AMD to Announce Ryzen 7000 CPUs on Aug. 29

The event is titled, “Together We Advance_PCs.” Apparently, the underscore at the end is part of an AMD marketing campaign. It’s been used previously to mention advancing _gaming, _supercomputers, _entertainment, and other things, according to Tom’s Hardware. It will feature the aforementioned bigwigs along with other executives to announce the Ryzen 7000 series of processors as well as the all-new AM5 platform. The only other information provided is that it will showcase Zen 4’s adoption of DDR5 and PCIe 5, which had been previously announced. In other words, there’s not much info in the announcement, so you’ll have to tune in for the details. It’ll be live-streamed at 7 PM EST on Aug. 29 on the company’s YouTube channel.

AMD previously discussed its new AM5 platform at Computex and made several performance claims. Among them was a promise of greater than 15 percent single-core uplift, along with boost clocks over 5GHz. At the same event, it demoed an unnamed Zen 4 CPU running at 5.5GHz in gaming. It had also previously stated overclocking would be an important feature for its Ryzen 7000 CPUs. This is a departure from Zen 3, but AMD also said it was raising TDP for some of its CPUs up to 170w from 105W with Zen 3. It was also increasing the maximum TDP to 230W for certain processors, which likely means the Ryzen 9 7900/7950X. It offered a few more details at its financial analyst event in June. It stated Zen 4 will over greater than 35 percent uplift compared with Zen 3, along with more than 25 percent improvement in performance-per-watt.

As we careen toward the launch, fresh info is starting to come fast and furious. A pre-retail version of the Ryzen 7 7700X was recently spotted in the flesh. It’s the first Zen 4 CPU to be photographed with all its labeling intact. Videocardz states it’s an 8-core, 16-thread CPU with a boost clock of 5.4GHz. It’s expected to sell for $299, which was the same price as the Ryzen 7 5700X at launch. This CPU will debut along with three other models at launch, it is rumored. The range of CPUs should include the Ryzen 9 7950X, Ryzen 9 7900X, Ryzen 7 7700X, and Ryzen 5 7600X. They are anticipated to be 16C/32T, 12C/24T, 8C/16T, and 6C/12T parts, as we reported previously.

Though we can (collectively) offer an educated guess on the upcoming CPU specs, pricing remains the big unknown. However, a Canadian retailer recently posted pricing for the four launch CPUs online, according to Tom’s Hardware. Canadian hardware is generally more expensive than that in the US, so it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. However, it can give us an idea of what’s in store. The Flagship 7950X CPU would go for a converted $906, with the 7900X at a more reasonable $625. That’s about the same as its Alder Lake equivalent, the Core i9-12900K right now.

That said, Intel is reportedly about to raise prices on its Alder Lake CPUs. Intel had stated it would begin passing along the inflation it’s experiencing to customers. Whether that price increase gets passed along to Raptor Lake is unknown. The same goes for Zen 4 as well. Raptor Lake is expected to be launching immediately after Zen 4, on Sept. 27. There are also rumors AMD might push its on-sale date to the 27th, just to mess with Intel’s launch plans.

Continue reading

Intel Launches AMD Radeon-Powered CPUs

Intel's new Radeon+Kaby Lake hybrid CPUs are headed for store shelves. Here's how the SKUs break down and what you need to know.

RISC-V Tiptoes Towards Mainstream With SiFive Dev Board, High-Performance CPU

RISC V continues to make inroads across the market, this time with a cheaper and more fully-featured test motherboard.

VIA Technologies, Zhaoxin Strengthen x86 CPU Development Ties

VIA and Zhaoxin are deepening their strategic partnership with additional IP transfers, intended to accelerate long-term product development.

What Does It Mean for the PC Market If Apple Makes the Fastest CPU?

Apple's M1 SoC could have a profound impact on the PC market. After 25 years, x86 may no longer be the highest-performing CPU architecture you can practically buy.