With AMD’s Ryzen processors are here in the flesh, here’s what you need to know.
Now that AMD Ryzen has been out for quite a while, AMD has claimed a bulk of the market after the successful launch of AMD Ryzen 2nd Generation. And, in spite of some weird product launches, like Threadripper chips bundled with liquid cooling solutions – it’s obvious that AMD has delivered on its promise of processors that not only perform better than ever, but are still affordable, too.
Unfortunately, even though AMD didn’t get hit by Spectre and Meltdown as hard as Intel, it wasn’t immune: an Israeli security firm, CTS labs released a white paper detailing security vulnerabilities that affected AMD Ryzen processors. Fortunately, AMD has released firmware patches that protect its processors against these security exploits.
Luckily, we’ve compiled all of our knowledge here so that you can learn all there is to know about – and what is in the future for – AMD’s Zen-based CPUs.
The first of the batch of Ryzen processors were announced on February 22,2017 and arrived on March 2. The Ryzen 7 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.
In April 2017, AMD introduced Ryzen 5. Among this series is the Ryzen 5 1600X, comparable to the mid-range Intel Core i5-7600K. AMD later introduced its high-end desktop lineup, Ryzen Threadripper in August 2017.
Then, in February 2018, AMD released the Ryzen 3 2200G and the Ryzen 5 2400G, which implemented Vega graphics aimed at media center PCs.
Moreover, AMD has formally introduced an entry-level Ryzen 3 series consisting of the Ryzen 3 1200 and 1300X. Both of these were launched in July 2018 and are meant to challenge the Intel Core i3-7100 and the Core i3-7300, respectively.
Most recently with AMD Ryzen 2nd Generation, AMD has utilized its new 12nm Zen+ architecture that delivers faster speeds than any processor AMD has ever made. Processors like the Ryzen 7 2700X give us a taste of what AMD is going to be delivering on the high end.
