A new era is upon us, an era that involves a re-envisioned focus on performance and efficiency leadership in the CPU landscape. There are two companies that are battling hard to hold the throne of this segment but given the incremental (and sometimes revolutionary) changes that each chipmaker is bringing to the field in a span of a few quarters, there’s no decisive victor. In return, the consumers keep on reaping the benefits of this heated battle between red and blue which is the most intense it’s ever been.
While Intel may have managed to take the performance, value, and efficiency throne from AMD with its 12th-Gen Alder Lake lineup, AMD isn’t going to sit silent. They planned two brand new CPU launches this year, one being a demonstration of how 3D V-Cache can allow gamers to benefit from faster performance in a mainstream package. But that’s just one chip, The bigger and the main CPU launch has always been scheduled for the second half of 2022 in the form of Ryzen 7000 and it’s going to fundamentally change everything for the Ryzen Desktop CPU platform.
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In the five years of Zen, the company went from performance leadership to core leadership, efficiency leadership, and gaming leadership. And today, the red team even manages to secure the clock speed leadership, something that we thought was impossible against a rival such as Intel. The clock leadership will be short-lived considering the competition has planned chips that are 6 GHz capable of launching next month but it’s an impressive feat for AMD regardless.
Intel 12th Gen vs AMD Ryzen 5000 Desktop CPU Prices:
Intel CPUCores / ThreadsClocks (Max)Price (MSRP)Prices (Newegg) – 01/11/2021Prices (Newegg) – 01/11/2021Price (MSRP)Clocks (Max)Cores / ThreadsAMD CPU
N/AN/AN/AN/AN/A$749.99 US$799 US4.7 GHz (105W)16/32AMD Ryzen 9 5950X
Intel Core i9-12900K16/245.2 GHz (241W)$589 US (K)
$564 US (KF)$649.99 K
$629.99 KF
$559.99 US$549 US4.6 GHz (105W)12/24AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
Intel Core i7-12700K12/205.0 GHz (190W)$409 US (K)
$384 US (F)$449.99 K
$419.99 KF$394.99 US$449 US4.7 GHz (105W)8/16AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
Intel Core i5-12600K10/164.9 GHz (150W)$289 US (K)
$264 US (KF)$319.99 K
$299.99 KF$309.99 US$299 US4.6 GHz (65W)6/12AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
So this year, AMD has decided to launch a second architecture overhaul, and oh boy! It’s a big one. Enter AM5 & Zen 4, a brand new architecture with a prime focus on efficiency and multi-threading performance, and comes with a brand new platform that is outfitted with next-generation features such as DDR5 and PCIe 5.0. The AMD Ryzen 7000 “Zen 4” lineup will include the top-to-bottom Ryzen 9, Ryzen 7, and Ryzen 5 CPUs.
The main features of AMD’s Ryzen 7000 Desktop CPUs include:
Up To 16 Zen 4 Cores and 32 Threads
+29% Performance Uplift In Single-Threaded Apps
Brand New Zen 4 CPU Cores (IPC / Architectural Improvements)
Brand New TSMC 5nm process node with 6nm IOD
25% Performance Per Watt Improvement Vs Zen 3
>35% Overall Performance Improvement Vs Zen 3
~13% Instructions Per Clock (IPC) Improvement Vs Zen 3
Support on AM5 Platform With LGA1718 Socket
New X670E, X670, B650E, and B650 Motherboards
Dual-Channel DDR5 Memory Support
Up To DDR5-5600 Native (JEDEC) Speeds
28 PCIe Lanes (CPU Exclusive)
105-120W TDPs (Upper Bound Range ~170W)
Today, we will be taking a look at the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X on two flagship motherboards from AORUS & ASRock, the X67E AORUS Xtreme & the ASRock X670E Taichi.
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