AMD Zen Octa-core release date, specs rumors: New Zen-based chipset coming in early 2017?

The AMD Zen Octa-core could finally be launched early next year.

Initial rumors indicated that the Octa-core "Summit Ridge" processors will drop in stores in late 2016 before another round of speculations pegged the launch date as sometime in February 2017. This time, however, a specific date – Jan. 17, 2017 â€“ is floating around as the date of the latest AMD processor's launch.

The news was first leaked on Chiphell, a Chinese site. The person who posted supposedly got the information from Maxsun, the AMD partner that manufactures the company's motherboards.

Confirmed features of AMD's octa-core CPU include a 14-nm FinFET architecture that promises 40 percent better performance than MD Excavator chips. The buzz is that the Zen processors including the 8-core will feature a unified AM4 socket that is compatible with motherboards for seventh generation A-series processors. The new AM4 socket, which comes with GPU-equipped "Bristol Ridge" APU counterparts, will also have DDR4 support and 95W TDP. It wil also support PCIe 3.0, 10 GBp USB 3.1 gen 2.0, NVMe and SATA Express.

Each of the Zen cores will have four integer units, a pair of address generation units, and four floating point units. The decoder is capable of decoding four instructions per clock cycle.

The AMD Zen 8-core is poised to challenge Intel's Core i7-6900K Broadwell-E processor. During a benchmark test, the AMD Zen processor clocked in at 3.15 to 3.30 GHz base clocks with 3.5 GHz boost clock. Those figures can compete with those of Intel's most high-end 8- and 10-core SKUs.

Nonetheless, the new line of AMD processors will likely command a far less expensive price tag than Intel's processors.

As mentioned, the rumored launch will be on Jan. 17. Another rumor is that the 8-core 16-thread processor will first be used in desktops. After that, the processor will be integrated in servers, and finally in accelerated processing units for laptops.

The eight-core CPU is rumored to be worth $300. The since-deleted post from China mentioned the price of the processor to be between 1,500 and 2,000 Yuan. In the U.S., that amount is equivalent to $200 to $300.