AMD's Zen 2 Threadripper Conspicuously Absent From Company's Latest Roadmaps

[Raevenlord]

We've all taken a look at AMD's March 2019 product roadmap, which showed us the upcoming 2019 tech the company would be bringing to the table in its "non-stop product momentum". However, it seems that this non-stop product momentum might be coming to an unexpected twist of fate that might delay it from entering the last station - the Zen 2-based Threadripper. In the company's latest May earnings call roadmap, the company silently removed the Zen 2 Threadripper from its product roadmap - where it used to sit right after the launch of Zen 2-based Ryzen products for consumers, is now just a big crop of the space it occupied.

This might mean many things, and a mistake on someone's part while cropping the PowerPoint slide could be the only thing going on here. However, the best and most plausible speculation that can be entertained when one considers this is simple - a supply problem. With the 7 nm node being the newest, most dense fabrication process possible, and with AMD having to share TSMC's 7 nm wafer production with a number of high profile companies - such as Qualcomm, for instance - may mean that supply is simply too tight to support Zen 2-based products across so many product stacks - Ryzen and Epyc - at the same time.





Perhaps AMD has delayed manufacturing of Threadripper Zen 2 products until after the initial bout of sales from their upcoming Ryzen 3000 series CPUs fades away, while also allowing for yields to mature and production wrinkles to be ironed out. It would definitely make sense, as Threadripper is definitely the product to cut in such a case - it doesn't carry as much of an impact on AMD's financials and outlook as a deficient Epyc production would bring, and doesn't get in the way of Ryzen 3000 series production to keep on AMD's momentum against Intel's offerings. This definitely does seem like a smart path for AMD to undertake, though it really is a shame that we seemingly won't be looking at a halo product such as the latest gen Threadripper as soon as we thought we might.

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[eidairaman1]

They Delayed Threadripper with Zen 1

 

[lexluthermiester]

They Delayed Threadripper with Zen 1

And that'll likely happen with this gen.

 

[eidairaman1]

And that'll likely happen with this gen.

Yuppers, So I don't see where the problem is.

 

[Flyordie]

Well, they should still try and get it out before the holiday shopping season. Oct-November if possible.

 

[biffzinker]

Or Ryzen 3x00 is packing 16/12 cores so Threadripper isn't needed right away?

 

[notb]

Limited 7nm supply, lack of demand, extremely low-volume product.
TR is something they should make from surplus EPYC dies, but I doubt there are many. The 7nm supply may not be enough to make all the EPYCs they'd like to sell.

Also, why not unify under the EPYC brand?
If AMD makes workstation EPYCs on Zen2 (which is probable), they'd be selling 2 almost identical product lines: one with enterprise certification and one with a silly box.

 

[dicktracy]

I skipped TR altogether due to its weakness as a HEDT product (weak overclockability and gaming). Zen 2 TR needs to be significantly better at those areas like Skylake-X was at providing a great all-around performance.

 

[ZhangirDuyseke]

WTH do you mean BS, are you entitled to a product line which is premium ~ takes time to develop, not to mention is a direct competitor to EPYC line in some segments

If you're so hung up on 7nm TR why don't you go buy that factory OCed W3175x @3K & get the MB costing a mere $1.5K

It's a niche product that the general market does not need or care about not to mention OEMs. Also for the time being current 2nd gen. Threadripper platform works just fine againt Intel's current offering in the HEDT segment.
AMD needs market share in the server / HPC market and I wouldn't blame them if they shift product allocation into their Rome line-up and the rest to go around for the desktop market.

What I lovingly have about the tech community is that every hardware news or product release must be turned into a foaming mouth pissing contest...

That's a thing I am talking about. Almost every article has comments against Nvidia, Intel, Microsoft!

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

I skipped TR altogether due to its weakness as a HEDT product (weak overclockability and gaming). Zen 2 TR needs to be significantly better at those areas like Skylake-X was at providing a great all-around performance.

too funny ... weak...

 

[dicktracy]

What's funny, AMD fanboy?! Your shitty 32 core Threadrupper can't even beat 18 core Intel Core i9-9980XE. That's funny!!! Enthusiasts buy Intel HEDT CPUs because they care about performance!

I only buy based on performance and not brand names. TR was too much of a compromise that it’s hard to even call it HEDT. It’s more like a workstation-LITE than HEDT.

 

[Zubasa]

That's a thing I am talking about. Almost every article has comments against Nvidia, Intel, Microsoft!

Okay, so you own shares in those companies?
Or does it hurt your feelings?
There are plenty of people who dislike the AMD 50th products as well.

 

[ZoneDymo]

Could we get a mod to delete some of these comments? its embarrassing tbh.

 

[Rowsol]

One would hope that a forum could exist without someone stirring up hatred but there's always one. Brand loyalty makes no sense. These are corporations with one goal. They don't care about you.

 

[kapqa]

I'd certainly like to see the impact of Zen2 with Pci@Gen.4 on X570 MoBo first ... Threadripper seems such a premium product to me that whenever i would buy one i would like to be certain that it is an investment that is made to last for a long time, e.g. with most up-to-date features already on-board and also to some extend future-proof-ready.

 

[londiste]

Is there a need for Threadripper? According to current state of leaks and assumptions, Ryzen 3000 will go up to 16 cores which would cut deeply into the already niche Threadripper. Yes, there will always be uses cases for 4 memory channels and 128 PCI-e lanes but will that justify keeping another platform?

 

[ZoneDymo]

Is there a need for Threadripper? According to current state of leaks and assumptions, Ryzen 3000 will go up to 16 cores which would cut deeply into the already niche Threadripper. Yes, there will always be uses cases for 4 memory channels and 128 PCI-e lanes but will that justify keeping another platform?

thats honestly why I think they are holding off on threadripper for now

 

[Valantar]

Looks quite conspicuously as a "it's no longer in 2019" situation. Placement at the end and without a time frame in the first slide indicates vague end-of-year timing to begin with, and the removal doesn't have to mean anything beyond a delay of a couple of months - either to build up sufficient stock or to allow prioritization of MSDT and server SKUs. After all, both 8-die and 4-die TR would eat up a lot of silicon per unit, which means either lost sales (consumer) or lost margins (server), particularly if they are to continue the "TR has the best-binned chips" policy. Given that Zen 2 is also "delayed" by a couple of months compared to previous launches (though not enough to matter), I don't see this as a problem. Waiting half a year for the highest-end products is not a problem.

 

[_Flare]

TR Gen.3 had no date related data on slide of march, so the may 2019 slide could be just a zoomed-in view to hide the now internally known launch-window for TR Gen.3

 

[medi01]

EPYC being in high demand might be the reason.
It's a beast with 8 chiplets:

 

[Crackong]

I don't see any problem.
TR always be few months behind the main release.
Same as no one is surprised about 3200G being a 12nm Zen+ product instead of 7nm.

 

[Manu_PT]

Linux says otherwise

https://www.techspot.com/review/1683-linux-vs-windows-threadripper-vs-core-i9/

Yeah let´s all buy HEDT for... Linux. Even better, TR completly obliterates Intel........................

... on MS-DOS.

 

[NdMk2o1o]

Wow what happened in here, its like an anti amd sausage fest... The usual suspects plus a few new faces all stroking each others Intel epeens... Bye

 

[Manu_PT]

Wow what happened in here, its like an anti amd sausage fest... The usual suspects plus a few new faces all stroking each others Intel epeens... Bye

More like the whole forum is an anti Intel + Nvidia sausage fest. That´s how TpU is known nowadays on every forum. Go check every Intel or Nvidia article comments section and surprise yourself.

 

[Hardware Geek]

Damn! I have to "settle " for 16 cores and pcie4 on a consumer platform and not a HEDT. Oh the horror!