Ever since the hype had begun earlier on in 2016, for the expected arrival of AMD’s new Intel killer, there have been several rumours surrounding its specs. Expert reviewers such as Austin Evans and Linus had also inspected the performance recently and the numbers were impressive. Now the chipsets are finally available for pre-order.
The main USP of the Ryzen series of chipsets is that they all feature 8 cores with 16 threads, packing serious workstation-spec performance. The variants of the Ryzen are: the Ryzen 7 1800X ($499) – the most expensive of the lot, the 1700X ($399) and the 1700 (329). During its announcement, the folks at AMD had set up a special room with the systems operating on Ryzen, versus ones competing against Intel’s 6900K CPUs in performance benchmarking. All of them seem to have beaten the i7 Quad-core CPU, but marginally so.
According to Tom’s Hardware, the Ryzen chipsets will be made available at over 180 retail outlets worldwide. Thanks to its 14nm architecture, the Ryzen can accommodate 4.8 billion transistors. The 1800X alone comes with a base clockspeed of 3.6GHz and a boost clockspeed of 4.0GHz. This results in performance that is geared at more than a 52% increase than its previous generation flagship chipsets. It also comes in at half the cost of the Intel i7 6900K, while Intel’s offering comes in at more than $1000. The Ryzen not only cuts that price point in half, but also supposedly performs much better. Here’s all that needs to be known of each of these monster CPUs:
Ryzen 7 1800X
8 cores, with 16 threads and a clockspeed ranging from 3.6GHz to 4.0GHz, the X in the name denotes eXtended Range Frequency, allowing for the clockspeed to go higher than the specified limit, on capable systems. It is something that AMD newly added in their hardware and will be accessible through their suite of tools. This is considered to be the true rival to the 6900K which tops it at 9% increased performance at the half the price. Impressive.
Ryzen 7 1700X
This is the mid-ranger, clocked at 3.4GHz to 3.8GHz. The eight cores and 16 threads will have no problem breezing through applications and benchmarks as well. It is also cheaper than its Intel counterpart – the i7-6800K – $399 vs. $425.
Ryzen 7 1600X
This is the lowest power 8-Core CPU in the world right now at just 65W TDP. The base clock comes in at 3.0GHz and is boosted to 3.7GHz when needed. According to its Cinebench score, it thrashed the i7-7700K performance, showing a 46% advantage in multi-core performance.
There are a lot of Ryzen-Ready CPUs also being made available, for those who do not just want the chips. The excitement for the Ryzen has remained unprecedented, with over 200 manufacturers ready to make Ryzen-based Motherboards, including the likes of MSI, Gigabyte and many others. For Intel, that number is not anything serious, but for AMD, after years of playing second fiddle to Intel’s chips, are now getting a good reception. It should be noted that real world testing will vary based on actual analysis. The benchmarks cited by AMD have not been documented or have been capable of evidencing certain figures. Hence, we’ll have to wait for reviews to come to actually put the Ryzen to test and check out the compatibility.
It does seem, that AMD is trying very hard to get a comeback into the market. Will it Ryse up to the challenge?
