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After multiple leaks, AMD has finally revealed more about its high-end Ryzen Summit Ridge CPUs and the firm is really taking the fight to Intel in terms of pricing and specs.
At the very top, the Ryzen 1800X will cost $500 (~£500) while the comparitively specced Intel Core i7-6900K sits at $1,100 (~£1,050). Further down the Ryzen 1700X is $400, which AMD is putting up against the $450 Core i7-6800K, and the $330 Ryzen 1700 against the Core i7-7700K ($350). As we’re used to at this point, UK pricing hasn’t been announced, but you can expect to see the cards to likely sit at £500, £450 and £330 respectively.
Along with US pricing we also got a look at the speeds of the chips. The 1800X has a base clock of 3.6GHz, boosting to 4GHz; the 1700X is 3.4GHz and 3.8GHz, and the 1700 is 3.0GHz and 3.7GHz. The lower-end part has a TDP of 65W and comes bundled with a "Wraith Spire" cooler, while the top two parts have a TDP of 95W and come with no bundled goodies.
The company first previewed Ryzen in December, and it boasted that the 1800X chip would beat Intel’s i7-6900K by about 10 per cent in multithreaded workloads, and with its 90W TDP (the Intel processor clocks in at 140W). We await benchmarking tests from third-parties, but Intel looks as though it has a tough fight on its hands from a chip that sits at half price.
Rumours emerged a couple of weeks ago that Intel is preparing to take measures to counteract AMD’s disruptive force on the market. These include two new chips (Intel Core i7-7740K, andIntel Core i5-7640K) along with price cuts. In response to the launch, Intel issued a statment saying: “We take any competition seriously but as we’ve learned, consumers usually take a ‘wait and see’ approach on performance claims for untested products. Seventh-gen Intel Core delivers the best experiences, and with 8th-gen Intel Core and new technologies like Intel Optane memory coming soon, Intel will not stop raising the bar.”
Pre-orders of the new AMD chips started on the day of the event (Wednesday February 22nd), and will ship next week for a March 2nd launch.
