AMD Ryzen Threadripper demolishes Intel Core i9 in price vs performance stakes

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And meet the new entry-level Ryzen 3 family

AMD has announced the availability and pricing for its beefy enthusiast Ryzen Threadripper CPUs, and at the other end of the scale, wallet-friendly Ryzen 3 desktop processors – all of which will be out within the next month.

Two Ryzen Threadripper models are going to be on shelves from early August, and in addition to the previously announced 16-core (32-thread) monster, there will be a 12-core (24-thread) model, with pricing starting at $799 (around £615, AU$1,035) for the latter.

And the good news for budget CPU fans is that the first pair of Ryzen 3 processors will go on sale come July 27, just two weeks from today – although the exact pricing hasn’t been confirmed in this case.

The core specs of the new Threadripper chips are as follows:

  • Ryzen Threadripper 1950X: 16-cores, 32-threads, 3.4/4.0GHz (base/boost clock), $999 (around £770, AU$1,295)
  • Ryzen Threadripper 1920X: 12-cores, 24-threads, 3.5/4.0GHz (base/boost clock), $799 (around £615, AU$1,035)

And the Ryzen 3 chips are as follows:

  • Ryzen 3 1300X: 4-cores, 4-threads, 3.5/3.7GHz (base/boost clock)
  • Ryzen 3 1200: 4-cores, 4-threads, 3.1/3.4GHz (base/boost clock)

Threadripper runs on the X399 platform and boasts support for quad-channel DDR4 memory, with 64 lanes of PCIe. As AMD demonstrates in the below launch video, the base 12-core model beats out Intel’s Core i9-7900X (10-core CPU with Turbo to 4.3GHz) by a score of just over 2,400 to 2,100 in Cinebench R15. (The 1950X managed just over 3,000).

Cores for concern at Intel

Intel’s i9-7900X is priced at $999 (around £770, AU$1,295), the exact same level that AMD has pitched its flagship 1950X – the latter of which proved almost 50% quicker in the above benchmark test.

In terms of a direct comparison to AMD’s Threadripper flagship, Intel’s 16-core offering, the i9-7960X, runs to no less than $1,699 (around £1,315, AU$2,200). So this rival chip costs just under 60% of what Intel is asking.

AMD also noted that pre-orders for the Alienware Area 51 Threadripper Edition system will kick-off from July 27.

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Darren Allan

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).