Alleged AMD Z490 And Intel Z390 Chipset Roadmaps Leaked With Coffee Lake-S Details
Looking at the first slide below, we see that AMD has at least two new chipsets arriving over the course of the next two months. The first is the Z490, which is set to launch next month, and the B450, which is set to bow in late July. For those not in the know, Z490 is supposedly a more feature-filled version of the existing AMD X470 chipset and is reported to have four additional PCIe 3.0 lanes. As for the B450, it will reportedly be a cut-down version of the X470 for use in entry-level systems.
The chipset roadmap also hints at the arrival of second generation Ryzen Threadripper processors along with a refreshed X399 chipset. We've already seen evidence of three new 12nm Zen+ Ryzen Threadripper processors in AMD's own documentation including the 2950X (16-core, 32-threads), 2920X (12-core, 24 threads) and 2900X (8-core, 16-threads). However, we don't have any additional information on the alleged X399 chipset refresh. According to bluechip, the second-generation Ryzen Threadripper family and its complementing chipset will arrive in August, which is when its predecessors launched last year.
Switching gears to the Intel side of things, there's an indication that the Z390 chipset will bow in Q3 2018. We've talked about the Z390 on a number of occasions here at HotHardware, and it was originally pegged for a H2 2018 launch, so bluechip's roadmap is right on the money. Z390 will support both Coffee Lake and Cannon Lake processors, although the latter won't be shipping in volume until 2019. The roadmap makes note that an 8-core, 16-thread Coffee Lake-S processor will be at the engineering sample stage next month and will ship in Q4. This processor, which features an 8+2 configuration (8 cores, GT2 graphics), will be supported by Z390.
Although not mentioned in the above slide, Intel's own documentation reveals that there will be an X399 chipset (not to be confused with AMD's X399 Threadripper chipset) for Coffee Lake- and Cannon Lake-based HEDT processors.
As we previously stated, we're taking this information with a pinch of salt at the moment, but it at least sheds some light on what is shaping up to be a very active second half of the year for PC enthusiasts. To that end, Intel last night sent out invites to its big shindig at Computex 2018, which will take place between June 5thand June 9th. The company plans to discuss a wide variety of topics including its client computing division, article intelligence, IoT and 5G. For us hardware enthusiasts, however, we're most interested in what the company will be talking about with regards to client computing.
