AMD announces Ryzen, reveals three new CPU models

After four years in development, AMD has finally taken the wraps off the Ryzen series of x86 CPU. The company also revealed details of the first batch of CPU that will be going on pre-order today.

The Ryzen series will come in three variations, Ryzen 7, Ryzen 5, and Ryzen 3, with Ryzen 7 being the enthusiast series and the Ryzen 3 being the budget offering. For now, AMD has only announced Ryzen 7 processors, with Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 3 to be announced later this year.

The Ryzen 7 series for now includes three models, the flagship 1800X, the 1700X, and the cheapest 1700.

The 1800X is an 8-core, 16 thread 95W TDP part with 3.6GHz base clock speed and 4.0GHz boost clock speed. Compared to the similarly specced Core i7-6900K, the 1800X posted identical scores in Cinebench single-thread test and 9% increase in the multi-threaded test. To put this context, the Core i7-6900K is a $1050 part whereas the 1800X is priced at $499.

Moving on, the 1700X is also an 8-core, 16 thread 95W part with 3.4GHz base clock speed and 3.8Ghz boost clock speed. In Cinebench multi-threaded test, the 1700X posted 4% higher score than the Core i7-6900K and 39% higher than the Core i7-6800K. The 6800K is a $450 part while the 1700X is priced at $399.

Lastly, there is the 1700, which also happens to be an 8-core, 16 thread part but with 65W TDP, making it the world's lowest power 8-core desktop processor. The base clock speed is 3.0GHz while the boost clock speed is 3.7GHz. The 1700 is 46% faster than the Core i7-7700K in multi-threaded Cinebench test. The 1700 is priced at $329.

The new Ryzen 7 CPU will go on sale starting March 2 with pre-orders starting today. AMD has also partnered with all the top motherboard manufacturers and we are expecting 82 new motherboards based on the X370 and B350 chipset, which will be available March 2 onwards.

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