Ryzen has risen – sorry not sorry – at long last. AMD’s latest multi-core desktop processors were revealed during an event in San Francisco back in February and have since permeated the market in full force.
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The new chips promise to bring AMD into the high-performance sphere with Intel in a way that’s more affordable and is a marked improvement on its own previous generation of silicon.
Without further ado, here is everything you need to know about AMD Ryzen.
Cut to the chase
- What is it? The latest in AMD's high-end desktop CPUs
- When's it out? The first of many released on March 2
- What will it cost? Ryzen 5 series starts at $168 (£158, AU$245)
AMD Ryzen release date
Ryzen 7, the first of the batch, came out on March 2. That’s the series of top-end chips, which include, but are not limited to, the seriously competitive Ryzen 7 1800X, whose multi-threaded benchmarks put it in line with the Intel Core i7-6900K.
On April 11, AMD released Ryzen 5. Among this series is the Ryzen 5 1600X, comparable to the overclockable, albeit mid-range, Intel Core i5-7600K. The next lineup in AMD’s processor range, called Ryzen Threadripper is designed to rival Intel’s Core i9 Skylake-X chips and will be available come early August.
Lastly, AMD has formally introduced an entry-level Ryzen 3 series consisting of the Ryzen 3 1200 and 1300X. Both of these are set to launch on July 27.
AMD Ryzen price
The Red Team, if you will, has positioned the Ryzen 7 series against Intel’s Core i7 chips, but for far better prices. The Ryzen 7 1800x chip, for instance, will be available for $499 (about £500, around AU$650). That’s less than half as much as Intel wants for its Core i7-6900K.
The Ryzen 7 1700x is marketed as AMD’s mid-range chip within this series, priced at $399 (about £320, AU$520), while the Ryzen 7 1700 (no “x”) is available for $329 (about £260, AU$430).
Positioned as the mid-range Ryzen chip altogether, the 6-core Ryzen 5 1600X costs $249 (£249, AU$359), though there are more affordable options, like the $219 (£219, AU$319) Ryzen 5 1600 and the $168 (£158, AU$245) Ryzen 5 1400 in the mix as well.
AMD’s most expensive Ryzen chips are undoubtedly found in the Threadripper series, the cheapest of which is the $799 (around £615, AU$1,035) Ryzen Threadripper 1920X. If you’re really aching for more power, there’s also a $999 (around £770, AU$1,295) Threadripper 1950X chip.
Pricing information on the AMD Ryzen 3 series isn’t available at this time.
AMD Ryzen specs
Ryzen was designed by AMD to perform well at high loads and be compatible with the latest hardware in PC gaming. To that end, the firm had to develop a new chipset for the processors, the X370 and X300, and a new socket, the AM4.
Yes, that means you’ll need a new motherboard (and a newer OS than Windows 7) for your Ryzen CPU. Luckily, a pretty handful of AMD Ryzen motherboards are already on the market for this very occasion. These mobos support all the same technologies as the bulk of Intel’s boards including the following:
- Dual-channel DDR4 memory
- NVMe
- M.2 SATA devices
- USB 3.1 Gen 1 and Gen 2
- PCIe 3.0 capability
Now, for the Ryzen processor architecture itself. AMD says that its goals with Ryzen were “maximum data throughput and instruction execution plus high bandwidth, low latency cache-memory support for optimal compute efficiency.” So, take solace in the fact that all Ryzen processors enjoy these same traits:
- Two threads per core
- 8MB shared L3 cache
- Large, unified L2 cache
- Micro-op cache
- Two AES units for security
- High efficiency FinFET transistors
Essentially, the Ryzen chips are better at hyper-threading across their eight (so far) cores, enabling more actions per clock than before.
Plus, we already witnessed an AMD Ryzen chip break a world record in benchmarks – albeit under extreme cooling.
High-level capabilities aside, here are the highlights for the two upcoming Ryzen Threadripper chips:
- Ryzen Threadripper 1920X – 3.5GHz (up to 4GHz); 12-core
- Ryzen Threadripper 1950X – 3.4GHz (up to 4GHz); 16-core
These are the specs for each of the three Ryzen 7 chips:
- AMD Ryzen 7 1800x – 3.6GHz (up to 4GHz); octa-core; Extended Frequency Range (XFR) with better cooling; 95 Watt TDP
- AMD Ryzen 7 1700x – 3.4GHz (up to 3.8GHz); octa-core; XFR; 95 Watt TDP
- AMD Ryzen 7 1700 – 3GHz (up to 3.7GHz); octa-core; AMD Wraith Spire cooler; 65 Watt TDP
This is what you can expect from AMD’s Ryzen 5 chips:
- AMD Ryzen 5 1600X – 3.6GHz (up to 4GHz); hexa-core; XFR; 95 Watt TDP
- AMD Ryzen 5 1600 – 3.2GHz (up to 3.6GHz); hexa-core; AMD Wraith Spire cooler; 65 Watt TDP
- AMD Ryzen 5 1500X – 3.5GHz (up to 3.7GHz); quad-core; XFR; 65 Watt TDP
- AMD Ryzen 5 1500 – 3.2GHz (up to 3.4GHz); quad-core; AMD Wraith Spire cooler; 65 Watt TDP
Lastly, the elusive Ryzen 3 chips, in the flesh:
- Ryzen 3 1200 – 3.5GHz (up to 3.7GHz)
- Ryzen 3 1300X – 3.1GHz (up to 3.4GHz)
According to an AMD launch video for Threadripper, the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X put Intel’s top-end Core i9-7900X to shame, with its Cinebench R15 test resulting in a score of 3,000 points. The Core i9-7900X, on the other hand, only scored 2,400 points.
That feat, paired with the news that AMD plans on dropping enterprise-focused Ryzen Pro CPUs in the latter half of 2017 and Ryzen Pro Mobile processors in the first chunk of 2018, should be a cause for concern for Intel.
Stay tuned to this page for more of the latest AMD Ryzen information as more news emerges about the forthcoming AMD Ryzen 3 and Ryzen 9 processing chips.
Gabe Carey has also contributed to this article
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