AMD desktop roadmap for 2012/2013

Last week we published AMD roadmaps for graphics cards, and mobile and server processors. All of these roadmaps were made public last Thursday during Financial Analyst Day event. Additionally, the company published 2012/2013 desktop roadmap, which revealed new features of their upcoming FX CPUs and accelerated processing units, and confirmed previously rumored cancellation of "Komodo" desktop CPUs.

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This year AMD will introduce second generation high-performance CPUs with "Vishera" core, and "Trinity" mainstream APUs, both utilizing forthcoming "Piledriver" core. Like current FX-Series, 2nd Gen FX parts will be manufactured on 32nm process, and will have from 4 to 8 CPU cores. The roadmap doesn't show a successor to "Vishera" microprocessors, and it's not obvious whether this is due to "Vishera" replacement coming only in 2014, or due to AMD being secretive about their plans.

"Trinity" APUs, coming later this year, will integrate from 2 to 4 cores, and DX11-compatible graphics. According to AMD, "Trinity" mobile chips will improve CPU performance up to 25%, and graphics performance up to 50%, compared to Llano mobile APUs. We can expect that desktop chips may offer similar benefits over desktop Llano, if (and that is big "if") company estimates are correct. Next year "Trinity" products will be replaced with "Kaveri" processors, featuring 28nm "Steamroller" core and Graphics Core Next (GCN) GPU. New chips will also add support for Heterogeneous Systems Architecture (HSA).

In the Essential section of the desktop market, we will see Brazos 2.0 E-Series APUs this year, and "Kabini" processors next year. Planned features for "Kabini" APUs are 28nm manufacturing process, increased number of CPU cores, up to 4, and Graphics Core Next GPU.