AMD introduces first Ryzen processors
AMD has officially announced its first Ryzen processors. It concerns three models of Ryzen 7-series processors, all three of which have eight cores and sixteen threads. The processors will be available from March 2, but can be ordered from February 22.
AMD’s CEO Lisa Su announced the processors at an event in San Francisco and announced the prices of the CPUs, along with various benchmarks. The three models are the Ryzen 7 1800X, 1700X and 1700. The company is introducing three processors in the Ryzen 7 series, with prices of $499 for the top model, $399 for the slightly slower model and $329 for the third model. AMD positions the Ryzen 7 processors, judging by the name and benchmarks shown, against Intel’s Core i7 processors, with the i7-6900K against the 1800X and the 1700 against Intel’s i7-7700K.
The i7-6900 costs roughly twice as much, while performance is comparable depending on the workload. The processors should especially show advantage in multithreaded applications and benchmarks, where their eight smt cores deliver significant gains compared to quad-core or hexa-core competitors. The gain on single-threaded workloads is less, but compared to AMD’s own Excavator cores, the IPC has improved by 52 percent, not 40. AMD has thus far exceeded its intended target of an IPC gain of 40 percent.
The Ryzen processors are based on the Zen architecture, which AMD has been working on for the past four years. The three Ryzen 7 processors have eight cores with smt, bringing the number of threads to 16. Clock speeds vary, but all processors are unlocked, allowing for overclocking. The processors will be available from March 2, but can be pre-ordered through various channels on February 22. Two more Ryzen series, the Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 3, are yet to be released in the second quarter of this year. They are set against Intel’s Core i5 and Core i3 series respectively.
| cores/threads | 8/16 | 8/16 | 8/16 |
| Clock speed | 3.6GHz | 3.4GHz | 3GHz |
| boost | 4GHz | 3.8GHz | 3.7GHz |
| tdp | 95W | 95W | 65W |
| Price | 499 usd | 399 usd | 329 usd |
AMD Ryzen die