AMD’s latest Ryzen processors are official – and this time, they’re gunning for Intel’s gaming throne with their new Zen 3 designs. They’re doing that with significantly faster single-core speeds, a new eight-core complex and a few more clever tweaks to the winning Ryzen formula. Here’s what you need to know about Ryzen 5000.
So first off: Zen 3. AMD’s Zen+ and Zen 2 designs each incorporated better single-core performance, allowing subsequent Ryzen processors to narrow the gap in IPC against Intel, and Zen 3 takes that to the next level with the greatest gen-on-gen increase in single-core performance in the series’ short history. There’s also an architectural change here, as the company shifts from four-core core complexes (CCXs) to eight-core complexes. That means that an eight-core processor will use a single complex, meaning that there’s no complex-to-complex latency and all cores can use a single (double-size) cache.
There will be four Zen 3 designs initially: the flagship Ryzen 5950X ($799), the penultimate Ryzen 9 5900X ($549), the high-end Ryzen 7 5800X ($449) and the mid-range Ryzen 5 5600X ($299). These designs have 16, 12, eight and six cores, respectively, with boost clocks of up to 4.9GHz on the 5950X. This is backed with around 70MB of combined L2 and L3 cache on the top two parts, with 35MB on the other models. TDPs are similar to last-gen, with three 105W parts at the upper end and one 65W option for the Ryzen 5. You can see our spec table for the full breakdown.
Where Gaming Begins | AMD Ryzen™ Desktop Processors Watch on YouTube
| CPU design | Boost | Base | Cache | TDP | RRP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryzen 5950X | Zen 3 16C/32T | 4.9GHz | 3.4GHz | 72MB | 105W | $799 |
| Ryzen 5900X | Zen 3 12C/24T | 4.8GHz | 3.7GHz | 70MB | 105W | $549 |
| Ryzen 5800X | Zen 3 8C/16T | 4.7GHz | 3.8GHz | 36MB | 105W | $449 |
| Ryzen 5600X | Zen 3 6C/12T | 4.6GHz | 3.7GHz | 35MB | 65W | $299 |
| Ryzen 3950X | Zen 2 16C/32T | 4.7GHz | 3.5GHz | 72MB | 105W | $749 |
| Ryzen 3900X | Zen 2 12C/24T | 4.6GHz | 3.8GHz | 70MB | 105W | $499 |
| Ryzen 3800X | Zen 2 8C/16T | 4.5GHz | 3.9GHz | 36MB | 105W | $399 |
| Ryzen 3700X | Zen 2 8C/16T | 4.4GHz | 3.6GHz | 36MB | 105W | $329 |
| Ryzen 3600X | Zen 2 6C/12T | 4.4GHz | 3.8GHz | 35MB | 95W | $249 |
| Ryzen 3600 | Zen 2 6C/12T | 4.2GHz | 3.6GHz | 35MB | 65W | $199 |
AMD claims that their new processors offer better single-threaded performance – and therefore better gaming performance – than Intel’s best parts, and that would be an exciting turnaround if it’s borne out in testing. In Cinebench R20’s single-threaded benchmark, AMD showed the flagship 5900X beating out the Core i9 10900K by a significant margin – 544 vs 631, a 16 per cent advantage.