMD Says New Ryzen CPU Is Coming Early March, Followed by the Vega GPU
AMD's Ryzen processor will launch in early March, AMD chief executive Lisa Su. Su said during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call Tuesday afternoon.
"There will be widespread system availability from day one," Su said during the call. Channel vendors will receive the first Ryzen chips, along with system integrators. More traditional hardware vendors will come later, Su added.
AMd positions Ryzen tocompete with Intel's highest-end Core chips, specifically the Core i5 and Core i7 processors, Su said.
Su also talked about the follow-ons to Ryzen. She referred to a "Zen 2" and a "Zen 3," and confirmed that AMD is also developing with 7-nm technology in mind.
Su also revealed that the Vega GPUs will ship during the second quarter as well. In the second half of 2017, AMD still plans to launch a Zen-based APU, codenamed "Raven Ridge," primarily designed for notebooks but also some desktops.
Demand for graphic chips narrowed losses
Su added that the profit margins for both Ryzen and Vega will be well above AMD's average. The company's's net loss narrowed to $51 million, or 6 cents per share, in the quarter ended Dec. 31 from $102 million, or 13 cents per share, a year earlier. Revenue rose 15.4 percent to $1.11 billion.
During the Q4, AMD's Computing and Graphics segment revenue was $600 million, up 28 percent year-over-year and 27 percent sequentially. The year-over-year increase was primarily driven by higher GPU sales. The sequential increase was primarily due to higher GPU and client processor sales.
Client average selling price (ASP) was down year-over-year driven by desktop processors, and down sequentially driven by desktop and mobile processors.
GPU ASP increased year-over-year due to higher desktop and professional graphics ASPs. GPU ASP increased sequentially due to higher mobile and professional graphics ASPs.
Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom segment revenue was $506 million, up 4 percent year-over-year primarily driven by higher embedded and semi-custom SoC revenue. Sequentially, revenue decreased 39 percent due to seasonally lower sales of semi-custom SoCs.
AMD predicted that revenue would drop by 11 percent (plus or minus 3 percent) in the current quarter, however, indicating that AMD won't have as much to offer before Ryzen's launch.