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AMD makes older PCs more upgradeable once again

AMD’s got plenty of top-notch processors in the Ryzen 7000 lineup, but it still hasn’t given up on last-gen chips, as evidenced by its latest announcement. The company unveiled several new CPUs during an event in China, and while we’d largely expect AM5 chips at this point, we’re also seeing the previously unannounced Ryzen 5000XT series. This is good news for those who are still using AM4 motherboards and want to upgrade, but the details are scarce right now.

A leaked slide, which comes from frequent hardware leaker HXL on X andwas showcased by AMD at the event, shows us a couple of new Ryzen 8000 CPUs alongside the Ryzen 5000XT. There are also mentions of CPUs that are already out on the market, such as the recently launched Ryzen 5 5600GT and Ryzen 5 5500GT, as well as older chips from the Ryzen 3000-series and the Athlon 3000G.

Ryzen 7 8700F
Ryzen 5 8400F

China only?🤔

Source:QQ pic.twitter.com/l818lS6IFm

— HXL (@9550pro) March 22, 2024

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Right now, we don’t know anything beyond the fact that AMD is launching Ryzen 5000XT CPUs, presumably in the near future, as well as two new 8000 series CPUs.

The Ryzen 5000XT marks a mysterious new addition to the lineup, showing that AMD still isn’t quite ready to give up on its old AM4 socket — which is great news for those who use it. This isn’t the first time AMD has launched an XT processor refresh, either. The same thing happened with the Ryzen 3000 series, which later received an XT update — but unfortunately, those processors weren’t much to write home about.

AMD’s Ryzen 3000XT processors boosted the clock speeds by 100MHz to 200MHz compared to the base models, meaning that their performance was pretty much the same as their counterparts. Released one year later, the XT parts were priced too high for what they had to offer and didn’t make much of a splash, and were soon followed by the (much better) Ryzen 5000 series. Will AMD make the same mistake with the Ryzen 5000XT? It’s hard to expect huge performance improvements, so it all comes down to the price.

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D socketed in a motherboard.
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

Moving on to newer chips, the Ryzen 7 8700F and the Ryzen 7 8400F are most likely binned versions of AMD’s recent APUs, the Ryzen 5 8500G and the Ryzen 7 8700G. However, the “F” moniker on the new chips indicates that they won’t have a built-in graphics card, unlike the G parts. This brings up the question of whether AMD maintained the XDNA neural processing unit (NPU) on the Ryzen 7 8700F or disabled it alongside the integrated graphics. In any case, we’re most likely looking at budget chips with these two that are hopefully priced below the Ryzen 8000G processors.

Will AMD make an XT3D processor to rival some of the more affordable best gaming CPUs? More importantly, will any of these chips hit the global market, or will they be China exclusives? We’ll have to wait and see.

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Monica J. White
Monica is a UK-based freelance writer and self-proclaimed geek. A firm believer in the "PC building is just like expensive…
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