AMD Ryzen 2 Release Date, Specs: New 12nm, 2nd Generation Chips Coming Out in April

By Edward Leano, Christian Post Contributor Tuesday, January 16, 2018

AMD is iterating on their Ryzen series faster than expected, with the company being rumored to release the new Ryzen 2 as early as December last year. In the recent CES 2018 event, the company confirmed as much when they presented their major CPU roadmap for the year, with the nearest milestone 12-nanometer chips coming out in April.

The company has lofty plans for 2018 which includes entire new lines of updated CPUS for their desktop line-up, covering the mainstream Ryzen, the high-end Ryzen Threadripper, and the all-new Raven Ridge Desktop hybrid chips.

For now, though, all eyes are on the nearest release, which is the second generation of Ryzen chips called Ryzen 2, which will come out of the new 12-nanometer Zen+ chip architecture presented by AMD last Jan. 8. According to their slide, the first batches coming out of this new design is "Now Sampling," as shown by WCCF Tech.

Along the way, AMD also confirmed that the upcoming 2nd Generation Ryzen line of chips that will be made using the new 12-nanometer process are "expected to launch in April" this year, as the company also announced via a press release.

In their presentation, AMD claimed that the new series, now referred to as the Ryzen 2000 series Pinnacle Ridge CPUs, will bring better performance even when running at the same clock speed as the first generation of Ryzen chips, for more than ten percent in estimated performance gains. With AMD expected to gear the new chips for higher clock speeds, the gap should get even wider, as PC GamesN points out.

Not only that, AMD is also promising new features to boost that performance even more. The company is planning a new Precision Boost 2, as well as an Extended Frequency Range (XFR) 2 feature update, that will improve performance for the same wattage draw.