Advanced Micro Devices said it is launching four Ryzen 5 mainstream desktop processors worldwide on April 11.
The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company hopes the chips will help it steal some market share back from Intel, the world’s largest chip maker. Earlier this month, AMD launched its Ryzen 7 high-end desktop processors.
The Ryzen family is based on Zen, a new core architecture that enables AMD to deliver 52 percent more performance per clock cycle than its previous generation of chips. Zen is AMD’s most competitive technology in a decade, and it will boost computing performance for consumers on everything from mainstream desktops to high-end gaming PCs.
AMD said the Ryzen 5 processors are aimed at the high-volume, sub-$300 central processing unit (CPU) market with a disruptive price-to-performance ratio for gamers and creators. According to market researcher Mercury Research, 95 percent of all CPUs sold last year were less than $225.
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“MSI is very pleased to see overwhelming demand of the Ryzen-based X370 Xpower Gaming Titanium and B350 Tomahawk motherboard. We have geared up for immediate production ramp,” said Ted Hung vice president MB sales division at MSI, a major Taiwanese manufacturer, in a statement.
The Ryzen 5 processors have either four cores or six cores and either eight threads or 12 threads. The prices on the chips range from $169 to $249.
“Ryzen will ultimately bring innovation and competition to virtually every segment of the PC market, and Ryzen 5 is the next big step on that journey, designed to achieve new levels of compute performance for millions of PC users,” said Jim Anderson, senior vice president and general manager of the computing and graphics group at AMD, in a statement. “AMD reinvigorated the high-performance desktop market with Ryzen 7 earlier this month, and AMD Ryzen 5 now brings the power and efficiency of the “Zen” core to users in the highly popular sub-$300 segment of the market.”
AMD showed off the Ryzen 5 chips at an event in Beijing, China. Previously, AMD demonstrated the Ryzen 5 1600X beating the Intel Core i5 7600K by 69 percent in CPU performance testing using the Cinebench R15 nT benchmark.
With the announcement of the Ryzen 5 lineup, AMD reiterated its commitment to delivering excellent gaming performance to ensure existing and future game titles take full advantage of Ryzen.
“We are impressed by the technological evolution enabled by the Zen architecture, which was designed to keep pace now and well into the future as gaming, eSports and virtual reality experiences continually push the limits of devices,” said Vlatko Andonov, president of Bethesda Softworks, in a statement. “Working with an all-new microarchitecture, like that in the Ryzen family of processors, means that everyone has the opportunity to raise their game and bring the very best interactive experiences to players. All of us at Bethesda are excited about working with AMD to keep evolving the premium performance that Ryzen offers.”
All Ryzen processors support the new AM4 infrastructure, with motherboard designs being produced from top ODMs. Announced at CES 2017, AMD and its motherboard partners already debuted a wide array of new motherboards from ASRock, Asus, Biostar, Gigabyte, and MSI, all built upon the following desktop chipsets for AMD Ryzen processors – the X370, B350 and the A320, the latter intended for mainstream PCs at new, consumer-friendly price points.
