With AMD Ryzen having been available for a few months now and even being bundled with liquid-cooling solutions in some cases, it’s clear now more than ever that the Red Team has at least delivered on its promise of offering more bang for the buck with its processors.
- We’ve combed through everything to bring you the best laptops of the year
But now, as we’re starting to see the company’s chips make their way into pre-built PCs, like the Chillblast Fusion Spectrum and the Alienware Area 51, we can’t help but wonder what’s next for AMD Ryzen.
Fortunately, you can read ahead and find out everything there is to know about – and what the future holds for – AMD’s “Zen” microarchitecture-based CPUs.
Cut to the chase
- What is it? The latest in AMD’s high-end desktop CPUs
- When’s it out? The first of many were released on March 2
- What will it cost? Ryzen 3 series starts at $109 (about £80, AU$140)
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 includes, but isn’t 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. Meanwhile, designed to rival Intel’s Core i9 Skylake-X chips, Ryzen Threadripper debuted on August 10.
Moreover, AMD has formally introduced an entry-level Ryzen 3 series consisting of the Ryzen 3 1200 and 1300X. Both of these were launched on July 27 and are meant to challenge the Intel Core i3-7100 and the Core i3-7300, respectively.
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, is 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.
The Threadripper series consists of AMD’s priciest Ryzen chips, the cheapest of which is the $549 (about £420, AU$690) AMD Threadripper 1900X. Then there’s a $799 (around £615, AU$1,035) Threadripper 1920X and a $999 (around £770, AU$1,295) Threadripper 1950X chip.
Also found within this series are the Ryzen Threadripper 1900, 1920 and 1950, presumably more wallet-friendly alternatives to the “X” monikered chips of the same name. These processors are expected to ditch the clock-boosting XFR tech in favor of more frugal price tags.
As far as the most recently released Ryzen 3 processors go, the baseline Ryzen 3 1200 retails for $109 (about £80, AU$140) while the 29% faster Ryzen 3 1300X bears a going rate of $129 (about £100, AU$160), making them both cheaper than Intel’s similarly specced options.
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 upcoming Threadripper chips:
- Ryzen Threadripper 1900X – 3.8GHz (up to 4GHz); 8 cores, 16 threads
- Ryzen Threadripper 1900 – 3.1GHz (up to 3.7GHz); 8, 16 threads
- Ryzen Threadripper 1920X – 3.5GHz (up to 4GHz); 12 cores, 24 threads
- Ryzen Threadripper 1920 – 3.2GHz (up to 3.8GHz); 12 cores, 24 threads
- Ryzen Threadripper 1950X – 3.4GHz (up to 4GHz); 16 cores, 32 threads
- Ryzen Threadripper 1950 – 3.2GHz (boost clock TBC); 16 cores, 32 threads
These are the specs for each of the three Ryzen 7 chips:
- AMD Ryzen 7 1800X – 3.6GHz (up to 4GHz); 8 cores, 16 threads
- AMD Ryzen 7 1700X – 3.4GHz (up to 3.8GHz); 8 cores, 16 threads
- AMD Ryzen 7 1700 – 3GHz (up to 3.7GHz); 8 cores, 16 threads
This is what you can expect from AMD’s Ryzen 5 chips:
- AMD Ryzen 5 1600X – 3.6GHz (up to 4GHz); 6 cores, 12 threads
- AMD Ryzen 5 1600 – 3.2GHz (up to 3.6GHz); 6 cores, 12 threads
- AMD Ryzen 5 1500X – 3.5GHz (up to 3.7GHz); 4 cores, 8 threads
- AMD Ryzen 5 1400 – 3.2GHz (up to 3.4GHz); 4 cores, 8 threads
Lastly, the elusive Ryzen 3 chips, in the flesh:
- Ryzen 3 1200 – 3.1GHz (up to 3.4GHz); 4 cores, 4 threads
- Ryzen 3 1300X – 3.5GHz (up to 3.7GHz); 4 cores, 4 threads
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 Threadripper CPUs.