AMD Ryzen 7000 announced: models, specs, pricing, availability

Ryzen 7000 officially revealed: models, prices, CPU and motherboard release dates

Today in the early morning hours, AMD held an event to officially unveil next generation desktop processors – the Ryzen 7000 with Zen 4 architecture made on 5nm manufacturing process. We learned the final specs of these processors and their new iGPU, as well as a store availability date and the prices the chips will cost. There’s been a surprise change in pricing in contrast with the previous leaks. In any case, Zen 4 is here.

Ryzen 9 7950X: top model now a little cheaper

The most powerful model is the Ryzen 9 7950X, which as expected has 16 cores and 32 threads, which means it is the maximum possible configuration with two 5nm CPU chiplets under the heat spreader. There’s 2×32 MB of L3 cache. Combined with the 1MB L2 cache of the individual cores, you get the 80MB cache, which is how AMD lists the capacity in the specs (the L1 data cache is not included, although it would add up to half a megabyte).

The processor has a base clock speed of 4.5 GHz, but it is the maximum boost clock speeds that are particularly noteworthy. Officially, according to AMD, the processor is supposed to boost to 5.7 GHz. According to unofficial rumours, however, it supposedly has a real maximum clock speed of up to 5850 MHz (the Angstronomics website, which first reported this three months ago, clearly had good sources). If this is confirmed, then there is an unofficial 150 MHz extra range that the processor can also use, similarly to how things worked on the Ryzen 9 5950X (or the first generation of Ryzen where it was called “XFR” clock speed), but boosting into this extra range will not be guaranteed. The cores may boost to these higher values only for a limited time, only at lower temperatures, or only in certain applications.

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X processor specifications (source: AMD, via: AnandTech)

Performance should be very nice, but not everything will be ideal. The downside is the increase in power draw. The TDP is officially 170 W, but the maximum power draw in boost will be higher –  the processor will again be able to go up to some 35 % above the TDP in multi-threaded loads, up to the so-called PPT limit, which should be 230 W for 170W processors. AMD actually quotes exactly this number as the official maximum supported power draw on the AM5 platform. It remains to be seen the reviews  if AMD has really tapped this potential entirely. Some Ryzens usually don’t reach their PPT, but high core-count models have tended to milk this allotted budget to death in the past (for 105 W models, however, the PPT was a much tighter 142 W).

On the other hand, the price is relatively good news. For a while, leaks said it would be 799 USD, the same amount the company wanted for the Ryzen 9 5950X, the top model of the 5000 generation two years ago. In the end, AMD set the price at “merely” 699 USD (846 EUR in Eurozone with 21 % VAT). So there has been a reduction in the dollar price, but unfortunately not so much in Europe because of the Russian military invasion of Ukraine, which tanked the exchange rates of the koruna and the euro. Hopefully in the future things will head in the right direction again (currency higher, prices lower, occupiers where they belong).

The 12-core will remain at the same price position

The closes lower-price alternative will again be a 12-core with 24 threads, which is labelled Ryzen 9 7900X. Its clock speed is 4.7 GHz as the base, the maximum boost is 5.6 GHz, or a hundred MHz and about 1.8 % lower than what 7950X packs. Whether this processor will also have an extra unofficial 150 MHz headroom (which would bring it to 5750 MHz), we don’t know, no rumors about that are out at this time.

The processor is still made up of two CPU chiplets, but two cores are disabled in each. However, it still has a full 2×32 MB L3 cache (after adding it up with L2 AMD states 76 MB cache), but also the same 170 W TDP. Thus, the maximum power draw in boost is probably also up to 230 W, although there is probably a slightly higher chance that the processor will not actually reach it in practice. But it’s safer to assume it will.

AMD has set the price at 549 USD, or 664 EUR. In this case, it is the same amount as for the Ryzen 9 5900X, the 12-core is not affected by the price cut. Admittedly, 5900X’s price wasn’t that bad two years ago.

AMD Ryzen 7000 processors in real life (source: AnandTech)

Ryzen 7 & 5: Octa-core and hexa-core, 105 W

The remaining two announced models are made up of just one CPU chiplet. The higher model will be the Ryzen 7 7700X with eight cores/16 threads. As expected, it will have just 32 MB L3 cache (in one block, adding L2 results in 40 MB cache in specs). Its base clock speed is 4.5 GHz, but the official boost is only 5.4 GHz, so there’s a 200 MHz step-down from the 7900X – the clock speed is 5.1 % lower than the top 7950X model. There’s no info about a possible “shadow boost” yet for this SKU, either. The TDP of this model is 105 W (which means 142 W maximum PPT), the same as Ryzen 7 5800X, but higher than Ryzen 7 5700X (which had 65 W TDP and also a reduced PPT to 76 W instead of the expected 88 W).

The hopes that the fact that AMD has designated the octa-core as 7700X (instead of 7800X) means that it would go to market at a lower price than its predecessor were only half-way fulfilled. Fortunately, we can say that the octa-core will indeed be cheaper than what the Ryzen 7 5800X started selling for two years ago: instead of 449 USD, the 7700X will be 399 USD. For us, that means 483 EUR including VAT. Unfortunately, it’s not a budget-friendly 299 USD of the Ryzen 7 5700X – but that one has hit the market during the times where the line-up has hit deep discounts.

The most affordable (relatively speaking) model so far will be the last one – Ryzen 5 7600X,a hexa-core with 12 threads and 32MB L3 cache (38 MB counting L3 and L2 together). Its base clock speed is 4.7 GHz like for the 7900X, but the maximum boost is only 5.3 GHz – theoretically 7 % lower than the top model. Again, we don’t know if it’ll have that shadow turbo range, but even if so, this cheaper SKU could possibly use smaller range than the 150 MHz of the top models.

Unfortunately this processor is also not among the ones whose prices went down. It will cost the same money as the Ryzen 5 5600X two years ago – 299 USD. This means 362 EUR incl. VAT.

Ryzen 5 7600X has the added inconvenience of increased power draw. It also has a 105 W TDP and theoretically a 142 W PPT, same as the octa-core. However, it’s possible that in real life its power draw will peak at lower values when it only has six cores to convert electricity to heat.

In stores 27. 9.

You’ll first be able to buy these four processors on September 27, which is when availability officially starts in stores. The same date applies to the AM5 platform motherboards, although their choice will be limited at first and will expand more about a month later – more on that in a moment.

Ryzen 7000 models and pricing (source: AMD, via: AnandTech)

Partly price stagnation, partly a step in the right direction

So AMD has made two models (the ones with fully active silicon) cheaper, but left the prices of the other two (the ones with part of the cores turned off) the same. More precisely, the same prices as what the company established two years ago. Even with the two discounted models, however, their prices are not as low as what the current generation processors go for now after the discounts that started happening this year. However, that wasn’t entirely expected either – the depth of the Ryzen 5000 discounts is also a result of the fact that they’ve been on the market for two years now, and their original positions will be taken by the new generation.

Optimists can view the fact that the 7900X and 7600X models at least didn’t get more expensive as some sort of good news given today’s inflation fears, but when you compare that to prices in the 3000 generation… On the other hand, again, the fact that the top model Ryzen 7950X gets a better price than the Ryzen 9 5950X had, but also better than the price of Ryzen 9 3950X (750 USD) from 2019, is something we commend. Hopefully this will make it a bit more popular, as the high price has probably discouraged a lot of people from the top Ryzen configurations in favor of the 12-core 3900X and 5900X models in the past.

We may well owe this good news to the beneficial effects of market competitition – AMD may also have made the 16-core cheaper because it will be under a lot of pressure from the 24-core / 32-thread top of the line SKU of Intel’s upcoming 13th generation Core processors (a.k.a. Raptor Lake). It’s a pity that AMD’s competitive pressure going in the opposite direction couldn’t force Intel to ease up a bit on their brutal increases in CPU power draw. The market position of the dominant company is apparently too strong for that, and so we ironically see the opposite happening: AMD has joined in the wattage race too.

AMD Ryzen 7000 processor packaging (source: AnandTech)

All models have the same connectivity and iGPU

Of course, all models have an IO die in addition to one or two 5nm CPU die, which is new and manufactured using TSMC’s advanced 6nm process instead of GlobalFoundries’ 12nm process used on the Ryzen 3000 and 5000. This silicon combines the roles of the integrated “northbridge” with some of the functions of the chipset (formerly “southbridge”) and connects together the CPU cores (more precisely the two CCX in Ryzen 9) with each other. The new IO chiplet could perhaps be more power efficient, but that remains to be seen after the reviews.

UP to DDR5-5200, but just DDR5-3600 with four modules

The IO chiplet’s capabilities should hopefully be the same for all four models. The memory controller is dual channel and officially supports DDR5-5200 (more with manual OC or using XMP or AMD Expo profiles). This frequency applies to running a total of two modules, whether they are single-rank or dual-rank.

With four modules only the DDR5-3600 frequency is officially supported, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t get higher speed tiers workinf (especially if you have a four-module OC kit with XMP or ideally Expo profile). It is not yet confirmed whether it is possible to use ECC at least unofficially.

A mini GPU in the processor: simply AMD Radeon Graphics

The Ryzen 7000s are also the first high-performance Ryzens (outside of the APU lineup primarily targeted at laptops) to have an integrated GPU, which is apparently housed in the IO chiplet. This GPU is rather rudimentary and serves a basic display adapter. It has only two CU blocks (128 shaders), although it is uses RDNA 2 architecture. The configuration of this iGPU seems to be the same for all processors, the GPU clock speed is listed by the company as 400 MHz for base and 2200 MHz in boost.

It will simply be referred to as “AMD Radeon Graphics,” nothing more. According to earlier reports, hardware video decoders and encoders, perhaps taken from Ryzen 6000, should be included. But AMD does not list their capabilities on its website for now.

AMD Ryzen 7000 processor for socket AM5 (source: AMD)

PCI Express 5.0 for both GPUs and SSDs

Furthermore, the IO chipset provides 28 PCI Express 5.0 lanes, but in practice only 24 are usable, because four are used to communicate with the AMD X670(E) or B650(E) chipset on the motherboard, in which role they run only in the slower PCIe 4.0 ×4 mode with a bandwidth of 8 GB/s in both directions. Whether these processors will be able to communicate with newer chipsets with faster PCIe 5.0 ×4 speed in future boards, we have no idea.

Out of 24 PCIe 5.0 lanes, the board can produce a PCIe 5.0 ×16 slot for GPUs and one or two M.2 slots with PCIe 5.0 ×4 connectivity for SSDs. The processor also provides a small number of USB 3.2 Gen 2 (SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps) ports. Additional connectivity is then provided by the connected chipset – we wrote about their capabilities in the article linked below, but in the meantime AMD has confirmed that there will also be a B650E variant with full PCI Express 5.0 support (i.e. analogically to the X670E chipset).

Read more: AMD X670, X670E, B650 chipsets and AM5 platform for Zen 4: PCIe 5.0 and other connectivity in detail

Boards with B650 / B650E chipsets will come out a bit later

AMD has already announced that the release of boards with X670 and X670E chipsets will be in September, but B650 and B650E models will come a little later – in October. So when the processors are released on September 27, only the more expensive board models will be available for purchase and the B650(E) chipsets will be missing. However, a delay of about a month is not so bad – as long as there is decent enough choice at that point, we hope there won’t be just a small number of models be released in October, with broader range to follow only after a longer wait.

Release date of X670 and B650 chipsets (source: AMD, via: AnandTech)

Socket AM5 should be here at least until 2025

By the way – according to AMD, the AM5 platform boards start at 125 USD and the platform is again supposed to be long-lived, hopefully similarly to AM4. The AM5 socket will be used until at least 2025, according to AMD’s official presentation, but it could go on for even longer (“2025+” is mentioned). So it is possible that it will last for the entire lifetime of DDR5 memory until the transition to DDR6.

AM5 platform to be used until at least 2025 (source: AMD, via: AnandTech)

However, this does not guarantee that the first generation of boards will always be able to accommodate the latest generation of processors that will be released in 2025 or beyond. Technical obstacles, or the lack of BIOS updates that the new processors need to function, can always prevent this.

Sources: AMD (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), AnandTech, techPowerUp

English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš


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