AMD intros cheaper Ryzen 7000 CPUs, plus faster gaming-focused 3D V-Cache models

AMD today officially lowered the barrier to entry for the Ryzen 7000 series, announcing several new models aimed at more price-conscious buyers.

The three cheap CPUs are versions of the existing 7600X, 7700X, and 7900X, but without the X suffix. The $229 Ryzen 5 7600, $329 Ryzen 7 7700 and $429 Ryzen 9 7900 all feature the same core count and cache size as their counterparts, but with a 65W TDP, slightly lower clock speeds, and a bundled CPU cooler. That’s an $80 price reduction compared to the retail prices of the 7600X and 7700X without the cooler, and the 7900 is $120 cheaper than the 7900X.

As we found out in our first review of the Ryzen 7000 series, setting the chip to a 65W TDP usually results in lower performance, but not as much as you might think. Comfortably faster than the older Ryzen 5000 series CPUs and the 7600 doesn’t need more than 65 W to deliver peak performance. and overclocking can be set.

The three CPUs will be available for purchase on January 10th. It will compete with Intel’s newly announced 13th generation desktop CPUs. At the high end, Intel tends to outperform AMD for the same price, and cheap motherboards and DDR4 support make it less expensive for low-end PC buyers to buy Intel’s platform. , should improve AMD’s competitiveness, but until motherboards and memory prices drop a bit more, they won’t be able to change that dynamic themselves.

The three 3D V-Cache processors are also variations on existing chips. In this case, 7800X, 7900X, and 7950X. The 7800X3D, 7900X3D, and 7950X3D each retain the boost clock speeds and core counts of regular X-series chips (the 7800X3D has eight cores like the 7700X). The system sees and accesses this cache in the same way L3 is built into the rest of the CPU. In our review of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, we found it to be generally beneficial, especially for gaming performance.

The 5800X3D launched quite late in the life of the Ryzen 5000 series, with lower clock speeds and restrictions on overclocking and changing power settings not found on the regular 5800X. AMD also didn’t launch any other high core count 3D V-Cache chips. That means people looking for great gaming performance. When 12 or 16 CPU cores had to be chosen.

AMD has solved most of these problems with its 7000-series 3D V-Cache CPUs, but there are still some oddities: Each CPU’s base clock speed is still lower than its X-series counterparts, All three CPUs have a default TDP of 120W. Heavy multithreading tasks can limit the performance of 12-core and 16-core CPUs unless these power limits can be lifted (7900X and 7950X have a default TDP of 170W). The new X3D chips support memory and Infinity Fabric overclocking, as well as fine-tuning with AMD’s Precision Boost Overdrive and Curve Optimizer features. However, it is not fully unlocked for traditional overclocking like other CPU chips.

AMD hasn’t revealed pricing for its 3D V-Cache chips yet, but if the 5800X3D is any indication, the prices will be significantly higher than the non-3D V-Cache versions. increase.

All 6 of these new processors will fit into existing socket AM5 motherboards after the BIOS update. One of the new features of the Zen 4 architecture is built-in support for updating his BIOS without installing a CPU. If you buy one of these on launch day, you usually don’t have to worry about the new motherboard you bought with it not being supported out of the box.

Exhibition image by AMD