AMD Unveils 2nd Gen Ryzen Processors: 'Disruptive' Computing Performance With Four New Chips
Last year, AMD has made a statement with the reveal of the Ryzen processors — the chipmaker is back in the game. The company is now launching the second generation of its high-performance CPUs and is in a better place than ever to keep the pressure on Intel.
AMD is including a free Wraith cooler with every chip, due to popular demand. "We've updated the AMD cooler lineup for Socket AM4 with the new top-of-the-line AMD Wraith Prism, featuring per-RGB color illumination control. Every 2nd Gen AMD Ryzen™ 7 processor now comes with an illuminated Wraith cooler," the company announced in its main Ryzen webpage.
The new chips are also now available for pre-orders on AMD's website, since Friday, April 13. All the 2nd gen models are expected to ship out starting Thursday, April 19, to pre-order customers as well as all the participating retailers that want to stock up on the new Ryzen CPUs.
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These four new models represent the new offers from AMD to give PC users "disruptive levels" of computing performance at their respective price points, which are generally much lower compared to the equivalent, closest-performing counterpart from Intel.
The second gen Ryzen now all come with AMD's SenseMI Technology and has been upgraded to perform significantly better than the first gen Ryzen chips. For the ones that AMD announced on Friday in a press release, two of them will have eight cores and 16 threads each, while the other two have six cores and 12 threads.
At the very top tend is the new Ryzen 7 2700x, featuring eight cores, 16 threads, and a max boosted clock speed of 4.3 GHz. For $329, it's meant to replace the Ryzen 1800X and 1700X which first came out at $499 and $399, offering a faster chip for even less.
Intel's new i7 8700k, which sells for about $350, has only six cores, in comparison, as Engadget pointed out.
For those looking for more value per dollar, there's the Ryzen 7 2700, the same eight cores and 16 threads at a max boost speed of 4.1 GHz, for $299. Users who would not be using all the multi-threading capability of the new 2700 series could instead pick up one of the new Ryzen 5 2600 chips, instead.
For $229, the Ryzen 5 2600x offers six cores with 12 threads, at a brisk 4.2 GHz max boost clock speed. That's a bit faster than the 2700, for a power draw of 95 W. For those looking for a chip that's easier to cool down, both the Ryzen 7 2700 and the Ryzen 5 2600 only pulls 65 W.
The Ryzen 5 2600 is the most affordable chip announced this week, at $199. It's still a six-core processor with 12 threads, and capable of a max boost speed of 3.9 GHz.
All the new 2nd gen Ryzen chips so far are built on AMD's 12 nanometer Zen+ architecture, which is an update of the platform the first generation Ryzen chips were built on. For those willing to hold out for now, the Zen 2 design is expected to come out next year.
