The AMD Ryzen 5000 lineup of processors has officially been announced in an online event that really demanded attention. A lot of focus was given to PC gaming, with AMD CEO Lisa Su stating that “gaming begins with AMD”. It’s no surprise, then, that the AMD Radeon 6000 event unfolded in much the same way.
AMD Ryzen 5000 processors go on sale today, November 5, so you’ll soon be able to buy them for yourself. Hopefully there won’t be any major stock shortages, but in case there is, we’ve put together some guides to help:
The new CPU lineup is led by the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, a high-end chip packed with 12 cores and 24 threads, with a whopping 4.8GHz boost clock. That’s a pretty massive generational leap over the Ryzen 9 3900X already, before you consider the boost to IPC (instructions per clock) performance.
But, don’t think that the 5900X is going to be the most powerful Zen 3-based processor. AMD also revealed that beastly Ryzen 9 5950X, a 16-core, 32-thread monster with a 4.9GHz boost clock, which AMD is billing as the fastest gaming CPU in the world. Again, that’s something we’ll need to see for ourselves.
Cut to the chase
- What is it? AMD’s next lineup of desktop processors
- When is it out? AMD Ryzen 5000 processors will be available November 5
- What will it cost? Starting at $299 (around £230, AU$420)
AMD Ryzen 5000 release date
At the October 8 launch, CEO Lisa Su announced that the AMD Ryzen 5000 processors will all launch on November 5, 2020.
Thankfully, that’s not too far away at all, and hopefully stock will be plentiful, so everyone who wants one, can buy one.
It could also mean we get some great Black Friday deals for the older AMD processors as well. That deals bonanza is at the end of November.
AMD Ryzen 5000 price
We now know the price of AMD’s Ryzen 5000 processors:
- AMD Ryzen 9 5950X: $799 (around £620, AU$1,100)
- AMD Ryzen 9 5900X: $549 (around £420, AU$760)
- AMD Ryzen 7 5800X: $449 (around £350, AU$630)
- AMD Ryzen 5 5600X: $299 (around £230, AU$420)
These are slightly higher prices than AMD Ryzen 3rd Generation chips, which also saw higher prices than Ryzen 2000. Here are the prices AMD Ryzen 3000 chips launched at for comparison:
- AMD Ryzen 9 3950X: $749 (about £590, AU$1,080)
- AMD Ryzen 9 3900X: $499 (about £390, AU$720)
- AMD Ryzen 7 3800X: $399 (about £310, AU$580)
- AMD Ryzen 7 3700X: $329 (about £260, AU$480)
- AMD Ryzen 5 3600X: $249 (about £200, AU$360)
- AMD Ryzen 5 3600: $199 (about £160, AU$290)
- AMD Ryzen 5 3400G: $149 (£139, AU$240)
- AMD Ryzen 3 3300G: $99 (£94, AU$144)
AMD Ryzen 5000 specs
We finally know the specs of the following AMD Ryzen 5000 processors:
- AMD Ryzen 9 5950X: 16-core, 32 thread, 4.9GHz boost, 72 MB L2+L3 cache, 105W TDP
- AMD Ryzen 9 5900X: 12-core, 24 thread, 4.8GHz boost, 70MB L2+L3 cache, 105W TDP
- AMD Ryzen 7 5800X: 8-core, 16 thread, 4.7GHz boost, 36MB cache, 105W TDP
- AMD Ryzen 5 5600X: 6-core, 12-thread, 4.6GHz boost, 35MB cache, 65W TDP
On paper, these AMD Ryzen 5000 specs look pretty darn excellent, combined with their affordable price tags. At the October 8 launch, AMD talked up the new CPUs performance, with the “AMD Ryzen 9 5900X [offering] up to a 26% generational uplift in gaming performance” compared to the last gen.
It also claims that the 16-core Ryzen 9 5950X has “the highest single-thread performance of any desktop gaming processor” and the “most multi-core performance of any desktop gaming processor and any desktop processor in a mainstream CPU socket.”
Meanwhile, the 12-core AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, according to the company, is on average “7% faster in 1080p gaming across select game titles than the competition,” which AMD claims is the Intel Core i9-10900K. This is a 10-core CPU which sold for $488 (about £400, AU$750), which is slightly cheaper than what AMD is asking for.
These are big claims, then, and we look forward to putting them to the test when we give the new AMD Ryzen 5000 family full reviews soon.