AMD Zen Octa-core release date, specs news: powerful upcoming CPU codenamed 'Summit Ridge'

One of the biggest names in GPU development has always been AMD, and though they are currently overshadowed by their rival, Nvidia, rumors have come out that the tech company is working on a next-gen CPU that aims to be one of the most powerful in the market.

According to rumors, AMD's next PC Zen processor has been codnamed "Summit Ridge" and it will be an octa-core CPU that will come with 16 hardware threads. Some guess that this processor will be 40 percent more powerful than previous AMD CPUs, but it has a lot of competition heading its way.

For one, the Zen has to compete against Chipzilla's 14-nm Kaby Lake and 10-nm Cannonlake which are said to be in the works. The Zen is also going to be compared to Intel's more high-end chips that are currently dominating the market.

AMD is also reportedly working on another Zen-type chip that will most likely be named the AMD Opteron. It's said that it will feature a dual-socket 32-core system and 64 hardware threads per socket. The Opteron is also said to be aiming for release in the second quarter of 2017.

Other rumors are saying that this upcoming CPU will be an AMD 6850K, and that it will come with a price tag of $300. It's also been compared to the 2-year-old Haswell-E CPU which in turn was compared to the Intel Core i7-5960X in terms of performance. The Haswell comes with a price tag of $1.000 so the drop in price could very much be in favor for the Zen core.

As of now, rumors have just been spreading online, so it's best to take news with a grain of salt.

No official release date has been announced, but it is speculated that the AMD Zen Octa-core will come out sometime next year.