According to Greymon55, who previously promulgated AMD road maps, now AMD is going to start mass production of the next part of the Ryzen series not earlier than April or May. This means that only a few months left before the product launch, assuming that the upcoming series will follow the same launch schedule as its predecessors.

To give some context, AMD Vermeer (Zen3 Desktop) was launched into mass production in July 2020 only for launching in November of the same year. Meanwhile, the 3D V-Cache version is made from November last year and will officially be launched next month.

Given that the Ryzen 7000 series has a completely new socket design, the period between production and launch may increase by 4-5 months. Nevertheless, it is likely that you can confidently assume that AMD can be ready to release Raphael at the beginning of the fourth quarter. It would be just in time to compete with Intel 13th generation Core Raptor Lake.

The AMD Ryzen 7000 series is expected to have up to 16 nuclei, made according to the 5-nm microarchitecture of Zen4. Rumors suggest that the fastest part will reach TDP 170 W. In January, AMD demonstrated the first Raphael chips with a stable clock frequency of all 5 GHz nuclei.

In addition, the Zen4 processors will use the new LGA socket called AM5. AMD intends to provide long-term support for its new socket, as well as compatibility with AM4 cooler. This new platform will maintain the latest DDR5 memory technology, as well as the PCIe Gen5 standard.