With an aggressive mix of price and performance, AMD’s Ryzen will charge into the high-end PC processor space next week. Analysts say Intel may be forced onto the defensive.
Ryzen is here. AMD said Wednesday that it plans a “hard launch” of its first three Ryzen processors on March 2, outperforming Intel’s high-end chips while undercutting its prices by as much as 54 percent.
AMD executives confidently unveiled the first three desktop chips to attack Intel’s Core i7, supported by several top-tier motherboard vendors and boutique system builders. In many cases, executives said, AMD will offer more for less, as early Ryzen benchmarks prove. The top-tier Ryzen 7 1800X will cost less than half of what Intel’s thousand-dollar Core i7-6900K chip does—and outperform it, too. You can preorder Ryzen chips and systems from 180 retailers and system integrators today.
Like Intel, AMD’s Ryzen offerings consist of three new chip families: the premium Ryzen 7, the midrange Ryzen 5, and the cheapest Ryzen 3. AMD is rolling out its fastest, premium Ryzen 7 chips first, including the Ryzen 7 1800X ($499), the Ryzen 7 1700X ($399) and Ryzen 7 1700 ($329). AMD’s Ryzen 5 and the Ryzen 3 will ship later this year—at the moment, AMD’s not saying exactly when.
AMD will begin taking preorders for the Ryzen today for shipment next week.
Unlike Intel’s massive January launch of more than 40 Kaby Lake chips, AMD’s playing it slow. Here are more details on the three new Ryzen 7 chips:
AMD’s Ryzen 7 1800X is the “fastest 8-core processor in the market today,” AMD’s Lisa Su said.
AMD’s Ryzen 7 1700X , a 95-watt, 8-core, 16-thread chip, runs at 3.4GHz and boosts to 3.8GHz. Using the multicore Cinebench benchmark, the $399 1700X scored 1,537, 4 percent faster than the $1,089 Core i7 6900K chip.
AMD’s Ryzen 7 1700X is aimed at gamers and content creators, according to AMD.
AMD’s Ryzen 7 1700 , consumes up to 65 watts and runs at 3GHz, boosting to 3.7GHz. It, too, includes 8 cores and 16 threads. According to AMD’s own tests, it recorded a score of 1,410 on the multicore Cinebench test, a whopping 46 percent better than the $339 Core i7 7700K. Using the Handbrake video-encoding test, the R7 1700 finished in 61.8 seconds, AMD said, versus 71.8 seconds for the 7700K.
Though the cheapest Ryzen 7 AMD announced, the 1700 still packs a punch.
According to AMD, the Ryzen 1700 will be packaged with a new Wraith Spire cooler, which will run at 32 decibels.
