Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) has revealed new details about its upcoming line of CPUs featuring its new Zen processor cores, including a 2017 release date for the new chips.

AMD demonstrated a CPU using Zen this week at an event in San Francisco, where the company showcased an 8-core, 16-thread “Summit Ridge” desktop processor that it says outperformed Intel’s similar Broadwell-E chip “when running the multi-threaded Blender rendering software with both CPUs set to the same clock speed.” The company also showed off its 32-core, 64-thread “Naples” server processor, which is designed to be used with Windows Server.

“The performance and efficiency of our ‘Zen’ core showcases AMD at its best,” Lisa Su, president and CEO of AMD, said in a statement. “Over the last four years we have made significant investments to develop a high-performance, multi-generation CPU roadmap that will power leadership products. Customer excitement for ‘Zen’ continues to grow as we make significant progress towards the launch of new products that will span from the datacenter to high-end PCs.”

“An engineer may get one chance in their career to work on a project of this size and scope, and maybe never one with as much potential to impact the future as much as ‘Zen,’” added Mark Papermaster, senior vice president and chief technology officer at AMD. “With ‘Zen’ we aim to do what many never thought possible – deliver a 40 percent generational improvement in instructions per clock while maintaining power requirements in line with our previous generation technology.”

Thanks to recent technology trends like 4k video and virtual reality, there is a greater and greater demand for powerful CPUs that can handle multi-threaded tasks that require a lot of processing power, and if AMD’s claims are accurate, its new Zen chips may be in a good place to meet that demand.

AMD has yet to reveal more detailed information about its upcoming CPUs, such as their native clock speeds or their price points, but the company said that it will reveal more information about Zen at next week’s Hot Chips 28 conference.

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