AMD Tech Day at CES: 2018 Roadmap Revealed, with Ryzen APUs, Zen+ on 12nm, Vega on 7nm
by Ian Cutress on February 1, 2018 8:45 AM ESTAMD Ryzen Price Drops, New Wraith Prism
One of the elements we reported on almost immediately was AMD’s decision to drop the suggested retail pricing of its current Ryzen desktop processors. Since the launch last year, Ryzen processors have varied quite dramatically from then to now: the processors started off at the launch pricing, but through the summer and into the winter, many retailers were offering discounts, without any catches. Throughout this time, AMD maintained that their launch-day pricing structure was still in place, and it was up to distributors and retailers to dictate the exact pricing, and as far as AMD was concerned, the price at which these processors were sold to distributors had not changed. This did not stop some of the media from speculating wildly in spite of AMD’s official line.
So fast forward to CES 2018, and the first official price list change for Ryzen really does shake up the landscape. For the top mainstream processors, there are deep discounts to be had, with up to $150 coming off the price of the Ryzen 7 1800X. The full list is as follows:
| AMD Ryzen New Pricing | |||||
| Processor | Socket | Type | Cores/Threads | Old SEP | New SEP |
| Ryzen TR 1950X | TR4 | HEDT | 16 / 32 | $999 | No Change |
| Ryzen TR 1920X | TR4 | HEDT | 12 / 24 | $799 | No Change |
| Ryzen TR 1900X | TR4 | HEDT | 8 / 16 | $549 | $449 |
| Ryzen 7 1800X | AM4 | CPU | 8 / 16 | $499 | $349 |
| Ryzen 7 1700X | AM4 | CPU | 8 / 16 | $399 | $309 |
| Ryzen 7 1700 | AM4 | CPU | 8 / 16 | $329 | $299 |
| Ryzen 5 1600X | AM4 | CPU | 6 / 12 | $249 | $219 |
| Ryzen 5 1600 | AM4 | CPU | 6 / 12 | $219 | $189 |
| Ryzen 5 1500X | AM4 | CPU | 4 / 8 | $189 | $174 |
| Ryzen 5 1400 | AM4 | CPU | 4 / 8 | $169 | No Change |
| Ryzen 5 2400G | AM4 | APU | 4 / 8 | N/A | $169 |
| Ryzen 3 1300X | AM4 | CPU | 4 / 4 | $129 | No Change |
| Ryzen 3 1200 | AM4 | CPU | 4 / 4 | $109 | No Change |
| Ryzen 3 2200G | AM4 | APU | 4 / 4 | N/A | $99 |
If we line up a direct AMD vs. Intel with this new pricing, it is clear that there are a couple of battle grounds. The Ryzen 7 1800X, now at $349, squares up with the Core i7-7700K at $350, the previous generation high-end overclockable processor. The Ryzen 7 1700, our suggested mainstream AMD processor in 2017 is now $299, undercutting the Core i7-8700 while still having more cores. The Ryzen 5 1600 at $190 is now aligned with the Core i5-8400 at $187, and for this price the Ryzen 5 1600 offers simultaneous multi-threading whereas the Intel processor does not.
Down at the low end are the new processors with Vega graphics, the Ryzen 5 2400G at $169 and the Ryzen 3 2200U at $99, which are priced against the Core i5-8400 at $187 and Core i3-8100 at $117 respectively.
To put this into perspective, Intel used to publish its price list weekly, but after accidentally leaking the details of processors before launch, have migrated it to monthly (though they seem to have missed January?). Nonetheless, Intel rarely changes the suggested retail pricing of its mainstream processors.
What is not mentioned in this table is which processors come with which coolers. AMD’s best-selling products come with variants of the Wraith cooler provided in box, which would be considered a separate cost on the Intel lineup.
Wraith PRISM Launched, Wraith Max Reduced
As part of the price drop announcement, AMD is introducing a new variant of their Wraith cooler family to system integrators. The Wraith PRISM will sit above the Wraith Max and Wraith Spire in the family, going above the Max with a rainbow LED ring instead of just a red one, and illuminated fan blades. AMD is citing enhanced motherboard compatibility for the LEDs, and it still uses the same mounting mechanism since AM2. There will be an overclockable fan profile, or a silent operation mode capable of 39 decibels.
The only ‘downside’ to the cooler is that it will not be on general sale, or be bundled with any processors. In order to get one, it will be up to system integrators to use it and for users to buy a pre-built system. As a result, the cost will be up to the system integrator.
Edit Feb 2nd: Apologies on my part, this paragraph is wrong. I had erroneously remembered what AMD had told us. It has since been clarified: AMD will be communicating its Wraith PRISM strategy later through Q1.
The other element on cooler updates is a price drop for the Wraith Max. This is the one Wraith cooler that AMD does actually sell at retail, representing a 125W near-silent cooler with a shroud and a red LED ring around the fan. When AMD launched the cooler for $60 last year, a few of us baulked at the price: it’s a nice cooler to have, but it is not a $60 value. AMD is now going to have a suggested retail price of $45, which is more nearer the mark, but the cooler market is a competitive place for this sort of thing.
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Byte - Thursday, February 1, 2018 - link
The current references to upcoming zen are confusing as hell. There is Zen+ 2nd Generation and then Zen 2 coming out. Should leave out "2nd Gen" alltogether.neblogai - Thursday, February 1, 2018 - link
To fix mistakes in some tables:table on page 2: L3 cache should probably say simply '4MB' for all RR parts.
first table on page 3- two G-series OPNs have C4 (15W) written in their codes. They should be YD2200C5M4MFB + YD2200C5FBBOX and YD2400C5FBBOX + YD2400C5M4MFB, http://products.amd.com/en-us/compare?prod1=148&am...
And I still hope 209.78 mm2 die size for 2200U is wrong- and it is Banded Kestrel die. Or at least that BK will be coming to work as 2200U later.
Dragonstongue - Thursday, February 1, 2018 - link
I do not see a 39dba being anywhere close to "silent" this is above many others truth be told, if they went with a larger fan probably could have dropped Dba levels down, or if they use fancier blades to reduce air noise, something along that line.But yes, wraith max being priced at $60 is/was insane, I would say would be "fair" to be no more than $40. seeing as so many others are available in this price range that are at least as good if not superior, yes RGB adds some to price, but, the dimensions of the cooler and lack of thermal mass also means it will not cool as well or require a much louder fan/pressure to be "equivalent"
Shame no Vega or RX on 12nm (14nm+) pretty much no where that I can see (Canada) has any RX anything, they have Vega sure, but WAY above MSRP/MSEP, greed of sellers, greed of the makers drives price up and up, just means those who want a "gaming card" end up paying through the nose for it.
Nice to see AMD focus some attention on the ram overclock side of the equation, so one can use baseline higher memory speed or overclock or both to get that much more performance.
All in all, IMO AMD have really pushed forward to being far behind the pack (just barely staying alive) to in many ways being substantially better value and performance for $ spent (cpu/motherboard wise) and at least being competitive gpu wise (no they are not always, but have always been since Radeon 1900 days, sometimes more power more performance, sometimes power limited so not as much performance, cannot win every race, but, being able to "show up" is still very important, unlike say Matrox or Via who CANNOT even race the same race these days)
Sure wish their stock price was showing faith from investors/brokers, from bleeding money to pulling themselves out of the grave in less than 2 years against anything but easy competition says a lot, or at least it should be ^.^
mode_13h - Thursday, February 1, 2018 - link
GCN (Graphics Core Next) is one of the dumber architecture names out there. I sure hope it doesn't get succeeded by something we end up having to call "Next-Gen".WatcherCK - Thursday, February 1, 2018 - link
I wish AMD would release an uber APU (hmm just like Intel are doing) with a base performance of say solid 60 fps at 1440p for around 95W or less? I could get this APU and a board ram and a drive for a little more than what a discrete GPU is going for and in theory miners wont want them so they should be in stock for those that want to game...mode_13h - Thursday, February 1, 2018 - link
An APU that powerful would probably attract miners.Also, memory bandwidth is going to be a problem. To achieve that level of performance, the consoles had to use GDDR5. Intel had the right idea of giving the AMD GPU its own stack of HBM2.
phillock - Saturday, February 3, 2018 - link
Thanks to amd, intel drops its prices :)nikon133 - Sunday, February 11, 2018 - link
These new Ryzen APUs could make nice base for next-gen consoles... with some modifications... but then, console APUs are already custom solutions, so that should not be impossible.8 proper Ryzen cores running at over 3GHz and matching up-to-date GPU with sufficient number of CUs... would make quite powerful console at its core. Balanced one, too... it is hardly a secret that current consoles are under-powered on CPU side. Maybe Jaguar cores were necessity for this gen to keep price down, but next gen should be equipped at least with 8x Ryzen 3 cores?
mode_13h - Monday, February 12, 2018 - link
I think jaguar cores are much smaller than Ryzen cores. So, you'd probably be looking at 4 core/8 thread Ryzen APU - not 8 cores.Anyway, these APUs have much weaker iGPUs and much less memory bandwidth than current-gen consoles (excluding Nintendo).
mode_13h - Monday, February 12, 2018 - link
BTW, I'm sure XBox One X kept Jaguar simply because Ryzen wasn't yet ready. There's a very long lead time for this silicon.Also, it seems Jaguar's 28 mm cores are only 3.1 mm^2 per core, whereas Ryzen's 14 nm cores are 44 mm^2 (which sounds like it also includes cache). So, it seems pretty unrealistic to expect consoles will just drop in 8 Ryzen cores where they previously had 8 Jaguars.