Though AMD’s latest Ryzen 4000 processors are commanding plenty of interest and the next-generation Ryzen 5000 processors have yet to launch, the company isn’t sitting idly by. A recently leaked road map suggests AMD’s Ryzen 6000 processors — the successor to the Ryzen 5000 chipset — may be ready as early as 2022 with a 5nm design utilizing the company’s Zen 4 architecture.
The processor currently goes by its code name of Raphael and bundles the company’s next-generation Navi 2 graphics architecture. According to the leak shared by Twitter user @MeebiuW, this suggests the Ryzen 6000 APU could integrate Zen 4 processor cores along with integrated a Navi 2 GPU design.
Image source: Twitter user @MebiuW
Navi is expected to debut first as a stand-alone discrete graphics solution, representing a huge architecture change for AMD as the company shifts away from its current Vega solution. Navi is expected to debut new features, like real-time raytracing, that will make it more competitive against offerings from rival Nvidia, like the current-generation GeForce RTX 2000 series and the oft-rumored GeForce RTX 3000 series that’s expected to debut this fall.
But before we arrive at the Zen 4-based Ryzen 6000 processors, there are still a few more items to get through on AMD’s roadmap, and 2021 will be a very busy year for the company. From the leak, the launch of Warhol, Van Gogh, and Cezanne are supposedly planned for a 2021 launch, with the latter being pegged as a successor to AMD’s Renoir but with a Zen 3 architecture.
Van Gogh, on the other hand, is designed for computer vision and machine learning, or CVML, so it could have a different — and more specific — purpose than other processors in the lineup. As an APU, Van Gogh is expected to be the first to integrate Navi-based RDNA 2 graphics. And while AMD has so far been inspired by famous artists in history for code names for its products, that may change after Van Gogh. The successor to Van Gogh, according to MebiuW, is said to be called Dragon Crest.
And Warhol is the last product in the 2021 road map, can either be a Vermeer Refresh or an interim product as AMD moves from its AM4 to AM5 socket, according to Videocardz. Warhol will be a desktop processor that’s likely expected to launch in mid-2021.