AMD’s angle when promoting its new Ryzen desktop processors involves showing customers how much performance customers will see for the price. The company talked for months about how its fastest, eight-core chip barely outperformed a similar chip produced by Intel, but for half the cost. Now just over three months after Ryzen’s arrival, that performance/price ratio just got better thanks to a price reduction of the three high-end Ryzen 7 desktop processors from AMD.
Here they are via Newegg:
| Ryzen 7 1800X | Ryzen 7 1700X | Ryzen 7 1700 | |
| New price: | $450 | $350 | $315 |
| Previous price: | $500 | $400 | $330 |
| Architecture: | Zen | Zen | Zen |
| Cores: | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| Threads: | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| Total L1 cache: | 768KB | 768KB | 768KB |
| Total L2 cache: | 4MB | 4MB | 4MB |
| Total L3 cache: | 16MB | 16MB | 16MB |
| Base speed: | 3.6GHz | 3.4GHz | 3.0GHz |
| Boost speed: | 4.0GHz | 3.8GHz | 3.7GHz |
| Power usage: | 95 watts | 95 watts | 65 watts |
News of a price reduction for AMD’s three Ryzen 7 processors shouldn’t be all that surprising given the bombshell the company dropped during Computex. AMD revealed a new set of Zen-based desktop processors arriving this summer called Ryzen Threadripper, sporting up to 16 cores and 32 threads. Given many PC gamers just overhauled their desktops to support the slightly-over-three-months-old Ryzen 7 chips, news of an even meatier set of CPUs was likely a blow to the gut.
With the launch of Threadripper, AMD is introducing the new X399 platform supporting the massive chip, 64 PCI Express Gen3 lanes, quad-channel memory, and eight memory slots (DIMMs). Consider Threadripper to be Ryzen 9 to some degree, only AMD is probably sticking with the thread-ripping name rather than continuing the numbering sequence due to the new X399 platform to eliminate confusion. Despite mentioning only the 16-core chip, AMD may likely introduce smaller versions of 10, 12, and 14-core capacities over time.
How much AMD’s 16-core Ryzen Threadripper will cost is unknown for now. Since it has double the count of the current Ryzen 7 chips, the top-of-the-line model could very well cost $900. By comparison, Intel’s rival Core i9 lineup will cost up to $2,000 for the 18-core model, and $1,700 for the 16-core version. But with AMD keeping its sights on the competitive performance/price ratio, $900 for the 16-core Threadripper may be a good estimated guess.
Chopping the prices of current products prior to the launch of a new wave is nothing new. AMD isn’t exactly cleaning house to make room for the Threadripper chips, but the firm may adjust the prices of its high-end chips for a broader performance/price appeal when the Threadripper processors arrive this summer.
Currently, AMD sells the three eight-core Ryzen 7 processors along with four Ryzen 5 chips: the six-core 1600X, the six-core 1600, the four-core 1500X, and the four-core 1400. AMD’s Ryzen 3 family won’t even make an appearance until the third quarter of 2017, serving the low-end desktop market. These will supposedly consist of the 1200X, 1200, and 1100 quad-core chips in the low 3GHz base speed range.
