AMD announces brand-new Zen 4 CPUs, and they could be faster than Intel

Zen 4 3D CPUsAMD

AMD’s struggling Zen 4 desktop CPUs are getting a brand-new refresh. With brand-new high-end “3D” variants, in addition to low-end models. Its high-end offerings could be up to 24% faster than Intel’s current flagship.

AMD’s Zen 4 CPUs have not had the greatest reception in the world. Heralded as the inheritor to the hugely successful Ryzen name, AMD’s CPUs have instead proven to be less popular than its predecessors.

In an effort to remedy this, AMD announced at CES 2023 during a keynote that they will be diversifying their lineup of desktop CPUs.

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Brand-new “3D” V-cache CPUs

AMD announced that they will be releasing three brand-new 3D V-cache chips, something that we previously saw with the Ryzen 5800X3D, but not on the Zen 4 platform, and across a range of chips. We previously saw these chips leaked in a less detailed capacity last year.

CPU Cores & Threads Base clock Boost clock Cache TDP
Ryzen 9 7950X3D 16C / 32T 4.2 GHz 5.7GHz 144MB 120W
Ryzen 9 7900X3D 12C / 24T 4.4 GHz 5.6GHz 140MB 120W
Ryzen 7 7800X3D 8C / 16T 4.X GHz 5.0GHz 104MB 120W

During AMD’s keynote, the company showed off benchmarks with results that beat Intel’s flagship 13900K Raptor Lake CPU by around 24% in certain gaming workloads. The aforementioned benchmarks were running titles at 1080P, presumably in order to create a CPU bottleneck. However, do not know the actual performance numbers, just a percentage uplift over Intel’s gaming flagship.

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These CPUs have not yet had their pricing confirmed, but will be released in February 2023.

AMD announces more Zen 4 CPUs

In order to stay competitive with Intel’s 13th-gen CPUs, AMD has also announced non-X variants of its CPUs. These have been announced in order to stay competitive against Intel’s impressive Raptor Lake offering, which has seen AMD’s Zen 4 architecture fall by the wayside.

CPU Cores & Threads Boost clock Cache TDP Price
Ryzen 9 7900 12C / 24T 5.4 GHz 76MB 65W $429
Ryzen 7 7700 8C / 16T 5.3 GHz 40MB 65W $329
Ryzen 5 7600 6C / 12T 5.1 GHz 38MB 65W $229

These CPUs will also be bundled with AMD’s stock coolers, which should provide a good boost on previous-generation products. However, the prices also allow us to see a slight discount when compared to the slightly more powerful “X” variants.

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However, it remains to be seen if these CPUs manage to compete with Intel’s Raptor Lake offering. With new motherboards and falling DDR5 pricing, it’s likely that AMD will begin to make more of a dent against the competition, too.