First four Ryzen models with Zen 4 architecture revealed by AMD's own website
Although AMD’s new desktop processors with Zen 4 architecture and the new AM5 platform seem to be very close with release probably less than two months away, the company managed to keep the specs under wraps. It’s not completely leak-proof though. The company’s own website actually revealed information about the models coming out in the first wave of new processors. There’s four of them, one being somewhat of a surprise.
According to previous rumors, AMD was supposed to launch the CPUs with an initial lineup that would almost replicate the 5000 generation – the 7600X, 7800X, 7900X and 7950X models. In the end, however, things will be a bit different. The VideoCardz website managed to find a file on the company’s website containing details of the upcoming models, so we are talking information straight from an official source. Apparently, there really should be four processors, but there won’t be a “7800X” model among them:
- Ryzen 9 7950X
- Ryzen 9 7900X
- Ryzen 7 7700X
- Ryzen 5 7600X
An octa-core Zen 4 for a lower price from the start?
So it looks like this time AMD will not release a “successor” to the Ryzen 7 5800X (7800X), but instead the Ryzen 7 7700X will be on offer from the start. What could this mean? Quite possibly it signals that the Ryzen 7 model will aim at a relatively lower price point from the start, which is why AMD has named it 7700X instead of 7800X. In the 5000 generation, the Ryzen 7 5800X came out with a relatively unfavorable price of 449 USD, and it wasn’t until this year’s spring that AMD added the significantly more affordable 299 USD Ryzen 7 5700X (more or less after the 5800X itself fell to such lower prices). This time around, a more affordable model could come to market right from the start (though it’s possible for its price to be higher than 299 USD).
The reason for this would likely be none other than the significant improvements in multi-threaded performance that rival Intel is expected to offer in its competing 13th generation Core “Raptor Lake” desktop processor generation. Both Core i5 and Core i7 Raptor Lake processors should have four more E-Core cores in them, so their multi-threaded performance will take a significant leap and could suddenly be a class above the same processor categories in the Alder Lake generation.
AMD will likely produce the Ryzen 5 7600X again with just six active cores and 12 threads, and the Ryzen 7 7700X will almost certainly have eight cores and 16 threads again. This is in fact the highest possible configuration for a more cost-effective (cheaper to produce) version of the processor containing just one 5nm CPU chiplet. If AMD wanted to upgrade the Ryzen 7 SKUs to 10 cores, this configuration would require two chiplets, so the manufacturing cost would be significantly higher. Plus, if AMD again faced a situation of having only a limited number of 5nm wafers at its disposal, such a CPU would consume resources that could otherwise be used to make two processors.
But a still octa-core Ryzen 7 7xxx processor will have limited multi-threaded performance and it’s quite possible that it will be beaten by the Core i5-13600K in MT benchmarks. Therefore, AMD may be forced to put a lower price sticker on it, and it may have also preemptively chosen the 7700X designation to match that. Remember how the Ryzen 2000 generation ended on the 2700X model as the highest SKU (compared to having 1700X and 1800X in the preceding generation), because back then AMD was forced to lower the price of the top model under pressure from the competitor?
But AMD may also want to keep the 7800X designation in reserve for a processor other than the octa-core – perhaps in case it does release a ten-core model later, after all. Or there’s also the possibility that the 7800 number is reserved for a gaming processor with 3D V-Cache, i.e. the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, and the regular 7800X model won’t exist so as not to “clash” with this V-Cache SKU. There are some reports that Ryzen 7000 versions equipped with a large 3D V-Cache could supposedly follow fairly quickly after the regular Ryzen 7000 luanch, perhaps as early as around the turn of the year. But it should be said this is mostly guessing and something that is in no way guaranteed to happen.
We will probably have to wait for some time to confirm the detailed parameters of these processors and their prices. But as time is running out before the alleged Zen 4 release dates, it is possible that some leaks will appear soon, in the coming days and weeks. While sales are said to begin in September, unofficial rumors suggest that the formal unveiling of the processors and their specs and pricing could occur as early as next month.
Source: VideoCardz
English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš
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