AMD Vega, Ryzen 3 & Raven Ridge Release Timing Shared By AMD

AMD has shared the release timing of AMD Vega, Ryzen 3, and Ryzen 3 Mobile Chips. New chips for desktops, called Ryzen 3, will release in the earlier part of the second half, while AMD Ryzen mobile chips, with the code-named Raven Ridge, will be unveiled around the end-of-year holiday season.

AMD CEO Lisa Su has shared the release schedule during a first-quarter earnings call on Monday. Su has also mentioned top PC makers will launch desktops with the already shipping Ryzen 5 and 7 chips later in this quarter, as reported by PC World.

The Ryzen 3 is said to be for low-end desktops, while the Ryzen 5 and 7 chips are faster and more powerful. Late last week, Acer has announced its Aspire GX desktop with Ryzen chip options.

In the coming months, AMD will launch AMD Vega GPUs for the gaming, professional workstation and data center markets. Some AMD Vega GPUs will be released this quarter.

AMD Vega GPUs will be priced higher than Polaris, which is the existing GPU architecture, because of advanced technologies. AMD Vega GPUs will have a new memory subsystem, a faster computing engine, and a "new geometry pipeline to dramatically improve performance and energy efficiency for the next generation of GPU workloads," Su added.

The Ryzen release dominated much of the earnings call. AMD Ryzen was Company's first big new chip design in more than a decade, and it opened to good reviews. After a thread of failed chips, a strong Ryzen launch was really critical for AMD.

According to Seeking Alpha, on a GAAP basis, AMD has reported first-quarter revenue of $984 million, up from $832 million in the same quarter last year. Quarterly net loss of AMD was $73 million, compared with a net loss of $109 million a year earlier. 

Ryzen chips were first shipped in March, and the demand from home PC builders was really strong. There was a temporary slowdown as motherboard shipments were forced, but the supply went back to normal after a few weeks. Large PC makers will launch Ryzen-based desktops this quarter.