After years of playing second fiddle to Intel, AMD has finally brought out a range of powerhouse competing CPUs at affordable prices. Not just that, AMD’s new CPUs beat out Intel’s best-selling processors in a handful of popular workload tests. So what can we expect from AMD’s Ryzen 3000 line-up?
I don’t even remember the last time that AMD was really competitive with Intel in the gaming space. While the last two generations of Ryzen have been quite good, they have always lost out to Intel in gaming performance. The i7-8700K and then the i9-9900K just beat down the poor Ryzen CPUs and even with their higher core counts, they just weren’t a match for Intel’s finest. Though it must be said that Zen and Zen+ have seen performance improvements over the years, which is something that we can’t say about Intel. But things are looking up with the release of the Ryzen 3000 range of CPUs
2019 is definitely AMD’s year, though both Intel and Nvidia have tried to steal their thunder, but try as they will, they both failed. Not only did AMD announce that they would be releasing the Ryzen 3000 range on Sunday, they also released the first Navi based 7nm GPUs. Now this is a double-whammy for gamers who are looking at building a new gaming rig without breaking the bank.
What’s changed?
Well for starters, Zen 2 has moved over to 7nm from 12nm with the last generation (Zen+) and 14nm of the first Ryzen generation (Zen). This shift has meant that these new processors are more power efficient and will result in lower temperatures and more stable overclocking. Then for those who live in countries with high electricity prices, the lower TDPs of some of the processors will help cut some of your power bill for the year. Both the top Zen and Zen+ (Ryzen 7 1800X and the Ryzen 7 2700X) processors offered 8-cores and 16-threads, however the shrinking of the chiplets means that AMD have been able to squeeze 12-cores and 24-threads into the Ryzen 9 3900X and a whopping 16-cores and 32-threads into the Ryzen 9 3950X (not yet released), which is pretty amazing for an AM4 socket.
AMD has also improved on the processor’s all-core clocks, the Ryzen 9 3900X is advertised as being able to hit 4.6GHz on all cores, and the Ryzen 9 3950X should hit 4.7GHz (not 5GHz as previously claimed), though this processor is still under embargo. But (now this is a very important but), these figures are the maximum frequencies with next to no wiggle room, and you will probably won’t get these figures, even with a custom cooling loop. Take AMD’s figures and deduct 200MHz to 300MHz from the boost frequencies, and then you will have a more realistic expectation for these processors (when using air or AIO coolers).
AMD also promise an increase of 15% when it comes to IPC (instructions per clock), though this is also a figure that will not always give you a consistent result when it comes to gaming. And from what we can tell the frame-rates while gaming, they are still on average below that of the i9-9900K when being comparing to the Ryzen 9 3900X. However, the Ryzen 9 3900X outperforms the i9-9900K in many productivity tasks, and for someone who also uses his PC for work, that is great news for me.
More bang for your buck!
Now I know what some of you guys are thinking, “$499 is not affordable”, well you are right, $499 is not cheap at all. However, you do get more for your money here. The Core i9-9900K come in at $488 and for your hard earned dollars you get an 8-core and 16-thread CPU. Sure, it can hit higher frequencies (which is great for gaming), but for $499 you can pick up the new Ryzen 9 3900X with 12-cores and 24-threads. Added to this, every single AMD Ryzen processor can be overclocked, which we can’t say about Intel’s none-K series locked processors. As an extra bonus, you can use most of the existing X470, B450, X370 and B350 motherboards with the new Ryzen 3000 processors. However, it must be noted that not all boards will be able to run the 12-core 3900X or the 16-core 3950X. You will also need to check with your motherboard’s manufacturer if they have a Bios for Zen 2.
Cost per core!
In this table you can see the cost per core for the new Zen 2 line up. Now, you may be thinking that the Ryzen 7 3700X offers more bang for your back over the 3800X, however the 3800X is the faster of the two 8-core processors and has a higher base and boost frequency and in essence, that’s what you’re paying for. Could you overclock the Ryzen 7 3700X to hit the same frequencies? In short yes, though you will need to know what you are doing to prevent any damage to your shiny new CPU.
What do the reviewers think of Ryzen 3000?
Now that all the embargoes have been lifted (minus that of the Ryzen 9 3950X), we have been treated to an avalanche of reviews from independent reviews. We have curated a few below and hopefully it will aid you in your decision making process and we at All-Round Gamer already have our eye on the Ryzen 9 3900X for our editing rig.
