back to article AMD refreshes desktop CPUs with 5nm Ryzen 7000s that can reach 5.7GHz with 16 cores

AMD has refreshed its desktop processors for the first time in nearly two years, revealing Ryzen 7000-series processors that boast clock speeds that can reach 5.7GHz and performance up to 29 percent greater than their predecessors. "We wanted to make the Ryzen 7000 series the fastest CPU for gamers, while delivering the most …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    New desktop is about due

    Pre-approved by her-indoors.

    Great news!

    1. elsergiovolador Silver badge

      Re: New desktop is about due

      Pre-approved by her-indoors.

      Financial abuse is an aspect of 'coercive control' – a pattern of controlling, threatening and degrading behaviour that restricts a victims' freedom.

      If you earned the money, her-indoors has no say how you spend it as long as you commit to paying for the share of bills, food and other typical household outgoings.

      1. Contrex

        Re: New desktop is about due

        I find it very helpful to talk through purchases like a new PC with my partner, as it can clarify mentally whether I/we really do need them. Like the rubber duck that programmers talk to when they are stuck. Once I did deliberately 'forget' to fix a rattling CPU fan and the associated drumming metal case, even though I could have done, so I could say the next PC would be a quiet one.

        1. elsergiovolador Silver badge

          Re: New desktop is about due

          That's how healthy relationship works. But when you start to modify your behaviour out of fear that the other half won't give you a permission to spend your hard earned money, then it's no longer healthy.

          It's easy to dismiss that as just a "funny" side of a relationship, but if you switched genders, then something like this could easily end up on one's record.

          That's one of the reasons why so many men unfortunately decide to leave this world.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: New desktop is about due

        Original AC here.

        Oh come on man, lighten up.

        I always discuss serious purchases with my partner, it’s how we roll.

        She’s the one who suggested an upgrade. She must be sick of all my mutterings….

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: New desktop is about due

        It's called respect you clown. Regardless of whose money it is you still make decisions together.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: New desktop is about due

          Yup! It's just how relationships work. My uncle for years has never had access to his money - they have a joint account so that his wages get paid directly into that, however his wife sensibly and obviously removed all the debit cards he was issued so that he cannot withdraw money or use the money in the account.

          He gets given an "allowance" in cash from his wife, and she makes the decisions on big purchases as to what they do or do not buy (he has no say).

          It's always been this way for them and they've been married for many years, it goes to show how a healthy relationship should work. Funniest time though was when he couldn't afford much with the allowance money for a gift for her so he purchased a frying pan as a birthday gift. She then used said pan to hit him on the back of the head for buying such a stupid gift :D

          Honestly, if a man chooses to get married and can't handle this in a relationship then that's on him and his own fault. He only has himself to blame. He shouldn't get married in that case.

          Thankfully I'm not married (I couldn't handle that!) so I don't have that problem and spend my money as and when I need :D

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Well it's time for an upgrade. My 1080 and AM3+ FX-8300 processor have served me well. I usually wait for double but I'll make an exception this time. I don't even play games. I just love having the grunt so whatever I do will never slow me down. Let me know if anyone has some good case recommendations. Currently using a big ass cooler master case with a modular psu. It has more fans than Justin Bieber,

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Same vintage here. This was my Elite Dangerous machine, probably time to update the innards although I will keep the old case.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        I think I might do the same. Probably hit the old water cooler route though as been meaning to do that for years.

      2. NoneSuch Silver badge
        Linux

        @AC

        "Same vintage here. This was my Elite Dangerous machine, probably time to update the innards although I will keep the old case."

        Couple of things for a fellow Elite CMDR. The new CPU may have all sorts of teething issues. New gen, new tech with DDR5 and new mobo chipsets to run them. If you don't want to be updating drivers, firmware and BIOS continually, then give this a miss for 6 months at least until the worse bugs are worked out.

        Second, the layered Zen X3D processors are probably 6 months away as well and this will give another significant boost to performance.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          I have been there and got the t-shirt. I had a v1.1 am3+ mobo....

  3. Piro Silver badge

    Very impressive!

    I have a 5950X, so I don't plan on building a new machine for many years, but I have to admit, those new CPUs are very attractive, the clock bump is unprecedented.

    1. Binraider Silver badge

      Re: Very impressive!

      Similar situation here. I don’t “need” an upgrade but, if I can re-sell the old one for reasonable rates I could be persuaded.

    2. devin3782

      Re: Very impressive!

      Yeah that clock bump is huge I won't be buying one sadly, my 5900X with 32GB ECC will be good for another 5years or so at least

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Very impressive!

        Get you with the ECC.

    3. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

      Re: Very impressive!

      yeah , I just built one too , and they usually do me for about 10 years

    4. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: Very impressive!

      built a couple of ryzen systems recently. 5+Ghz is an AMAZING feat! Glad to see it!

      Maybe in a year or so I can afford it... (want want want want)

  4. DenTheMan

    Not for the office.

    No doubt the office will be looming to reduce costs.

    Energy costs might now mean the adoption of low wattage laptops set up in dual monior mode.

    1. MrDamage Silver badge

      Re: Not for the office.

      Most office workers could get away with a Pi running a Windows VM.

      1. bazza Silver badge

        Re: Not for the office.

        Why would it have to be a VM, when you can run Windows on a Pi natively? Not that you can get a 8G 4b at all at the moment...

      2. Korev Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: Not for the office.

        Right up until they open a few tabs in Chrome...

  5. Altrux

    Energy crunch

    Was planning to line myself up a nice Ryzen 7000/AM5 system to replace my 5yr old Intel box. But honestly, given current events, I'm prioritising energy efficiency and this new platform seems not to tick that box. TDP and power draw seem to be ratcheting up, which is not a good sign.

    Will probably stick with a Ryzen 5000 APU with integrated Radeon (it's not a gaming rig), all SSDs, gold PSU, etc. Any other tips for building the most power-sipping desktop PC possible?

    1. 2Fat2Bald

      Re: Energy crunch

      Try under-volting.

    2. Gary Stewart

      Re: Energy crunch

      Sorry, but the laws of physics pretty much require more power with higher frequencies. Smaller device geometry can help but at some point you just can't fully compensate for it. The overall TDP increase is really not that bad, especially considering that my old 4 core 3.2 GHz Phenom II 955 had a TDP of 125W. And don't even talk to me about current generation Intel TDP. Toast anyone?

    3. Richard 12 Silver badge

      Re: Energy crunch

      In some cases the more powerful CPU/GPU actually consumes less total energy because it finishes the job faster and thus spends more time in ultra-low power sleep modes.

      If efficacy is important, then Flop/Joule is the bit that matters more than the TDP.

      Obviously not the case if you nudge up the quality settings etc, though.

      In all cases running cooler is better (assuming no heatpumps) as they tend to be more efficacious at lower Tj.

  6. 2Fat2Bald

    Pretty unimpressed, to be honest. It's expensive, uses expensive RAM and uses a lot of power to be only slightly quicker. It has an onboard GPU, which would be of use to the office market, but they're not going to touch it with that power draw, so forget that. PCIE4... Nice, if you want to also buy an expensive new graphics card. To go with your expensive processor. Ram. Motherboard. IE, a new computer. And an expensive, inefficient one at that. I think if you're going to buy a new PC and don't mind burning some cash with a solid commitment to burning more later in power bills then there's no reason not to get one, either. No killer app or stand out feature.

    Maybe i'm a jaded, cynical IT guy. But in the current climate, a 105TDP isn't a good look. I'd hoped for so much more.

    1. Boothy

      Expensive? These are cheaper on release than the previous gen was on release, and they are cheaper than current comparable (in performance) Intel parts.

      For DDR5, yes, it's expensive, all new gen RAM is expensive when first out. DDR4 was no different when it came out, and DDR5 has been the same. But it will gradually drop over time, especially as more and more products start to use it, to drive up competition and economies of scale etc. Don't want to pay the price, don't be an early adopter.

      PCIE4? I assume a typo and you mean PCIe5? PCIe4.0 has been around for years now. You also realise that PCIe is fully backwards and forwards compatible? You can put any PCIe device in there, doesn't need to be a new latest top end GPU. Also faster PCIe is more about supporting things like faster SSDs at the moment, rather than GPUs. PCIe5 SSDs are now hitting the market, and the next GPUs are expected to also be PCIe5 (although would likely only make a difference to top end cards). It would make no sense to release a new CPU that only supported the previous PCIe standards, especially when their is no downside, and PCIe5 hardware is already being released.

      Also what do you mean by 'inefficient'? These new CPUs are now the most efficient Zen based CPUs released so far. Yes TDP/power draw has increased a little over previous gen when running flat out, but the work being done for each watt consumed has increased by a greater amount, meaning efficiency has increased over previous AMD CPUs (and was already much better than Intel).

      Quoted AMD figures (so still needs to be tested independently) show that a 7000 CPU, configured to the same power draw as the comparable 5000 CPU, performs 49% better. i.e. 49% more work being done, at the same power draw. Some of that will be down to the improved architecture, but a lot will be down to the move to TSMCs n5 node (same as used by Apple for their M* ARM CPUs).

      Regarding your last comments on power bills, what are you expecting to be doing with your PC? PCs pull power based on demand. Most workloads are finite, i.e. you are asking the PCs CPU to do a specific job, compile code, process image data, run the NPC AI in a game etc. As these CPUs are much more efficient then earlier Zen CPUs, (and all current Intel CPUs), a new AMD PC would consume less power for a given workload than a previous system (more whilst running, but less overall as it finishes sooner). So overall your power bills would likely go down, not up!

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How far we have come..

    In the 386 era I used to joke that I wanted a system clocked by the local radio station.

    We're apparently heading for the point that your microwave may now be able to.

    Fantastic :)

  8. Bitsminer Silver badge
    1. Gary Stewart

      Re: ECC....yes!

      I don't understand the finally part. I have a Ryzen 5 1500X on an ASRock AB350 Pro motherboard that I use as a NFS server that uses ECC memory. The edac-util command confirms that it is fully operational. The first generation Ryzen 7 1700X supports ECC as long as the motherboard, such as the previously mentioned ASRock, also supports it.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: ECC....yes!

      Quick note - AMD Athlon/Opteron CPU's have "supported" ECC for ~20 years (consistently since "Sempron").

      Quick note 2 - support != utilize

      1. Gary Stewart

        Re: ECC....yes!

        The motherboard and the SDRAM modules must also support ECC. It requires extra data lines on both and extra SDRAM chips on the memory modules for the ECC bits. I have noticed that quite a few of the MSI AM4 motherboards do not support ECC. As far as I know all ASRock AM4 motherboards do. However check first!

      2. Gary Stewart

        Re: ECC....yes!

        Quick note 3 - it has to be enabled in BIOS.

    3. This post has been deleted by its author

  9. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

    PC enthusiasts will be disappointed to find that AMD offered no clarity as to whether Ryzen 7000 will support traditional overclocking. According to McAfee, the CPUs will, however, support memory overclocking.

    Back in the days of a DX66 , perhaps overclocking was required or justified , and probly easier due to bigger tolerences etc , chips barely needed any cooling back then.

    These days , apart from it not being necessary , just why ?

    If Ferrari says we have spent millions developing this engine to put out the max power it can , and it revs to 18,000 rpm

    I'm not gonna say "Hey thats great , but can you take the rev limiter off it because I want to drive it harder"

    1. katrinab Silver badge
      Meh

      Both have taken reliability and service life into account when assessing how fast it can go. Your opinion on those factors might be different to AMD's.

      For example some High Frequency Traders are happy for their CPU to burn out after 3 months because the additional money they make from the extra speed will more than pay for a new one.

      1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

        I'd have thought it'd be easier for them to just buy two and split the work, rather than trying to supercharge one of them FastnFurious style to get another less reliable 15% out of it

        1. katrinab Silver badge
          Mushroom

          Two of them would allow double the number of simultaneous transactions, but would not do anything for the length of time taken to complete a transaction. This is a business where being microseconds faster than the competition makes a big difference.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Please don't' bring logic and common sense into this. This is the internet. It's no place for that sort of thinking.

      2. elsergiovolador Silver badge

        Do they burn out? I ran delidded Intel CPU overclocked to 5.2GHz on all cores constant (SpeedStep etc. disabled) for years 24/7 and have seen no bad side effects.

        1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

          why didnt they just sell it as a 5.2GHz then ?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      It's peak demand vs. continuous. To use your Ferrari analogy, if you were to run that engine continously at its 18k revs you'd have it worn out in no time, but it's there when you need the oompf to overtake someone without the valves immediately coming out through the bonnet.

      By ensuring the chipset can handle those peaks you are extending its reliability. That said, I would agree with your main point insofar that this has a specific place. I would, for instance, not find this chipset of much use in a print server.

  10. James 51

    Just got at 5600g, for the price to drop £30 the day after it arrived. Good APU, certainly a big step up in number crunching than my 2400g and a nice if not mind blowing increase in the graphics too. The higher power draw of the new generation ensures it will be a few more years yet before I think about upgrading again.

    1. Altrux

      I'm pretty likely to plump for one of those. Looks like a great all-rounder and presumably a much better overall 'power envelope' than the plain 5600 CPU and separate graphics card. In a couple of years I can disable the graphics and whack in a big phat Nvidia card if I feel like it.

      And as, like you, I intend this new system to last a few years, I'm not worried about buying an 'end of life' platform. My next machine after this will be an AM6 socket, presumably!

  11. jglathe

    170W TDP meaning more like 250W unlimited... m.a.d.

    That plutonium reactor in the basement needs an upgrade, soon

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