AMD announces new 7nm Ryzen 3000 CPUs with plenty of processing power

What you need to know

  • At Computex 2019, AMD announced its new Ryzen 3000 series CPUs.
  • AMD creates the new Ryzen 9 family of CPUs.
  • The new Ryzen 3000 series is based on AMD's Zen 2 architecture.
  • The new CPUs will be available in July, starting from $199.

Updated July 7, 2019: The Radeon 3rd Gen Ryzen 3000 Series is now available at Amazon.

AMD used its Computex keynote to celebrate the company's 50th anniversary by announcing new 7nm processors. The Ryzen 3000 series of CPUs, based on the new Zen 2 architecture, will be compatible with old AM4 motherboards, as well as the newly announced X570 chipset, which itself unlocks PCIe 4.0. You can expect to see core counters to hit 12 and base speeds to max out at 4.6GHz from the factory.

Zen 2 is an important next step for AMD, improving single and multi-core processing performance, as well as reduced power draw. Comparing the performance numbers of the new Ryzen 3000 series against the previous generation Ryzen CPUs shows some serious gains in gaming and general computing. What to take away from the new architecture:

  • Double floating point with a redesigned engine.
  • Double the amount of cache.
  • 15 percent IPC (instructions per-clock) uplift.

This is what allows the processors to provide much more performance with the refreshed line-up. Acer and ASUS were on-stage to showcase some 3rd-gen Ryzen powered desktop and laptop PCs, with Acer going so far as to include Ryzen and Radeon in the same laptop.

AMD showed off a system running an X570 motherboard, Ryzen 7 3800X and RX 5700 against another with an Intel Core i9-9900K and RTX 2080 Ti and it was clear to see the difference. It'll be interesting to carry out our own tests between the two companies, but things are getting exciting for system builders.

What's particularly interesting is the formation of the Ryzen 9 family to compete against Intel's own Core i9 series. It's the perfect option for those who need more performance than what's offered with the Ryzen 7 series, but don't wish to splash out on Threadripper, nor invest in a new motherboard.

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Header Cell - Column 0 Ryzen 5 3600Ryzen 5 3600XRyzen 7 3700XRyzen 7 3800XRyzen 9 3900X
ArchitectureZen 2Zen 2Zen 2Zen 2Zen 2
Cores6126128168161224
Clock speed3.6GHz4.2GHz3.8GHz4.4GHz3.6GHz4.4GHz3.9GHz4.5GHz4.6GHz4.8GHz
Cache35MB35MB36MB36MB70MB
TDP65W95W65W105W105W
Price$199$249$329$399$499

The pricing for the new Ryzen 3000 series CPUs is incredibly aggressive, with AMD wanting to get as many gamers, creators and general consumers going to the red team's camp as possible. All the new CPUs will be available on July 7. The first 7nm desktop CPU available on 7/7, cute.

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Rich Edmonds
Senior Editor, PC Build

Rich Edmonds was formerly a Senior Editor of PC hardware at Windows Central, covering everything related to PC components and NAS. He's been involved in technology for more than a decade and knows a thing or two about the magic inside a PC chassis. You can follow him on Twitter at @RichEdmonds.