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AMD back in the fight against Intel with Ryzen?
AMD made headlines this week after revealing a slew of details surrounding its new Ryzen processor range, claiming that it’s the world’s “highest-performing and lowest powered” octacore desktop PC chips.
“Four years ago we began development of our ‘Zen’ processor core with the goal to deliver unprecedented generational performance gains and return choice and innovation to the high-performance computing market,” said Dr. Lisa Su, president and CEO of AMD in a statement.
“On 2 March, enthusiasts and gamers around the world will experience ‘Zen’ in action, as we launch our Ryzen 7 family of processors and reinvigorate the desktop computing market.”
AMD also has the lower-priced Ryzen 3 and Ryzen 5 range, but that’s only expected to launch later this year.
The company surprised consumers with the prices for its initial Ryzen 7 range, starting at US$329 for the 1700 (3Ghz, boosting to 3.7Ghz), then hitting US$399 for the 1700X (3.4Ghz, boosting to 3.8Ghz) and, finally, US$499 for the 1800X (3.6Ghz, boosting to 4Ghz).
AMD’s Ryzen 7 range looks to compete with Intel’s best while coming in at a much cheaper price
The chips are already available to preorder in South Africa via Evetech, Rebeltech, Titan-Ice and Wootware. The local pricing is as cheap as R5199 for the 1700, R6199 for the 1700X and R7999 for the top-end 1800X.
So just how good is the Ryzen 7 range of chips? Well, the company has made some lofty claims of its own.
“Product demonstrations featured Ryzen 7 1800X outperforming a similarly configured eight-core, 16-thread Intel Core i7-6900K in Cinebench R15 multi-threaded and Handbrake-based video transcoding, as well as showing comparable 4K gaming performance,” AMD wrote in the statement.
It’s worth noting that the Intel Core i7-6900K has a retail price of just over US$1000.
Of course, independent verification is a no-brainer before committing to a purchase. But even if it’s slightly less powerful than Intel’s best, it still makes for a strong performance by AMD for the price.
