Here Comes the Midrange!

AMD is announcing the upcoming Ryzen 5 CPUs for mainstream users

Today AMD is announcing the upcoming Ryzen 5 CPUs.  A little bit was known about them from several weeks ago when AMD talked about their upcoming 6 core processors, but official specifications were lacking.  Today we get to see what Ryzen 5 is mostly about.

There are four initial SKUs that AMD is talking about this evening.  These encompass quad core and six core products.  There are two “enthusiast” level SKUs with the X connotation while the other two are aimed at a less edgy crowd.

The two six core CPUs are the 1600 and 1600X.  The X version features the higher extended frequency range when combined with performance cooling.  That unit is clocked at a base 3.6 GHz and achieves a boost of 4 GHz.  This compares well to the top end R7 1800X, but it is short 2 cores and four threads.  The price of the R5 1600X is a very reasonable $249.  The 1600 does not feature the extended range, but it does come in at a 3.2 GHz base and 3.6 GHz boost.  The R5 1600 has a MSRP of $219.

When we get to the four core, eight thread units we see much the same stratification.  The top end 1500X comes in at $189 and features a base clock of 3.5 GHz and a boost of 3.7 GHz.  What is interesting about this model is that the XFR is raised by 100 MHz vs. other XFR CPUs.  So instead of an extra 100 MHz boost when high end cooling is present we can expect to see 200 MHz.  In theory this could run at 3.9 GHz in the extended state.  The lowest priced R5 is the 1400 which comes in at a very modest $169.  This features a 3.2 GHz base clock and a 3.4 GHz boost.

The 1400, 1500, and 1600 CPUs come with Wraith cooling solutions.  The 1600X comes bare as it is assumed that users want to use something a bit more robust.  The R5 1400 comes with the lower end Wraith Stealth cooler while the R5 1500X and R5 1600 come with the bigger Wraith Spire.  The bottom 3 SKUs are all rated at 65 watts TDP.  The 1600X comes in at the higher 95 watt rating.  Each of the CPUs are unlocked for overclocking.

These chips will provide a more fleshed out pricing structure for the Ryzen processors and provide users and enthusiasts with lower cost options for those wanting to invest in AMD again.  These chips all run on the new AM4 platform which are pretty strong in terms of features and I/O performance.

AMD is not shipping these parts today, but rather announcing them.  Review samples are not in hand yet and AMD expects world-wide availability by April 11.  This is likely a very necessary step for AMD as current AM4 motherboard availability is not at the level we were expecting to see.  We also are seeing some pretty quick firmware updates from motherboard partners to address issues with these first AM4 boards.  By April 11 I would expect to see most of the issues solved and a healthy supply of motherboards on the shelves to handle the influx of consumers waiting to buy these more midrange priced CPUs from AMD.

What they did not cover or answer would be how the four core products would be presented.  Would each be a single CCX and only 8 MB of L3 cace, or would AMD disable two cores in each CCX and present 16 MB of L3?  We currently do not have the answer to this.  Considering the latency between accessing different CCX units we can surely hope they only keep one CCX active.

Ryzen has certainly been a success for AMD and I have no doubt that their quarter will be pretty healthy with the estimated sales of around 1 million Ryzen CPUs since launch.  Announcing these new chips will give the mainstream and budget enthusiasts something to look forward to and plan their purchases around.  AMD is not announcing the Ryzen 3 products at this time.

Update: AMD got back to me this morning about a question I asked them about the makeup of cores, CCX units, and L3 cache.  Here is their response.

1600X: 3+3 with 16MB L3 cache. 1600: 3+3 with 16MB L3 cache. 1500X: 2+2 with 16MB L3 cache. 1400: 2+2 with 8MB L3 cache. As with Ryzen 7, each core still has 512KB local L2 cache.