AMD's Z490 Chipset, Threadripper 2 in August 2018, Intel's X399 Delayed?

[Taf the Ghost]

Well, this is certainly interesting.

 

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12711/german-it-distributor-publishes-amd-intel-roadmaps-z490-z390-8core-cfl-in-q4

 

Quote

With Computex just around the corner, a lot of thought is being put to exactly what are we expecting to see at the show. There are questions about AMD’s next generation Threadripper parts, and when Intel is going to launch the Z390 chipset whose name has been floating around for a number of months now. Due to a video published online by bluechip Computer, an IT Distributor based in Germany, some more information is starting to come through.

 

 

Obviously, someone at the German IT company messed up, but it's great fodder for us. Yet, this is also pretty strange.

 

First, since it's on two slides, AMD is releasing a Z490 Chipset, we've never heard of it before and no one yet knows what it means. Besides being a poke in the Intel marketing department's eye. Built in wifi, more USB ports and 10 Gbit Ethernet? No clue! We can speculate on that.

 

We have our first real dates for the Threadripper refresh, though it appears we're not getting a new chipset with it. (Probably a good thing.) I'm going to guess 4.5 Ghz max boost on a single core, give they are the binned chips.

 

In contrast, there's no mention of the Cascade Lake-X parts, which would be the X299 refresh. That's been expected for Q3'18 for a bit, so that seems strange.  As Anandtech mentioned, it might just not be on this specific company's timeline. Also in Intel news, Z390 is coming far earlier than the 8 core Coffee Lake part, which seems on track for the actual launch of the 8700k in December. (8700k was a near paper launch with full availability in December 2017, which puts the 8780k(?) on track for the same window.)

 

It's going to be a weird summer of Motherboard reviews with no associated new CPUs to test in them.

[iRileyx]

Z490? first B350 and now this.

Are AMD just trying to be douches at this point? Or just trying to make consumers even more confused lol.

 

PS I do like AMD but this is a bit of a sh***y move imo.

[Crunchy Dragon]

I was just about to write this post

 

The roadmap does indeed seem interesting, why release motherboards without CPUs?

[iRileyx]

42 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

I was just about to write this post

 

The roadmap does indeed seem interesting, why release motherboards without CPUs?

Well if Intel releases CPU's with no motherboards *cough* 3+ month for wait B and H 3xx boards for non-K chips *cough* AMD are trying to be original and doing it the other way around  

(Granted, they could be used on the Z370 boards but that meant buying an expensive board for no real reason.)

[Taf the Ghost]

2 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

I was just about to write this post

 

The roadmap does indeed seem interesting, why release motherboards without CPUs?

My guess is that it's, functionally, the AM4+ PCH. AM4 will almost be 2 years old when it releases, as there's actually been both boards & APUs available since Nov 2016 on the platform. Thus, they probably are updating the additional features to add more USB compatibility and other little things that we didn't see in X470. Though given how little to do the PCH has in most AMD motherboards for the last decade, it's probably also a more high-end part. Built-in Wifi and other "creature features" would make the most sense.

[Crunchy Dragon]

5 minutes ago, RKRiley said:

Well if Intel releases CPU's with no motherboards *cough*3+ month for wait B and H 3xx boards*cough* AMD are trying to be original and doing it the other way around  

(Granted, they could be used on the Z370 boards but that meant buying an expensive board for no real reason.)

This competition is getting really weird, man.

[Taf the Ghost]

1 minute ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

This competition is getting really weird, man.

There's quite a logical reason for AMD's recent naming conventions, given they're just replicating Intel's established ones, but it is getting funny.

 

It'll be really weird if Z390 & Z490 both launch around the same time, and both without any corresponding new CPU launches. Which, if that happens, actually means both PCHs serve roughly the same purposes as a soft reset of the product stack in anticipation of the next generation of CPUs.

[Crunchy Dragon]

Just now, Taf the Ghost said:

There's quite a logical reason for AMD's recent naming conventions, given they're just replicating Intel's established ones, but it is getting funny.

 

It'll be really weird if Z390 & Z490 both launch around the same time, and both without any corresponding new CPU launches. Which, if that happens, actually means both PCHs serve roughly the same purposes as a soft reset of the product stack in anticipation of the next generation of CPUs.

I mean, we all knew AMD was copying Intel's chipset naming scheme, and now their CPU roadmap. It seems they're both just copying each other at this point. Also, what happened to VIA? I heard they were supposed to make a comeback this year, but I haven't heard anything since.

 

Maybe they just pulled the Homer Simpson walking into a bush to avoid everything going on with AMD and Intel...

[SliceT]

Hopefully this time we get to see the OC-formula on the asrock AMD lineup this time

[Shodapop98]

1 minute ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

I mean, we all knew AMD was copying Intel's chipset naming scheme, and now their CPU roadmap. It seems they're both just copying each other at this point. Also, what happened to VIA? I heard they were supposed to make a comeback this year, but I haven't heard anything since.

 

Maybe they just pulled the Homer Simpson walking into a bush to avoid everything going on with AMD and Intel...

VIA? I don't think I've been paying attention

[Crunchy Dragon]

Just now, Shodapop98 said:

VIA? I don't think I've been paying attention

Yeah, they announced that they would be coming back to the CPU market a while ago.

 

In case you don't know who/what they are, they were a common CPU/GPU producer a long time ago, during the Windows 95-XP era IIRC. I've got some motherboard with their chips on them in my basement. But when Intel and AMD gathered more popularity, they just kinda got phased out and essentially disappeared from that market.

[Shodapop98]

1 minute ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Yeah, they announced that they would be coming back to the CPU market a while ago.

 

In case you don't know who/what they are, they were a common CPU/GPU producer a long time ago, during the Windows 95-XP era IIRC. I've got some motherboard with their chips on them in my basement. But when Intel and AMD gathered more popularity, they just kinda got phased out and essentially disappeared from that market.

Ah, yea I missed the Win-95 era cause I was born in 98

[Taf the Ghost]

2 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

I mean, we all knew AMD was copying Intel's chipset naming scheme, and now their CPU roadmap. It seems they're both just copying each other at this point. Also, what happened to VIA? I heard they were supposed to make a comeback this year, but I haven't heard anything since.

 

Maybe they just pulled the Homer Simpson walking into a bush to avoid everything going on with AMD and Intel...

VIA's x86 license is being used by Zhaoxin for CPU designs to stay in China. They're about a decade behind Intel & AMD, but the point is local development more than anything else. Though apparently they're going to be online a design on a TSMC node soon.

[Crunchy Dragon]

1 minute ago, Shodapop98 said:

Ah, yea I missed the Win-95 era cause I was born in 98

I wasn't technically around for it, but I did a fair bit of reading on it for the heck of it lol.

[Rune]

On one hand, thanks AMD for making my job more secure by needing someone to explain to confused parents that z390 is Intel and z490 is AMD.

On the other hand, fuck you AMDDDDDDDDDD

[Taf the Ghost]

2 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

I wasn't technically around for it, but I did a fair bit of reading on it for the heck of it lol.

Good old days of Cyrix parts as well. Intel's twitter talked about the Pentium 2 launch today, as it's been 21 years.

 

Weirdly, The P2 is the only reason I know about Blur's Song 2.

[Crunchy Dragon]

1 minute ago, Taf the Ghost said:

Good old days of Cyrix parts as well. Intel's twitter talked about the Pentium 2 launch today, as it's been 21 years.

 

Weirdly, The P2 is the only reason I know about Blur's Song 2.

It's all about the Pentiums.

 

Wow, 21 years since the P2 launched. That just seems insane lol.

 

It was the PCMR's 7th birthday a bit ago as well.

[Taf the Ghost]

1 minute ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

It's all about the Pentiums.

 

Wow, 21 years since the P2 launched. That just seems insane lol.

 

It was the PCMR's 7th birthday a bit ago as well.

 

That's still a good ad, actually.

 

As for the Pentium joke: 

 

That song actually captures late 90s tech pretty well before the Dot Com bubble went up. The rapid increase in computational power was intense. In an era where processing power hasn't greatly increased that much in the last 5 years, the late 90s saw increases so fast that stuff really did seem outdated by the time it launched.

 

Also, your Database is still a disaster. /Forever Problem

[Notional]

39 minutes ago, RKRiley said:

Z490? first B350 and now this.

Are AMD just trying to be douches at this point? Or just trying to make consumers even more confused lol.

 

PS I do like AMD but this is a bit of a sh***y move imo.

Kinda goes both ways, right?

 

That being said, I do wish AMD had more confidence in their own products, to make unique product names/numbers. They're not gonna shed the cheap/budget version of Intel when they label their stuff just like Intel. Then again, now Intel is starting to brand their stuff as AMD, so the confusion is over 8000.

[Crunchy Dragon]

16 minutes ago, Notional said:

the confusion is over 8000.

One might say the confusion is

Spoiler

8090

 

[Dylanc1500]

5 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

One might say the confusion is

  Hide contents

8090

 

So the question then becomes, what happens when the confusion hits over 9000...

[CTR640]

21 minutes ago, Dylanc1500 said:

So the question then becomes, what happens when the confusion hits over 9000...

Then Intel has gone bankrupt, Brian Krzanich got sentenced in prison for life and AMD jacking up their prices all the to the next galaxy and nVidia is a pet to Lisa Sue with her obsession for BDSM and using nVidia CEO as her pet slave.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

Z490 seems pretty absurd. It wouldn't accomplish anything if it was meant for TR, and they just launched X470 for Ryzen, what would they use it for? Plus they haven't used "Z" anywhere. Unless they'll replace A320 with Z490 just to make Z390 sound low end when it launches  

It wouldn't even step over an existing, recognizen name, Intel hasn't had a Z?90 yet. I don't know whether to distrust this source or distrust the minds at AMD's marketing team, but it has to be one of the two...

[ravenshrike]

5 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Z490 seems pretty absurd. It wouldn't accomplish anything if it was meant for TR, and they just launched X470 for Ryzen, what would they use it for?

Secret 2800X launch.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

2 minutes ago, ravenshrike said:

Secret 2800X launch.

Yeah, but it would have to be what, a 12-core? And then all those years of "all CPUs unlocked, same socket forever, come to teh dark side we have cookies" turned into "one chipset per CPU model"? I thought the idea was to one-up Intel in naming schemes, not in consumer unfriendliness  

 

(although, on a second thought, those names are par of the unfriendliness... )