On July 7, AMD will launch three refreshed Zen 2 "Matisse" desktop CPUs with slightly higher boost clocks than the previous versions:
The 3900XT and 3800XT will not come with a bundled cooler, unlike the 3900X and 3800X (the top-of-the-line 16-core 3950X also did not come with a cooler). 3600XT will come with a Wraith Spire cooler.
The "suggested etailer price" (SEP) is the same as the launch prices for the previous CPUs ($499, $399, $249), but the 3900X is often sold for $400-$420 instead of $500, for example. So customers may end up paying between 10-25% more for a 2-5% potential performance gain, unless retailers drop the prices soon after launch.
The new 3000XT family of processors focuses mostly on boosting the turbo frequency by 100-200 MHz for the same power. AMD states that this is due to using an optimized 7nm manufacturing process. This is likely due to a minor BKM[*] or PDK[**] update that allows TSMC/AMD to tune the process for a better voltage/frequency curve and bin a single CPU slightly higher.
[...] In each [of the] three cases, the XT processors give slightly better frequency than the X units, so we should expect to see an official permanent price drop on the X processors in order to keep everything in line.
The CPUs should work with existing motherboards that supported the non-XT CPUs, after a BIOS update.
A September to October 2020 launch date is likely for the first next-generation Ryzen 4000 Zen 3 "Vermeer" CPUs. Rumors of the launch being pushed back to 2021 have been denied.
[*] BKM: Best-Known Method
[**] PDK: Process Design Kit
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @01:33AM (1 child)
My phenom 8-core rig is still running fine.
You ain't gonna make me ...
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday June 18 2020, @01:42AM
I wouldn't you want to... yet.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]