While AMD's Ryzen chips have finally enabled it to start challenging Intel in the CPU market again, the company knows there's still room for improvement. Marketing manager Don Woligroski even called Ryzen a "worst case scenario" for the new architecture, adding that Zen 2 will address its weaker points. Now, a leaked roadmap shows when the new processors will arrive.
The slides come from Spanish website Informatica Cero (via TechPowerUp) and show details of AMD's CPU releases right up until 2019.
Next year will see the launch of Pinnacle Ridge as successor to the current Summit Ridge processors. These are a refinement of the existing architecture that will likely bring, among other things, increased frequencies, which matches reports of the next generation of Zen chips moving from the 14nm node to 12nm --- essentially making Pinnacle Ridge AMD's tick in the tick-tock model.
Things get more interesting with the scheduled launch of Zen 2 in 2019. It appears that AMD is moving on from its Ridge naming system to something with a more artistic flair. Matisse --- named after the early twentieth-century French painter --- is the code-name for the new Zen 2 architecture. There's no information on whether AMD intends to increase Summit Ridge's 8 Cores and 16 threads design, but the fact that Matisse works with AM4 motherboards suggests it won't be adding any more.
The Roadmap also shows AMD's desktop/Notebook APUs, including 2019's Picasso. These are based on the upcoming Raven Ridge APUs, which combine Vega 11 NCUs with up to 8 Zen threads.
Earlier this week, Intel announced its 8th generation Coffee Lake desktop chips, which includes what the company is calling its best gaming chip ever. But these new CPUs will require new motherboards as they aren't compatible with existing 200-series mobos.