AMD Unveils 5 Third-Gen Ryzen CPUs, Including 12-Core Flagship

From Tom's Hardware: AMD fired off the first salvo of its third-gen Ryzen lineup today at Computex 2019 as it revealed five new CPU models that range from Ryzen 5 with six cores and 12-threads for $199 up to a Ryzen 9 3900X with 12 cores and 24 threads for $499. To go with the new processors, which arrive on July 7th (7/7 for 7nm) the company also unveiled its new X570 chipset.

It isn't often that we witness tectonic shifts in the processor market, especially given Intel's dominance over the last decade, but AMD's third-gen Ryzen series processors could be a turning point for AMD as the company takes its first process node leadership position over Intel in its history. The 7nm manufacturing process, which is fabbed by TSMC, promises to bring lower pricing and power consumption, and according to AMD's own numbers, it appears to deliver on those goals.

With full PCIe 4.0 support on AMD's new X570 motherboards, the platform becomes very attractive for enthusiasts seeking bleeding-edge connectivity. Imagine an SSD that operates at up to 8 GB/s and you understand why this new interface is so important. Previous-gen AMD motherboards will be compatible with the new CPUs, but will only get partial PCIe 4.0 support via BIOS updates.

It's noteworthy that Intel has yet to bring a PCIe 4.0-capable desktop chip to market, but AMD has enabled the faster interface and also unveiled its new PCIe 4.0 Radeon RX 5700 "Navi" graphics card alongside a new PCIe 4.0 SSD from its partner Gigabyte that pushes out 5GB/s of throughput. That sets the stage for massive performance improvements for secondary devices.

But pricing is the ultimate weapon, and the combination of AMD's chiplet-based architecture, which enables a scalable design and improves manufacturing yields, and the 7nm process has proven to be one of the most disruptive aspects of the new third-gen Ryzen lineup. Make no mistake: The Ryzen 3000 series disrupts Intel's pricing structure on the high end, while improving Ryzen's price-to-performance ratio in the mid-range.

Let's take a look at the big picture, then go blow-by-blow through pricing and performance of the full product stack compared to Intel's competing chips.

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