Leaked roadmaps point to a busy 2021 and 2022 for both Intel and AMD. In 2021, we can expect to see Intel offering Rocket Lake-S and Comet Lake-Refresh parts alongside Tiger Lake-H. This will be followed by corresponding Alder Lake parts in 2022. AMD will introduce Cezanne, Lucienne, and Van Gogh APUs next year. Raphael in 2022 will be a Zen 4 mainstream part with integrated RDNA2 graphics and will be complemented by Rembrandt, Barcelo-U, and Dragon Crest on the laptop side.
It looks like Intel and AMD will have a busy 2021 and beyond. Leaked roadmaps doing the rounds seem to indicate that Q4 2021 onward should be very interesting for both companies, so let's take a look at what can be expected.
Do remember that most of this information is still unofficial and the timelines aren't fully accurate.
It looks like Intel and AMD will have a busy 2021 and beyond. Leaked roadmaps doing the rounds seem to indicate that Q4 2021 onward should be very interesting for both companies, so let's take a look at what can be expected.
Do remember that most of this information is still unofficial and the timelines aren't fully accurate.
Intel and AMD 2021-2022 roadmap
Mainstream Desktop
While we already know that Intel will be launching Rocket Lake-S in Q1 2021 followed by Alder Lake in Q4, it looks like we might get to see a Comet Lake-Refresh as well. The Comet Lake-Refresh will only be for the entry-level Core i3, Pentium, and Celeron SKUs with Intel looking to further make use of the 14nm++ parts under the same 11th gen umbrella as Rocket Lake. It does make business sense as reusing existing CPU families with a slight clock boost can make them attractive for price-conscious customers.
Following this, in Q4, we will get to see Alder Lake for mainstream desktop based on the 10 nm Enhanced SuperFin architecture featuring a mix of Golden Cove and Gracemont cores along with Xe Gen12 graphics up to possibly 32 execution units (EUs).
AMD's Zen 3 Vermeer will continue to be the staple offering will Q3 2021 followed by a Zen 3 refresh codenamed Warhol between Q4 2021 and Q2 2022. It is not yet clear how different Warhol will be from Vermeer, but one can expect minor changes similar to what we saw going from the Ryzen 9 3900X to the Ryzen 9 3900XT.
Q3 2022 is when things start to get interesting with AMD Raphael, which would be a Zen 4 part based on a 5 nm process. Raphael is slated to bring support for DDR5 and will also probably be the first AMD mainstream desktop CPU to include on-die integrated graphics (with Athlon 64 and Phenom CPUs, select motherboards offered an iGPU chip), which is likely to be an RDNA2 part.
Mobile Gaming
On the laptop side of things, Tiger Lake-H 45 W will debut for high-end gaming and content creator laptops in Q2 2021. A year later, in Q2 2022, Alder Lake-H 55 W with 32 EUs of Xe Gen12, up to 8+8 24 threads, and support for PCIe Gen5 and DDR5 is expected. Interestingly, Tiger Lake-H will also have a 35 W variant that may launch sooner than the 45 W part with possible support for LPDDR5 RAM. In Q2 2022, Alder Lake will have a 45 W SKU as the lower power variant with 6+8 20 threads and a 96-EU Xe Gen12.
It could be that Intel is looking to increase the TDP ratings by about 10 W with Alder Lake to possibly accommodate the hybrid core architecture while also giving OEMs more turning leeway to enable thin and light designs.
We already know that AMD will be announcing H-series Cezanne and Lucienne APUs at CES next year. While Cezannne is a Zen 3 part, Lucienne is a Renoir Refresh with SMT enabled. From what we know so far, Cezanne will stick to using Vega GCN cores for graphics. Rembrandt-H APUs slated to launch in Q1 2022 will mark a shift to RDNA2 iGPUs and may top-out as 8C/16T parts.
Rembrandt-H is essentially a Zen 3 refresh but made on a 6 nm process bringing support for DDR5/LPDDR5 RAM at 45 W. Rembrandt is also speculated to launch with support for Computer Vision Machine Learning (CVML) for better onboard AI capabilities. A Cezanne Refresh may complement Rembrandt-H in 2022, but that is still unclear for now.
Mobile U-series
Succeeding Tiger Lake UP3 28 W U-series chips will be Alder Lake-P U28, which is expected to offer 96 EUs of Xe Gen12 and up to 6+8 20-thread Core i9 configurations along with PCIe Gen5 support. At the same time, we will also see Alder Lake-P U15 succeeding Tiger Lake UP4 15 W in Q4 2021. Curiously, the roadmap indicates all SKUs as 2+8 12-thread configurations with the primary difference being 96 (Core i7 and Core i5), 80 (Core i3), and 48 (Pentium) EUs of Xe Gen12.
AMD Cezanne, Lucienne, and Rembrandt will also be available as 15 W U-series chips launching alongside their corresponding H-series parts. Cezanne Refresh in 2022 will also be known as Barcelo-U.
Mobile Ultra-low Voltage (ULV)
Intel already has Tiger Lake UP4 (9 W - 15 W) and Lakefield (5 W- 7 W) as ultra-low voltage/power (ULV/ULP) chips. These will continue to last well until Q3 2021 after which we expect to see Alder Lake-P U9 and Alder Lake-M as respective successors. Alder Lake-P will offer the same core and iGPU configuration as Alder Lake-P U15 above whereas Alder Lake-M will offer a 1+4 5-core configuration with up to 64 EUs of Xe Gen12 graphics.
AMD will soon launch Van Gogh 7 nm Zen 2 9 W ULP APUs with RDNA2 graphics and LPDDR5 support in early 2021. Van Gogh will also support CVML. This will be followed by a refresh named Dragon Crest in late 2021 or early 2022.
AMD's 4.5 W 14 nm Pollock SoC, which was spotted in a few leaks earlier will continue to be offered well into 2022 as well.
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