AMD’s new Ryzen 7000 CPU promises big performance boost for high-end PCs

AMD is soon start shipping its new “Zen 4” architecture Ryzen 7000 series processors, bringing a speed post of 29% compared to its Ryzen 5000 series

AMD’s four new CPUs apply pressure on Intel in the market for high-end PCs and aim to deliver what will appeal to gamers, content creators, and others who want the best performance.

The x86 Ryzen 7000 series are built on 5nm process from chip manufacturing contractor Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), feature up to 16 cores with 32 threads, and will be available on 27 September for between $299 and $699. 

The $699 AMD Ryzen 9 7950X features an 80 MB cache, 16 cores and 32 threads with a base frequency of 4.5 GHz that can be boosted to 5.7 GHz. The $549 Ryzen 9 7900X features a 76MB cache, 12 cores and 24 threads with a base frequency of 4.7 GHz that can boost to 5.6 GHz. 

At the lower end, the $399 Ryzen 7 7700X has a 40MB cache, 8 cores and 16 threads with base frequency of 4.5 GHz that can boost to 5.4 GHz. The $299 Ryzen 5 7600X has a 38MB cache 

AMD chief technology officer, Mark Papermaster, told CNET’s Stephen Shankland that 29% speed boost over the Ryzen 5000 while tasks requiring all 16 cores delivers a boost of an 49%.     

AMD’s pricing puts pressure on Intel as the Ryzen 9 7950X is $100 less than the AMD’s 2020 Ryzen 9 5950X launch price. 

Intel in July confirmed it will rise the price of many of its CPUS this year as it contends with inflation. 

Shipments of low-end PCs, in particular Chromebooks, have declined since the heydays for new hardware at the outset of the pandemic, however sales of high-end PCs have remained strong.  

CNET reports AMD is using three “chiplets” in its Ryzen 9 7950X processor whereby it packages multiple small processing elements in into a single, larger processor. Apple’s M1 ultra similarly fuses two M1 Max chips, while Intel will include four processing tiles into its 2023 Meteor Lake processor. Three of these tiles are built by TSMC. 

The Ryzen 9 5950X has two chiplets, each featuring eight Zen 4 cores, and one chipset for I/O tasks. AMD plans to use the same approach with eight-core chips in its server processors for the data center. Also, Zen 4 mobile professors are due to arrive for laptops in 2023.