There has been a lot going on in the PC world with processor news from AMD. The latest and greatest comes in the form of AMD’s third-generation Ryzen chips. The Ryzen brand was first introduced in December 2016, with an official release February 2017. The Ryzen brand was originally made as a push for AMD to move deeper into the high-end CPU market which, up until that point, had been historically dominated by Intel. This push has been largely successful and AMD has slowly been increasing its market share in this high-end space.
With each iterative release of the Ryzen series processors, AMD chipped away at both the performance and market share gap between itself and Intel. One of the largest benefits of the Ryzen series is its multithread ability. Multithreading is the ability for a processor to divide itself to perform different tasks at the same time rather than executing tasks one-by-one.
This increased performance has made AMD a much larger competitor in the high-end CPU market. What makes these new chips even more desirable is the low price. Even though AMD chip performance has gotten closer and closer to its competition, AMD has managed to keep prices comparatively low in comparison to each of Intel’s respective comparable chips. Even with this advantage, all of the AMD chips come with an included cooler.
See below for a high-level overview and comparison of Intel’s top chips and AMD’s recently released offerings.
| Processor | Cores/Threads | Base Frequency | Boost Frequency | Cooler | Price (USD) | Availability |
| Ryzen 9 3950X | 16/32 | 3.5GHz | 4.7GHz | Yes | $749 | September |
| Intel I9-9980XE | 18/36 | 3.00GHz | 4.4GHz | No | $1,999 | Available Now |
| Ryzen 9 3900X | 12/24 | 3.8GHz | 4.6GHz | Yes | $499 | Available Now |
| Intel I9-9900X | 8/16 | 3.6GHz | 4.7GHz | No | $488 | Available Now |
| Ryzen 7 3800X | 8/16 | 3.9GHz | 4.5GHz | Yes | $399 | Available Now |
| Ryzen 7 3700X | 6/12 | 3.6GHz | 4.4GHz | Yes | $329 | Available Now |
| Ryzen 5 3600X | 6/12 | 3.8GHz | 4.4GHz | Yes | $249 | Available Now |
| Ryzen 5 3600 | 6/12 | 3.6GHz | 4.4GHz | Yes | $199 | Available Now |
| Ryzen 5 3400G | 4/8 | 3.7GHz | 4.2GHz | Yes | $149 | Available Now |
The biggest draw comparing the top-end chips from each manufacturer is the overall value proposition from the latest Ryzen chips. Comparing specifications, the Ryzen chips are incredibly priced while closing the processing gap between its main competition.
If you are looking to build a new PC, AMD now makes an incredibly compelling case to integrate a Ryzen processor into your build. Though there are a few things to keep in mind while building a PC – motherboard compatibility and different video card options (by the way, AMD’s latest video cards were recently reduced in price) – it has never been a better time to be a consumer building a PC. These options mean more competition amongst companies, which means better pricing and companies pushing their tech to the limit. I have personally been looking to build a new PC within the next year to play Cyberpunk 2077 with all settings maxed out and am glad that there will be many, reputable choices open to me.