Forward-looking: The seemingly endless global chip shortage has raised questions over whether anticipated product releases will be delayed. In the case of AMD's Zen 4 Ryzen CPUs and RDNA 3 Radeon RX GPUs, the company says not to worry---they're still launching next year.

Speaking during AMD's Q2 2021 investors call, CEO Dr. Lisa Su said, "We remain on-track to launch next-generation products in 2022, including our Zen 4 processors built with industry-leading 5nm process technology and our RDNA 3 GPUs."

Su wasn't specific about when the next-gen graphics cards and CPUs will arrive. Rumors put the launch dates sometime in the fourth quarter of 2022, and we might even see both products release simultaneously, or at least very close together.

We recently heard claims that the Zen 4-based Ryzen 6000 desktop processors, reportedly codenamed Raphael, will come with a maximum 16 cores rather than the previously predicted 24. That's just speculation, of course, and AMD itself has hinted that they might exceed 16 cores.

Raphael CPUs, built on TSMC's 5nm fabrication process, will feature an AM5 socket that switches from AMD's usual pin grid array (PGA) design to the same land grid array (LGA) used by Intel, though the chip itself is expected to retain the same 40mm x 40mm size as those used in the AM4 socket---current AM4 cooling setups will likely work with AM5 through a conversion kit.

Zen 4 is also said to offer 25% IPC gains over Zen 3, clock speeds of around 5 GHz, and support for DDR5 and PCIe 5.0.

AMD's rise continues

RDNA 3 graphics cards, meanwhile, are also expected to use TSMC's 5nm process and offer performance-per-watt improvements comparable to the 50% jump from RDNA to RDNA 2. The flagship Navi 31 GPU is rumored to feature over 15,000 cores and boast over three times the performance of Navi 21. Let's just hope they're easier to buy than the Radeon RX 6000 series.

Elsewhere, Q2 was another bumper quarter for AMD. The company brought in $3.9 billion in revenue, up an incredible 99% compared to the same period a year earlier, and it's gross profit was $1.8 billion, up 116% YoY.