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That's no beheaded cyclops! AMD's CEO is holding a Ryzen Threadripper retail box

Kevin Parrish
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Ryzen Threadripper
Image used with permission by copyright holder
On Monday, AMD updated its Twitter feed with a picture of company CEO Lisa Su holding the retail packaging of the upcoming Ryzen Threadripper desktop processor. Honestly, based on the size of the chip and now its epic-sized store shelf box shown in the photo, we are not sure why AMD did not choose to label its high-end Ryzen Threadripper desktop chips as “Epyc,” with is the name AMD uses for its new server-oriented CPUs.

If you missed the announcement, here are the two Ryzen Threadripper desktop processors hitting the market in August:

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Cores Threads Base Speed Boost Speed Price
1920X 12 24 3.5GHz 4.0GHz $799
1950X 16 32 3.4GHz 4.0GHz $999
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These two processors are based on the same “Zen” design seen in AMD’s vanilla Ryzen CPUs initially launched in February. Zen is mostly a start-from-scratch design aimed to provide better performance per watt at a lower price when compared to similar desktop processors from Intel. The two Ryzen Threadripper chips landing in August will compete with Intel’s upcoming 12-core i9-7920X (2.90MHz, $1,189) and 16-core i9-7960X (2.90MHz, $1,699) desktop processors.

The drawback to both the Ryzen Threadripper and Intel’s CXore X-Series CPUs is that they require a completely different motherboard seat (socket) than what is used by their mainstream siblings. For AMD’s chips, the company introduced the massive TR4 socket along with the X399 motherboard chipset. The Ryzen Threadripper chip itself looks to be similar in size to the Nintendo 3DS handheld, so expect a huge flood of new motherboards when the two CPUs hit the market next month.

Ryzen Threadripper
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The Ryzen Threadripper retail box revealed on Monday definitely looks far sexier than the packaging for AMD’s Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5 desktop chip lineup and is much larger, too. The current Ryzen box is square and mostly silver, save for the yellow/orange/red Ryzen logo printed across the side, and a small orange box in the corner where the processor number (seven, five, or three) resides.

However, the Ryzen Threadripper retail packaging ditches that boring blocky design for a solid, rounded black plastic casing with a big Ryzen cyclops-like eyeball looking straight at the customer, silently saying “Look at me! Buy me!” In Su’s hands, the package looks like a portable TV used for camping trips in the late 1970s, only without the antennas and tin foil-based flags.

Just for kicks, here are the remaining Ryzen processors the Threadripper models will be joining in August:

Cores Threads Base Speed Boost Speed Price
Ryzen 7 1800X 8 16 3.6GHz 4.0GHz $430
Ryzen 7 1700X 8 16 3.4GHz 3.8GHz $330
Ryzen 7 1700 8 16 3.0GHz 3.7GHz $270
Ryzen 5 1600X 6 12 3.6GHz 4.0GHz $240
Ryzen 5 1600 6 12 3.2GHz 3.6GHz $215
Ryzen 5 1500X 4 8 3.5GHz 3.7GHz $190
Ryzen 5 1400 4 8 3.2GHz 3.4GHz $165

Of course, we cannot forget the new Ryzen 3 processors landing on store shelves on Thursday:

Cores Threads Base Speed Boost Speed Price
Ryzen 3 1300X 4 4 3.5GHz 3.7GHz TBD
Ryzen 3 1200 4 4 3.1GHz 3.4GHz TBD

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Kevin Parrish
Kevin Parrish
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Kevin started taking PCs apart in the 90s when Quake was on the way and his PC lacked the required components. Since then…
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