We’ve talked about both the Ryzen 9 3900 and the Ryzen 5 3500X quite extensively. The latter part has seen multiple leaks over the past few weeks. AMD’s finally taken the wraps off both. While we’re yet to get down to performance testing, we’re pretty confident that both will offer great value in their respective segments.
The Ryzen 9 3900 is a very interesting part. It’s almost a Ryzen equivalent to Intel’s “T” series. Essentially, it’s a downclocked 3900X, with a base clock of 3.1GHz and a max boost clock of 4.3 GHz, with a TDP of just 65W. While Zen 2 ‘s high IPC makes it competitive across the board, that low base clock figure is a little concerning. If that’s the all-core boost, give or take a few hundred MHz, this would be the lowest-clocked Ryzen 3000 part in the entire product stack. Stock gaming performance would be affected. However, it’s possible to overclock this part, just like all other Ryzens. We expect it to get at least to stock 3900X performance levels. AMD hasn’t specified pricing yet. But there’s a narrow space between the 8-core 3800X at $399 and the 12-core 3900X at $499.
The Ryzen 5 3500X, meanwhile, is a part that’s meant exclusively for the Chinese OEM market. This means that buyers in other markets, unfortunately, won’t have access to it for the time being. We wouldn’t put it past AMD to bring some variant of this part to the wider market, though. A 6-core, 6-thread Ryzen 3000 priced competitively could give the Intel Core i3-9300 a run for its money.
We’ll let you know how these parts actually perform once we get our hands on them (well, at least the 3900). But things are looking up. A lot’s riding on the Ryzen 9 3900’s pricing, though. Price inflation has driven the 3900X to sell at hundreds of dollars above its MSP. If AMD can actually deliver the 3900 at a $450 sticker price and then have
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