AMD’s “Zen” CPU architecture brought AMD back into the desktop CPU game. Earlier this year we got an incremental update in the form of “Zen+” which was an improved 12 nm process, improved multi-core boosting algorithm, along with improvements to the cache subsystem. AMD is hoping for Zen 2 to add IPC (instructions per clock) improvements as well as significant IPC gains.
According to Bits n Chips Zen 2 will make significant IPC gains. These gains will be around 13 percent over Zen+, which had a 2-5% IPC gain over original Zen. Bits n Chips says that these IPC gains were in scientific tasks and not in gaming, but still that is a nice IPC increase. That is roughly a 16 percent IPC gain compared to original Zen.
AMD is expected to debut Zen 2 with its EPYC enterprise processor by the end of the year, which will be built on the 7 nm silicon fabrication process. Expect Zen 2 based client segment products can be expected in 2019.
