AMD President and CEO Dr. Lisa Su Reveals Coming High-Performance Computing Inflection Point in CES 2019

AMD highlighted historic leaps in computing, gaming and visualization technologies expected in 2019 based on a combination of leading-edge 7nm technology and the most advanced computing and graphics designs the company has ever created. During her CES 2019 keynote presentation, AMD President and CEO Dr. Lisa Su announced the world’s first 7nm gaming graphics processing unit (GPU), AMD Radeon VII; detailed the world’s fastest processor for ultrathin laptops1, 2nd Gen AMD Ryzen Mobile processors; and provided the first public demonstration of the upcoming 7nm 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen desktop processor.

Su was joined by a number of industry luminaries including Microsoft Executive Vice President of Gaming Phil Spencer, Massive Entertainment Managing Director David Polfeldt, and FNATIC Co-Founder and Chairman Sam Mathews.

Su’s keynote focused on solving the world’s toughest and most interesting challenges through high-performance computing and graphics innovation. From bringing a storyteller’s vision to life through digital characters, to helping communities come together through a shared love of gaming, to solving some of our toughest challenges in the realms of education, healthcare, climate change and energy solutions, it sees incredible opportunities to apply more powerful computing technologies to solve some of society’s toughest problems.

AMD Gaming Graphics Updates

Reinforcing its commitment to next-generation gaming leadership, the company announced the world’s first 7nm gaming GPU, AMD Radeon VII, designed to deliver exceptional performance and amazing experiences for the latest AAA, esports and Virtual Reality (VR) titles, demanding 3D rendering and video editing applications, and next-generation compute workloads.

The AMD Radeon VII graphics card provides 2x the memory2 and 2.1x the memory bandwidth3, up to 29 per cent higher gaming performance on average4 and up to 36 per cent higher performance5 on average in content creation applications compared to the Radeon RX Vega 64 graphics card, enabling maximum settings for extreme framerates at the highest resolutions.

It also provides seamless, high-refresh HDR6 gaming at 1080p, ultrawide 1440p and 4K, and powers the next-generation photo and visual creation applications on razor-sharp, vibrant 8K monitors.

Radeon VII graphics card is expected to be available beginning February 7, 2019.

AMD High-Performance Desktop Updates

For the several thousand keynote attendees and the record-size CES keynote live stream audience, AMD performed the first public demonstrations of the upcoming 3rd Gen Ryzen desktop processor. The 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen processor is based on the new “Zen 2” x86 core built using world-leading 7nm process technology.

It is expected to deliver new levels of performance7 and will be the world’s first PC platform to support PCIe 4.0 connectivity8. The new AMD Ryzen processors will offer better gaming, creating and streaming experiences than ever before with a faster and quieter PC.

The live demonstration showed a 3rd Gen Ryzen desktop pre-production processor vs. an Intel Core i9-9900K processor in a real-time rendering demonstration using Maxon Cinebench R15. The AMD Ryzen processor offered comparable performance at approximately 30% lower power9.

Additionally, Dr Su showed the power of AMD technology working together with a live gaming demonstration of a 3rd Gen Ryzen desktop processor in its socket AM4 platform paired with an AMD Radeon VII graphics processor.

The 3rd Gen Ryzen desktop processor is planned for introduction in mid-2019.

AMD Server Updates

The AMD EPYC datacenter processor had a tremendous first year, winning in the biggest cloud environments, and amassing more than 50 EPYC-based platforms shipping from leading server providers.

Su showed the world’s first 7nm datacenter CPU, codenamed “Rome, ”10 based on the “Zen 2” x86 core. Su revealed the real-world power of the next generation of EPYC by demonstrating a step-function increase in datacenter processor performance using the scientific application NAMD, which simulates large bio-molecular systems.

The demonstration compared a single pre-production EPYC “Rome” processor to two high-end Intel Xeon Platinum 8180 processors, and the single next-generation EPYC processor delivered approximately 15% higher performance11. By using EPYC-based systems, it is helping scientists to advance their research and get closer to finding the next big solutions.

The EPYC “Rome” processor is on track to start shipping in mid-2019.