AMD confirms next-gen Zen 6 CPUs to launch in 2026 and 'Medusa' APUs to launch in 2027

AMD's Ryzen CPUs currently dominate the market for gaming—seriously, all our current recommendations, whatever your budget, are AMD chips. And we've long suspected the company's next generation of processors will arrive in 2026, but we've now had confirmation of this thanks to a CPU core roadmap that AMD has just released for its Financial Analyst Day.

According to the presentation slide, and CTO Mark Papermaster, Zen 6 and Zen 6c will launch in 2026. Zen 6 "was the first tape-out in TSMC 2 nm", and the slide says that Zen 7 will be based on a "future node" at a yet-undisclosed future time.

In a different presentation for the Financial Analyst Day, Jack Huynh, senior VP and GM for the Computing and Graphics Group, presents a slide laying out the APU (accelerated processing unit) roadmap, which for us is of course most relevant to handheld gaming PCs.

On this front, apparently we'll be seeing 'Medusa' APUs in 2027, which will presumably mean the first big new architecture for APUs, ie, chips with powerful integrated graphics for efficient light gaming in low-power laptops and handhelds.

The slide also shows Gorgon Point APUs set to launch in 2026, but this isn't quite so exciting as these are expected to just be refreshed Strix Point chips. Though rumours have it that we'll see at least a slight performance uptick over Strix APUs.

For 2026, though, the most exciting thing is Zen 6. That will presumably mean a new best CPU for gaming, presumably an AMD Ryzen 7 10800X3D (or will we see a name change occur?). Though those vertically stacked X3D chips usually launch a few months after the regular unstacked ones.

And let's not forget that new CPUs should also mean declining prices on previous-gen ones, which might mean we'll be able to pick up some 9000-series chips for quite cheap—every little bit can help balance out the climbing memory prices, right now.

We're also expecting Zen 6 to stick to socket AM5, as AMD previously promised AM5 socket support through 2027 and beyond. And if this is true, it would mean 2026 might be a good year for those using a Ryzen 7000-series CPU to upgrade. It's usually not massively beneficial to upgrade from one generation to the next, but upgrading every other CPU generation is more worth it.

AMD doesn't give us any more info about Zen 6, other than it will have some general AI improvements ("new AI data type support" and "more AI pipelines"), yawn. Even regarding Zen 7, we're just told that we're getting "AI data format expansion" and a "new matrix engine", neither of which will be too relevant to gaming.

So, we don't know any more than we did about Zen 6, really, which means we still suspect there might (emphasis might) have more cores per CCD, which in turn could mean more cache on the X3D chip. But, again, it's unlikely we'll see Zen 6 X3D chips from the get-go. Instead, we'll probably just see the regular 10000X chips. There's no saying when exactly in 2026 this will be, but I'm personally hoping for a CES announcement—AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su is doing the keynote, after all.

Best CPU for gaming 2025

1. Best overall:
AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

2. Best budget:
AMD Ryzen 5 7600X

3. Best mid-range:
AMD Ryzen 7 9700X

4. Best high-end:
AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

5. Best AM4 upgrade:
AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D

6. Best CPU graphics:
AMD Ryzen 7 8700G

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