The second quarter of 2026 was quite favorable for CPU suppliers, as unit growth was 10% sequentially, with data center and laptop processor shipments more than offsetting declining sales of desktop CPUs and lower-end products for embedded and IoT applications, according to a new report by Mercury Research. AMD continued to gain market share, so its unit shipments and share reached a new record during the quarter; Intel managed to increase shipments of its client and data center CPUs; whereas Apple sold a boatload of processors in its popular MacBook Neo laptops. Overall, the report describes the desktop X86 CPU market as "ugly."

The sky is blue for CPU (for now)

"In spite of a decidedly gloomy outlook on client processors from the suppliers for the second quarter, actual results for both x86 and Arm CPUs were up strongly in the second quarter of 2026, with sequential quarterly growth of the total market exceeding 10%, far in excess of normal seasonal trends which call for a slight decline in the quarter," said Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research. "Behind this growth was a large increase in Intel's CPU supplies, especially in mobile client, after a couple of heavily supply-constrained quarters, and continued strong ramps for AMD's products. […] Arm shipments also appeared to be strongly higher in the quarter as well."

While the CPU market was up quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) mostly because AMD, Apple, and Intel increased their shipment volumes, on a year-over-year (YoY) basis, the CPU market contracted in terms of units. However, the decline was primarily driven by significantly lower IoT, SoC, and embedded shipments — largely due to AMD's shrinking game console business — as well as a substantial drop in desktop CPU volumes. At the same time, shipments of data center and notebook processors grew strongly.

Excluding IoT, SoC, and embedded products, both AMD and Intel substantially increased CPU shipments sequentially, but AMD grew faster and gained unit share in every major segment, so the company now controls 30.7% of the overall x86 processor market, its highest share ever, according to Mercury Research. With IoT, console SoCs, and embedded CPUs included, AMD now controls 34.1% of the x86 processor market. Intel continues to lead, but AMD's growth is impressive.

"AMD's total unit shipments and total market share reached new record highs in the second quarter of 2026, with a sequential share gain of 0.7% and an on-year gain of 6.5%," McCarron said.

Client CPUs: AMD gains share as Intel increases shipments

Performance of the client x86 CPU market was a mixed bag in the first quarter as sales of desktop CPUs declined badly, whereas shipments of laptop processors grew significantly. Intel remained the clear volume leader with 69.7% of client CPU shipments, but lost share both sequentially and year-over-year. AMD continued to gain ground in Q2 2026 as its unit share reached a record 30.3%, up from 29.6% in Q1 and 23.9% in Q2 2025.

AMD gained share in both client categories. Its desktop unit share rose from 33.2% to 34.9% QoQ, even though AMD itself shipped fewer desktop CPUs; Intel's shipments declined even faster. In notebooks, AMD increased its share from 28.3% to 28.9%, even as Intel expanded production capacity and shipped millions more CPUs.

In general, the results for the quarter suggest that Intel's improved client CPU supply helped to meet demand from PC makers and led to a client PC market rebound, the company could not stop AMD's share gains.

Desktop CPUs: The ugliest segment of the market

Hit by limited availability of graphics cards and high prices of components like motherboards, memory modules, and SSDs, the desktop CPU market was particularly weak in Q2 and contracted by over 20% YoY as well as quarter-over-quarter due to seasonality. Both AMD and Intel suffered significant annual shipment declines, but AMD held up better, according to Mercury Research.

Despite dropping desktop CPU unit shipments and overall market weakness, AMD increased market share in Q2 2026. AMD's desktop CPU unit share upticked to 34.9%, up from 33.2% in Q1 and 32.2% in Q2 2025, while Intel's share fell to 65.1%, from 66.8% sequentially and 67.8% a year earlier.

During the quarter, AMD gained 1.8% QoQ and 2.7% YoY in unit share because declines in its shipments were considerably smaller than Intel's. So, while normally we say that AMD is gaining desktop share because of strong sales of its latest Ryzen CPUs, in this case AMD's success was driven by slower declines than rapid gains.

Mobile CPUs: Sales of laptops are growing

The mobile CPU market segment performed completely differently from the desktop CPU market segment. Mobile x86 CPU shipments grew significantly quarter-over-quarter and were also modestly higher YoY. Mercury Research says Intel added millions of units of mobile CPU capacity during Q2, which helped close the supply-demand gap that had constrained the company in previous quarters. Yet, AMD's shipments increased at nearly the same pace as Intel's, which enabled it to capture 0.6% of the market.

AMD's mobile CPU unit share rose to 28.9%, up from 28.3% in Q1 and from 20.6% in Q2 2025. Intel remained dominant with 71.1% of shipments, down from 71.7% sequentially and 79.4% a year earlier. As a result, AMD gained a modest 0.6% sequentially, but a much more impressive 8.4% YoY increase.

Server CPUs: +20% year-over-year

Demand for server CPUs increased for both traditional data center processors — AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon — and CPUs used in networking and storage applications, so x86 server processor shipments posted nearly 20% YoY growth and moderately strong sequential growth. AMD continued to gain market share and now commands over 1/3 of the server CPU market, according to Mercury Research. There is a catch, though: due to Intel accounting peculiarities, AMD's unit share is artificially low and so is Intel's own dollar share.

In Q2, AMD’s server CPU unit share increased to 34.5%, up from 33.2% in Q1 and 27.3% in Q2 2025. Intel remained the volume leader with 65.5% of shipments, but its share fell from 66.8% sequentially and 72.7% a year earlier. While some may say that AMD's gains are slow (not too slow at +7.3% YoY), there is an explanation behind that slow growth.

Mercury Research notes that its broad server share calculation somewhat disadvantages AMD because Intel's edge and networking processors are now reported within its Data Center and AI (DCAI) business, so in reality, AMD's unit share should be higher. If the comparison is narrowed to EPYC versus Xeon processors for servers, AMD's unit share reaches 46.4%, up a substantial 2.9% QoQ and 9.2% YoY, which puts AMD very close to Intel in the core data center CPU market. Meanwhile, if CPUs for edge and networking applications are ignored in Mercury's analysis, Intel's dollar share would increase considerably.

Mercury Research indicates that server CPU supply constraints could limit gains in Q3, but in Q4 sales of data center-grade processors will increase noticeably both compared to Q2 and Q3.

Summary

After a weak Q1, the CPU market rebounded strongly in Q2 2026 as unit shipments grew more than 10% sequentially. The market growth was driven by rising notebook and server CPU sales, which more than offset a sharp decline in desktops, according to Mercury Research.

AMD's performance was stellar as it gained ground in every major segment even as Intel substantially improved processor availability. Despite improved availability of Intel client and data center processors, AMD still outgrew Intel and reached record overall and client CPU unit shares.

Desktop remained the major weak spot due to high component costs and generally lower demand as enthusiasts pulled in their purchases to 2025, greatly lowering sales of high-end hardware in 2026. Shipments of desktop x86 CPUs fell more than 20% YoY, whereas mobile and server volumes increased.

In core data center processors, AMD's EPYC share approached Intel’s Xeon share, which highlights how dramatically the competitive balance in the server market has shifted.

In addition to its normal product and technology roadmaps, AMD has effectively made its 'X-by-year' efficiency programs a recurring engineering roadmap. Back in 2025, the company unveiled its 20x2030 initiative that promised to increase energy efficiency of its rack-scale AI solutions 20 times by 2030. Back then, AMD envisioned that its 2026 rack-scale AI systems will be 3X more energy efficient than its 2024 machines. However, the new estimates published on Tuesday indicate that its latest solutions are 4X more efficient compared to the 2024 baseline.

AMD estimates its progress at the rack level rather than on the CPU and AI accelerator levels, which obviously gives the company a lot of freedom in how to optimize performance efficiency. The company takes into account improvements in compute performance, process technology, memory bandwidth, data movement, interconnects, software, and system-level co-design. AMD says three major hardware characteristics determine AI system performance: compute capability, memory bandwidth, and interconnect bandwidth. New process technologies and architectures increase floating-point performance per watt, while improvements in memory integration and high-speed interconnects increase bandwidth available to processors. AMD expects these developments together to produce 20X higher AI performance per watt in 2030 compared to its 2024 baseline.

Memory and interconnects play particularly important roles because modern AI systems tend to move enormous amounts of data between accelerators and systems. AMD says higher memory bandwidth, greater bandwidth density, improved bandwidth per watt, larger caches, and tighter integration of memory and compute can reduce wasted energy consumption and increase performance efficiency. Meanwhile, faster scale-up interconnects can improve communication between GPUs, CPUs, and other components, which again increases performance efficiency. AMD's software optimizations are another part of the effort as higher performance achieved with optimizations ultimately means lower power consumption required to achieve an expected result.

What is a bit upsetting is that the 4X figure should be treated as an AMD estimate rather than a direct benchmark between two commercially available rack systems. AMD measures progress by comparing annual representative rack configurations with a 2024 baseline using the company's performance-per-watt methodology. In addition, its 2026 calculation combines measurements from actual products with modeled results in cases where final performance numbers were unavailable, which essentially means that AMD does not use its latest Instinct MI455X accelerators for its estimates.

If AMD reaches its 2030 targets, the company estimates that around two AMD racks in 2030 could provide the same amount of compute as 570 racks based on the Instinct MI300X from 2024. This essentially means a 20X lower power consumption or 20X higher performance at the same power consumption by 2030.

Chinese AI accelerators are set to capture 90% of the country's domestic market as U.S. export controls and Beijing mandates push American-made hardware from AMD and Nvidia out of the market, according to a new report by TrendForce. Cambricon and Huawei are expected to be the biggest beneficiaries of the shift, according to DigiTimes. Yet, the big question is whether Chinese vendors can ship enough AI accelerators to satisfy demand.

China on track for AI accelerator self-sufficiency

Nvidia commanded 66% of China's AI accelerator market in 2024, but its share dropped to 40% in 2025 and was on track to drop to 8% in 2026, according to estimates made by Bernstein investment bank earlier this year. Considering the fact that Nvidia did not officially ship any new accelerators to Chinese clients in the first half of the year, Nvidia's chief executive Jensen Huang said in May that his company's market share in the PRC was 'zero.' Of course, some Nvidia GPUs make it to China 'unofficially' as local companies are too dependent on Nvidia's CUDA and high-end AI accelerators. Still, it is safe to say that the bulk of new deployments in the PRC are based on hardware designed and produced domestically.

China's total available market of AI accelerators topped 4 million units in 2025, according to numbers published by Guancha.cn. Last year, 2.2 million Nvidia AI GPUs made it to the Chinese market, and while Nvidia's market share shrank to 55%, it still significantly outperformed its closest rival, Huawei, which shipped 812,000 AI accelerators and commanded 20.3% of the market.

Shipments by other players were by far lower: Alibaba's T-Head produced 265,000 AI accelerators, followed by AMD with 160,000. Cambricon and Kunlunxin only supplied around 116,000 AI processors each, whereas others shipped fewer than 100,000 units.

"This year, the Chinese government has actively encouraged the adoption of domestic AI chips," the report from TrendForce reads. "This policy push will likely provide priority support to high-potential domestic players, allowing them to substantially expand their market share in China's high-end AI server market. At the same time, the domestic ecosystem is maturing in key areas such as advanced foundry nodes, advanced packaging, and thermal management."

The firm now expects shipments of high-end AI processors developed by Chinese companies to increase by more than 83% year-over-year in 2026 as domestic production capacity and deployments expand. As a result, its analysts project domestic AI accelerators to capture nearly 90% of sales (up from 45% last year), which means that foreign suppliers like AMD and Nvidia will be left with roughly 10%. This latest projection represents a major revision from the research firm's December 2025 outlook, which estimated that Chinese processors would account for approximately 50% of China’s high-end AI chip market in 2026.

Dual-track strategy

As AMD and Nvidia supplied some 2.36 million AI accelerators to the Chinese market last year, commanding a 59% unit share, replacing the majority of them will take a lot of effort, assuming that the TAM will remain at around 4 million units. TrendForce claims that China is set to adopt the so-called dual-track strategy, which involves AI accelerators from merchant suppliers like Huawei and Cambricon along with custom AI ASICs from Alibaba, Baidu, ByteDance, and Tencent.

"Together, these developments are moving China's AI infrastructure away from its heavy reliance on foreign GPUs, toward a dual-track model of 'domestic GPUs + proprietary ASICs,'" the firm claims.

Hyperscale cloud service providers (CSPs) are inclined to expand usage of their own silicon because it is cheaper compared to merchant accelerators and because it is optimized for their workloads and data formats. Meanwhile, developers of merchant AI hardware — such as Huawei, Biren, and Cambricon — will also gradually expand their output of accelerators as demand is very strong.

Bottlenecks

It remains to be seen whether the Chinese chipmaking industry can indeed replace 1.96 million high-end AI accelerators in just one year. To maintain the 4 million unit TAM, China's semiconductor industry will need to increase AI accelerator output by 2.2X in just one year.

SMIC — China's largest and most advanced foundry — this week announced that its Q2 2026 revenue increased to $3.005 billion, up from $2.505 billion in Q1 2026, and from $2.209 billion in Q2 2025. This suggests that the company is both increasing the output of chips and its prices. However, it remains to be seen whether SMIC's 36% YoY revenue increase is an indicator that it can increase output of high-end AI accelerators by over 2X compared to 2025.

Another major bottleneck for the Chinese industry is the lack of domestic production of high-bandwidth memory (HBM). Huawei has reportedly acquired plenty of HBM2-class memory from Samsung, but its stock is not endless, so its Ascend 950-series AI accelerators are set to rely on proprietary HiBL 1.0 and HiZQ 2.0 types of memory, not industry-standard HBM2 or HBM3. While China's DRAM champion CXMT is gearing up for HBM3 manufacturing in late 2026, it remains to be seen how quickly the company can ramp up production to decent levels.

Nvidia's CUDA software stack is the company's biggest advantage after the performance and versatility of its AI accelerators. But while performance can be matched with brute force, the software stack cannot be reproduced quickly. Last year, Huawei opened up its CANN software stack to accelerate its development, though we do not know if the company has achieved its targeted goals with this. Yet, without a doubt, China's AI software stack is getting more mature every year, so many new AI deployments may indeed rely on domestic stacks rather than on CUDA.

A shifting market

U.S. restrictions on exports of advanced AI accelerators, combined with China's own efforts to limit the use of American AI processors domestically, have largely pushed companies like AMD and Nvidia out of the Chinese market. Analysts now expect China-based independent hardware vendors to control 90% of the domestic AI accelerator market in 2026.

Chinese AI hardware has come a long way, and Huawei's solutions can outperform Nvidia's NVL72 GB200 rack-scale system, albeit while consuming more power. Therefore, if power is not a concern, Huawei can build AI data centers with performance that matches or exceeds those based on Nvidia GPUs.

However, replacing American GPUs almost completely while maintaining AI accelerator unit TAM at 4 million units will require China's industry to product 1.96 million AI accelerators in 2026, 2.2X more than in 2025. This seems impossible not only for TSMC, but also for local memory makers that still have to start making HBM memory.

To that end, while Chinese AI accelerators may indeed capture 90% of the domestic market, without hardware from American companies, that market can shrink dramatically in terms of units.

PC Partner, the maker of AMD, Inno3D, Manli, Sapphire, and Zotac-branded graphics cards, expects its costs to rise meaningfully in the second half of the year, which will in turn increase graphics card pricing, particularly for entry-level budget cards. The price hike is expected to happen amid dropping shipments of add-in boards (AIB). Meanwhile, analyst Jon Peddie tells us that he doubts that shipments of consumer graphics cards are going down, but claims that the profits of graphics card makers are on the rise.

"In addition, graphics memory costs are expected to rise further, leading to a substantial increase in VGA Card* costs in the second half of the year," a statement from PC Partner in its financial results for the first half of the year reads. "The quantity of VGA Card shipments declined substantially in the first half of FY2026 as compared with the second half of FY2025, and availability of VGA Cards is likely to decline further in the second half of FY2026."

GPU prices have increased massively in the recent quarters primarily due to high demand amid shortages of components. But just when you thought that AIB prices cannot get any higher due to the risk of a collapse in demand, GPU producers say otherwise. While the increase is not completely unexpected, what looks a bit unexpected is that entry-level graphics cards will increase the most, according to PC Partner.

"Beyond the price increases, entry-level VGA Cards are expected to face even more severe shortages, which may further drive ASP upward in the second half of FY2026," the statement by PC Partner reads.

Jon Peddie, the head of Jon Peddie Research, is a bit skeptic about whether the volume of graphics cards sold is going down, at least when it comes to consumer products.

"In Q1 2025, 9.25 million AIBs were sold, and in Q1 2026, 11.82 million; that is an increase of 28% in units, not dollars," Jon Peddie told Tom's Hardware. "AIB sales ($) will also increase, driven by higher memory costs. Our POS tracking of AIBs shows Q1 2025 at $6.18 billion and Q1 2026 at $ 10.85 billion, a 76% increase."

The question is whether price increases have benefited anyone beyond those early in the supply chain. Jon Peddie, who has been tracking the graphics industry for about 25 years, does not seem to believe that all the graphics card prices are due to increased costs.

"[This all does] not necessarily equal an increase in profits, although I suspect it does, and the AIB suppliers are taking advantage of all of the press reports on higher memory prices and shortages to raise AIB prices more than the delta in memory costs," Peddie said.

The current 2026 graphics card price surge has been very uneven by segment. The percentage increase has generally been much larger on high-end AIBs that carry a lot more memory than entry-level boards. However, it seems that the situation is going to change and even 'cheap' graphics cards are going to get more expensive. There is a more alarming trend: the drop in sales of graphics cards.

PC Partner's own brand business — principally consisting of Zotac, Inno3D and Manli that work exclusively with Nvidia — saw unit shipments fall 18.4% in the first half of the year while seeing its average sales price increase by only 10.7% YoY.

This hugely contrasts with PC Partner's financial results in its ODM/OEM graphics-card business — mostly consisting of AMD and Sapphire-branded products — that has weakened substantially. PC Partner says unit volume actually fell 38.4% year-over-year, yet its revenue increased 73.9%, from HK$853.3 million to HK$1.4843 billion. The reason: average selling price jumped 181% YoY as PC Partner received substantially more orders for high-end AIBs. Since PC Partner's ODM/OEM produces cards for AMD, Sapphire, and plenty of PC makers, this could indeed be a bad sign, but not necessarily, according to the renowned analyst.

"The ODM/OEM suppliers get closer scrutiny from the big companies (Dell, HP, etc), and those companies know the actual costs of the memory," Peddie said.

*Being an established maker of graphics cards, PC Partner still uses the 'video graphics array,' or VGA, term from the 1980s to describe graphics cards.

Google has teamed up with AMD to develop one of its 10th-generation TPUs, according to a note by SemiAnalysis (via Sean). Analysts at SemiAnalysis believe Google may be interested in AMD's CPU cores for CPU-heavy workloads. If accurate, the collaboration would mark AMD's first major involvement in a custom AI ASIC project and could indicate that Google is exploring a new kind of TPU that combines its proprietary accelerator technology with on-board general-purpose cores for CPU-heavy workloads.

"Market chatter suggests [Google] is working with AMD on a TPU project in the v10 generation," a SemiAnalysis note for clients cited by Sean reads. "AMD's involvement would be the first real involvement in a custom AI ASIC project, despite having a custom silicon team. AMD has strong IP, especially in advanced packaging and SoIC. Additionally, CPU IP could also be a draw given Google and its customers are pushing for TPUs with on-package CPU cores for RL workloads."

Having developed nine generations of its proprietary AI accelerators (with Broadcom acting as actual silicon designer) and possessing extensive expertise in accelerator architecture, Google hardly needs AMD to design a conventional TPU. Hence, chances that AMD will implement Google's TPU v10i for inference or V10t for training are low. Hence, Google might need something only a CPU maker like AMD could provide, including CPU IP, programmable logic, interconnects, or certain advanced packaging know-how.

Of these, the CPU angle is particularly noteworthy. SemiAnalysis claims that Google and its customers are pushing for TPUs with on-package CPU cores for reinforcement learning and potentially other CPU-heavy workloads. While conventional LLM training remains overwhelmingly accelerator-heavy, reinforcement learning for reasoning and agentic models can require considerably more general-purpose compute around accelerator operations.

Google has already begun to increase CPU resources around its latest inference-oriented TPUs. Its TPU 8i systems, designed for inference, reasoning, and RL workloads, feature one Google Axion CPU for every two TPUs. By contrast, servers running Google's 7th Generation TPUs used one Xeon 'Emerald Rapid' processor for every four TPUs. Furthermore, we are hearing that in some cases a 1:1 ratio of CPUs to accelerators is optimal, so the future of AI may be way more CPU-heavy than we think.

Meanwhile, bringing CPU cores directly into the TPU package could be a logical next step, as reducing the distance between general-purpose and tensor compute can improve performance and reduce power consumption. This is where AMD comes into play, as it already has experience developing a data center-grade design — the Instinct MI300A — that packs both x86 and accelerator chiplets. A hypothetical Google design could therefore combine Google-developed TPU compute chiplets with AMD CPU and HBM in a tightly integrated package built by AMD. Perhaps, Intel would appear as another potential candidate given that Google and Intel have multiple strategic collaborations. Yet Intel has no experience building hybrid x86+accelerator data center designs.

Note that for now we are speculating and our analysis may be inaccurate. For now, the nature of AMD's alleged involvement remains unclear. Yet, if the report is indeed accurate, the important development may not be that AMD is helping Google build another TPU. Instead, what matters is that Google is considering a new CPU-heavy member of its TPU v10 family, optimized specifically for RL and agentic workloads, and is using AMD as a provider of some of the building blocks needed to create it.

AMD recently expanded its X3D lineup with the Ryzen 7 7700X3D, a new entry that slots in below the Ryzen 7 7800X3D as a more affordable way to get 3D V-Cache on the AM5 platform. Launched on July 16 at $329, the 7700X3D is essentially built from the same silicon as the 7800X3D, just with lower clocks and a price tag that undercuts it by $120 at launch.

The Ryzen 7 7800X3D, on the other hand, needs no introduction at this point. Launched back in April 2023 at $449 (now $360), it quickly became one of the most recommended gaming CPUs on the market and has held that reputation for over three years. AMD has kept it in the lineup even as newer X3D chips took the place at the top of the best CPU for gaming charts, which says a lot about how well it has aged.

With the 7700X3D now available, AM5 builders finally have a cheaper way into the X3D club without stepping down to the six-core Ryzen 5 7600X3D. The obvious question is how much performance actually gets left on the table by going with the cheaper option, and whether the 7800X3D's higher clocks are worth the extra money in 2026.

Using data from our CPU benchmark hierarchy and individual reviews of both chips, we’re going to compare them point-for-point across gaming, application performance, power consumption, and more.

Features and Specifications: AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D vs Ryzen 7 7800X3D

The Ryzen 7 7700X3D is the newer of the two chips here, launching on July 16, 2026, priced at $329. For the time being, it's a Newegg exclusive in North America, at least for this quarter, before wider retail availability presumably follows. It's built on the same Zen 4 architecture as the rest of the Zen 4 X3D family and manufactured on TSMC's N5 process.

The chip features 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 4.0 GHz and a boost clock of 4.5 GHz. That boost clock is notably 500 MHz lower than the 7800X3D, which is really the main differentiator between the two chips on paper. AMD has essentially taken 7800X3D silicon that couldn't hit the higher clocks and repackaged it as a cheaper SKU.

For the cache, the Ryzen 7 7700X3D carries the full 96MB of 3D V-Cache-enabled L3, for a total cache pool of 104MB once you factor in L2. This matches the 7800X3D exactly, and it's the reason the 7700X3D isn't just a watered-down budget chip.

The Ryzen 7 7700X3D uses the AM5 socket and supports DDR5 memory exclusively, with capacities of up to 128 GB. It also supports PCIe 5.0 connectivity for both storage and GPU lanes. The chip has a 120W TDP, identical to the 7800X3D, and integrated graphics are included in the form of AMD Radeon Graphics with 2 CUs running at 2,200 MHz (same as the 7800X3D).

Now onto the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, which launched in April 2023. It's also an 8-core, 16-thread Zen 4 chip built on TSMC's N5 node, so the core architecture and process node are shared between both CPUs. Where it separates itself is clock speed, with a 4.2 GHz base clock and a considerably higher 5.0 GHz boost clock.

The 7800X3D carries the same 96MB of L3 cache as the 7700X3D, along with the same 104MB total cache figure. It also uses the AM5 socket with DDR5-5200 support up to 128GB, the same 120W TDP, and the same PCIe 5.0 lane configuration.

Neither CPU officially supports a traditional multiplier overclock in the way non-X3D Ryzen chips do. However, AMD has gradually opened up more headroom for Curve Optimizer and PBO tuning on its X3D lineup since the 7800X3D's launch. We'll get into that in more detail in the overclocking round.

Zooming out, it's clear these two CPUs are much closer than a typical faceoff matchup. The Ryzen 7 7700X3D and Ryzen 7 7800X3D share the same core count, the same cache pool, the same socket, the same memory support, and the same TDP. The only meaningful difference on paper is the 500 MHz deficit on the 7700X3D's boost clock, and any price gap that comes with ti (though that gap is small).

That makes this round more or less straightforward, with only one factor tipping the scales in the favor of the 7800X3D.

⭐ Winner: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D

The 7800X3D still wins on paper thanks to its higher boost clock, but barely. With identical cache, cores, and platform support, this is about as close as a spec sheet comparison gets.

Gaming Benchmarks and Performance: AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D vs Ryzen 7 7800X3D

For gaming, we're looking at a 16-game test suite at 1080p, with settings varying between High and Ultra depending on the title. That should give us a clear picture of how the new Ryzen 7 7700X3D stacks up against its more expensive sibling in the games people are actually going to play. We tested the two CPUs with a GeForce RTX 5090 to remove any potential GPU bottlenecks.

We used identical systems for testing. For a full breakdown of the platforms we used, see our Ryzen 7 7700X3D review and Ryzen 7 7800X3D review.

Starting off with our 16-game FPS geomean, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D leads the Ryzen 7 7700X3D with an average of 181.8 FPS, compared to 174.3 FPS for the newer chip. That works out to a 4.3% advantage for the 7800X3D. The gap widens slightly in 1% lows, where the 7800X3D puts out 124 FPS against 118 FPS for the 7700X3D, a difference of about 5%.

It's a modest lead across the board, but a lead nonetheless. Both CPUs comfortably outpace the rest of the field here, including the pricier Core i7-14700K and Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, so this really comes down to a battle within AMD's own X3D lineup.

Looking at individual titles, the story stays fairly consistent. In Baldur's Gate 3, the 7800X3D leads the 7700X3D by 6.4%, and the gap is similar in The Last of Us Part One at 5.6% and Marvel Rivals at 5.5%. Hogwarts Legacy sees the 7800X3D ahead by 4%, and 007: First Light comes in at a 3.2% lead.

However, the margin shrinks considerably in a few titles. Flight Simulator 24 and Minecraft RT both land in the 2% range, and Crimson Desert is even closer at just 1.4%. Interestingly, DOOM: The Dark Ages is essentially a dead heat, with the 7800X3D ahead by less than 1%, at 201.9 FPS to the 7700X3D's 200 FPS.

So yes, the 7800X3D wins every title we tested, but in a good chunk of them, you'd be hard-pressed to notice the difference without a frame counter on screen. However, that is what you would expect from a CPU that is essentially the same, with a cut-down boost clock.

Speaking of the clocks, the 7800X3D averaged 4,726 MHz across our test suite, compared to 4,505 MHz on the 7700X3D. That's a 4.9% higher average clock speed for the 7800X3D, and it lines up almost exactly with its FPS advantage, so the extra frequency headroom appears to be the deciding factor here.

Where the 7700X3D claws back some ground is in power, temperatures, and value. The newer chip drew just 60.9 watts on average during our gaming tests, compared to 67.3 watts for the 7800X3D, a 9.5% reduction in power draw. That also translates to lower temperatures, with the 7700X3D running at an average of 55°C versus 62°C for the 7800X3D, a full 7°C cooler than its sibling.

Safe to say, the 7700X3D is also the more efficient chip of the two. It managed 2.86 FPS-per-watt in our testing, compared to 2.70 for the 7800X3D, making it about 6% more efficient. The value picture tells a similar story, with the 7700X3D delivering 0.53 FPS-per-dollar against 0.50 for the 7800X3D — though that assumes a $360 price for the 7800X3D, and we’ve seen it sell for the same price as the 7700X3D multiple times previously. Obviously with both CPUs at $330, the 7800X3D comes out ahead on value.

⭐ Winner: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D

The 7800X3D wins every game we tested, and while several of those wins are razor thin, a win is still a win. The 7700X3D answers back with better efficiency, cooler temperatures, and a stronger price-to-performance ratio, at least at MSRP, but this round is about raw gaming performance, and the 7800X3D still has the edge there.

Productivity Performance: AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D vs Ryzen 7 7800X3D

AMD’s X3D chips aren’t top productivity performers, unless you spring for something like the Ryzen 9950X3D. Still, application performance is important even if you primarily use your PC for gaming. We have a range of tests in rendering, encoding, web performance, and more that compromise or multithreaded and single-threaded geomeans, which you can see in the gallery below.

In these workloads that are concerned with raw CPU performance, clock speed alone can make a significant difference. That tracks with our results, with the Ryzen 7 7800X3D consistently providing a larger advantage over the 7700X3D in application performance than it does in games.

Starting with our multi-threaded performance ranking geomean, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D scores 291 points, compared to 272 points for the Ryzen 7 7700X3D. That puts the 7800X3D ahead by 7% on average. It is not a massive gap, but it is a consistent one, as it shows up across every multi-core test we ran.

In Cinebench 2024's multi-core test, the 7800X3D leads the 7700X3D by 4.7%, with the same pattern showing up in Cinebench 2026 at a 5.3% lead. POV-Ray tells a similar story, with the 7800X3D ahead by 7.7%, and Blender's Junkshop scene puts the 7800X3D 6.25% faster than the newer chip.

The encoding tests follow the same trend. In HandBrake's x265 10-bit encode, the 7800X3D is 7.7% faster than the 7700X3D, and that lead holds nearly identical at 7.6% in SVT_AV1 encoding. JPEG-XL multi-threaded decode shows the 7800X3D ahead by 7.2%.

Interestingly, the gap in every single multi-threaded benchmark sits somewhere between 4% and 8%, so there is no real outlier here in either direction. Since core and thread counts are identical, this is really just a straightforward reflection of the 7800X3D's higher boost clocks doing their job across sustained, all-core loads.

Moving on to single-threaded performance, the gap actually widens a bit. Our single-threaded performance ranking geomean has the 7800X3D at 215 points against 195 points for the 7700X3D, which is a 10.3% lead for the pricier chip.

This makes sense when you consider how single-core workloads work. With fewer cores active, the CPU can push individual cores harder within its power budget, so the chip with the higher clock ceiling pulls further ahead than it does in multi-core tests where thermal and power limits are shared across all cores at once.

The same pattern shows up across the individual single-threaded tests. Cinebench 2024's single-core result favors the 7800X3D by 9.8%, and Cinebench 2026 comes in nearly identical at 9.8% as well. POV-Ray's single-core test shows the widest gap of the round, with the 7800X3D ahead by a noticeable 11.1%.

In the Lame audio encoding tests, the 7800X3D finishes 8.8% faster in the standard test and 9.5% faster in the extended version. WebXPRT4, which measures browser and JavaScript performance, has the 7800X3D ahead by 9.7%.

It is worth remembering that neither of these CPUs was really built with productivity as the main focus. The extra 3D V-Cache that makes them so good at gaming doesn’t help much in these tests, and if anything, the lower clock speeds that come with fitting that cache onto the die work against them in these tests.

⭐Winner: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D

The 7800X3D wins every single productivity test we ran, with leads ranging from roughly 5% in multi-threaded work up to 11% in single-threaded tasks. It is a clean sweep, though the margins stay consistent enough that the 7700X3D never looks completely outmatched.

Overclocking: AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D vs Ryzen 7 7800X3D

AMD introduced traditional multiplier-based overclocking with Zen 5 X3D CPUs. However, the Ryzen 7 77003D and 7800X3D don’t have access to that. These CPUs stack the cache on top of the compute die, acting as an insulating layer. New Zen 5 X3D CPUs instead keep the cache below the compute die.

That said, AMD loosened things up compared to the first-gen X3D chips. Both the 7700X3D and 7800X3D support Precision Boost Overdrive and Curve Optimizer, which let you push sustained boost clocks a bit further and shave voltage where the silicon allows it, without touching the core multiplier directly. Memory and Infinity Fabric overclocking remain fully open on both chips too, and EXPO makes hitting rated DDR5 speeds simple enough.

Given that the 7800X3D already ships with higher stock clocks and a bit more thermal headroom than the 7700X3D, it also tends to respond slightly better to PBO tuning, since it has more room to stretch before hitting the same limits. The 7700X3D isn't far behind, and its lower stock power draw means it has some slack of its own to work with when pushed.

Realistically, this round is a wash in terms of actual tools available. Both chips are locked in the same way, and both get the same PBO and Curve Optimizer toolkit. The only real difference comes down to how much headroom each chip has to give up before hitting a wall, which slightly favors the 7800X3D, but it is still a tie overall.

⭐Winner: Tie

Both CPUs are limited to the same PBO and Curve Optimizer tuning since neither got AMD's reworked cache layout, so this round is essentially a tie between the two.

Power Consumption, Efficiency, and Cooling: AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D vs Ryzen 7 7800X3D

For power consumption, we measured power draw across idle, active idle, and full load scenarios, then broke things down further into efficiency metrics to see which chip gets more work done per watt.

At idle, the Ryzen 7 7700X3D consumed just 19 watts, compared to 25 watts for the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, making the 7700X3D 31.6% more efficient at rest. That gap narrows slightly in an active-idle scenario like YouTube playback, where the 7700X3D drew 22W against 28W for the 7800X3D, a 27.3% difference. Even while doing nothing demanding, the newer chip is sipping noticeably less power.

Moving on to all-core workloads, in our y-cruncher multi-threaded AVX power test, the Ryzen 7 7700X3D consumed 78W, while the Ryzen 7 7800X3D drew 89W, which is a 14.1% increase. The same pattern shows up in Linpack, where the 7800X3D consumed 10.8% more power than the 7700X3D.

We see the gap growing wider in our rendering tests. Cinebench 2024's multi-core render has the 7800X3D pulling 88W compared to 74W for the 7700X3D, an 18.9% increase, and Blender's Junkshop scene shows an even wider 23% gap. The encoding tests land somewhere in between, with the 7800X3D drawing 11.1% more power in HandBrake x265 and 15.3% more in SVT_AV1 encoding.

We even looked at single-threaded power draw, and the same pattern can be seen here as well. In y-cruncher's single-threaded AVX test, the 7700X3D consumed 32W, while the 7800X3D needed 39W, which is a 21.9% increase. This lines up with the more conservative power budget AMD appears to have given the 7700X3D, as it prioritizes efficiency over the extra clock speed the 7800X3D gets to use.

To determine said efficiency, we looked at the performance delivered per watt. In Cinebench 2024, the 7700X3D managed 14.4 points per watt compared to 12.6 for the 7800X3D, making it 14.3% more efficient in this test. Linpack's GFLOPs-per-watt-hour metric shows a similar story, with the 7700X3D being 12.2% more efficient in this test. In HandBrake x265, the watts-per-FPS numbers are close, but the 7700X3D still edges ahead by 4.6%.

We can also visualize this using our scatterplots. In the Linpack power efficiency chart, the Ryzen 7 7700X3D and Ryzen 7 7800X3D sit almost on top of each other toward the bottom-left of the graph, both well ahead of the Core i7-14700K and Core Ultra 7 270K Plus in efficiency. The HandBrake x265 scatter plot tells a slightly different story. The 7700X3D sits marginally lower in energy use, while the 7800X3D pushes a bit further right thanks to its higher FPS, landing both chips close together towards the middle of the plot.

Curiously, the 7800X3D never falls behind by a wide margin in these efficiency charts, but the 7700X3D is consistently the more frugal chip whenever raw wattage is being measured directly. The long and short of it is that AMD seems to have dialed back the power ceiling on the 7700X3D without giving up much in the way of real-world efficiency, which makes sense given it is the newer, more refined part in this matchup.

⭐Winner: AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D

The Ryzen 7 7700X3D draws less power across idle, active idle, and full-load scenarios, and it backs that up with better efficiency numbers in nearly every test we ran. The 7800X3D still performs faster, but not by enough to justify its higher power draw in this round.

Pricing: AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D vs Ryzen 7 7800X3D

Pricing is interesting as this is where the two chips get quite close, since they share the same platform, the same socket, and largely the same feature set. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D currently sits at $340, though it’s previously sold closer to $340, while the newer Ryzen 7 7700X3D comes in at $330, making it $10 cheaper out of the gate.

That $10 difference on the CPU itself is straightforward enough, and the platform costs line up, as well. Both CPUs support the same AM5 platform. A decent B650 board runs about $150-$200, while X670E boards with better VRMs and connectivity climb into the $250-$350 range.

Memory requirements are also identical, since both CPUs support DDR5 exclusively. A 32GB DDR5-6000 kit, which is the sweet spot for AM5 platforms, currently runs between $300 and $400 depending on the brand and timings. Given the ongoing RAMpocalypse, that price could shift, but it applies equally to both chips, so it does not tilt the comparison one way or the other.

Both CPUs are remarkably efficient, but they run hotter than what their power draw suggests; that's the insulation effect of the cache at work. A competent air cooler between $30 and $80 is enough to keep the chip cool, though you might want to step up to a midrange AIO liquid cooler between $80 and $120.

Platform longevity is identical between the two as well, since both are on the AM5 platform that AMD has committed to supporting for years to come. Neither chip has an advantage in future upgrade paths, so this round really does come down to dollars and cents.

And that makes picking a winner here tricky. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D has seen consistent price drops, with it dropping from $360 to $340 just in the time between writing and publishing this article. The Ryzen 7 7700X3D briefly dropped down to $290, though it climbed back up to $330 and has remained there since.

⭐ Winner: Tie

This round is a tie because, depending on the day, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D might be the exact same price (we've actually seen it cheaper on sale) than the 7700X3D. If you want a shorthand, if you can buy the Ryzen 7 7800X3D for less than $350, it makes up the extra cost in performance. Otherwise, the 7700X3D comes out ahead on value.

Bottom Line: Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus vs AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D

After a six-round matchup, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D comes out on top with a 5-3 scoreline, coming ahead in features, gaming performance, and productivity, while coming in a tie with the 7700X3D in pricing and power consumption.

The 7800X3D's wins all trace back to the same factor: higher clock speeds. It has more headroom baked in from the factory, and that advantage carries through gaming performance and productivity workloads. Its victory in both of these categories was slim, but consistent.

The Ryzen 7 7700X3D answers back where it counts the most for a lot of buyers. It draws noticeably less power at idle and under load, runs slightly cooler, and is more efficient across nearly every metric we tested. That efficiency doesn’t translate into direct savings, however. Both chips have a very similar thermal profile.

If you want the fastest possible gaming and productivity performance on this platform and don't mind paying a bit more upfront, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D is the CPU to get. The performance gap isn't enormous, but it is still noticeable enough across every round we tested.

Given how close these two chips actually are once you factor in price and efficiency, this is one of the tighter faceoffs we've done. Still, the numbers don't lie, and the 7800X3D is the overall victor in this battle.

⭐ Winner: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D

More CPU Faceoffs

• AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 vs Ryzen 9 9950X3D
• Intel Core i5-14400 vs AMD Ryzen 5 7600X
• AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D vs Intel Core i9-14900K
• AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D vs Ryzen 7 9800X3D

If you've not subscribed to our subscription service, Tom's Hardware Premium, we've collated every article that you've missed out on over the past seven days.

Last month, hot off the BC-250's full 40 CU unlock patch, we thought the time was ripe and finally put together a BC-250 build of our own to see what all the fuss was about. In case you're out of the loop, the AMD BC-250 is a repurposed PS5 APU, designed for cryptocurrency mining. With mining firmly out of fashion, the chip has now found new life, thanks to community-made patches and fixes that get things up and running for gaming. After all, where else are you going to find 16GB of memory and a capable single-board computer for $200 (or thereabouts) in the current market?

The experience of reading Jake's trials and tribulations feels like harkening back to the days when everything wasn't simply plug-and-play, and if you wanted the most out of your hardware, you were going to have to get a little bit uncomfortable and more intimately familiar with the nature of the silicon you're running. If you're interested in running one of your own BC-250 systems, you don't want to miss this fantastic (and lengthy) read, which features extensive benchmarks comparing the build to the Steam Machine, alongside performance results using different CU counts and OS images.

• Benchmarking AMD's BC-250, offering Steam Machine-like performance at half the price

We also interviewed Intel's VP and GM of Enthusiast Business (and AMD's ex-Technical Marketing Director) Robert Hallock. As always, we give premium readers full access to our entire 45-minute session with Hallock, no redactions, no fluff. During the interview, Hallock addresses how Intel's entire team shifted between the release of Arrow Lake and Arrow Lake refresh platforms. He also gave us some insight into the importance of CPU software optimization, as well as dishing out some details about the highly anticipated Nova Lake lineup. (Yes, we asked if they had a V-Cache competitor, and you'll have to read the article to find out how Hallock responded.)

Catching a high-level executive in between product cycles is usually against the traditions of the press and marketing cycles that companies usually go through. This offers a fairly unique perspective, where we get to see how Intel is not only iterating upon its previous products, but also being somewhat reflective on the last few bumpy years for the company's consumer CPU segment.

• Intel VP Robert Hallock sets Nova Lake expectations, teases return to Raptor Lake for DDR4 platforms — our full 1:1 interview transcript

Elsewhere in the industry, we're starting to see real PCIe 6.0 devices that companies are actually going to be able to purchase. The standard suffered from a false start, mainly owing to the shift to PAM4 signaling, which behaves very differently from the Non-Return-to-Zero (NRZ) signaling that was deployed across prior generations. Several years on, we're now seeing commercial devices begin to arrive, including SSD's with capacities up to a staggering 2 Petabytes.

But for an ecosystem to thrive, you don't just need the devices; you need the ability for systems to communicate with them, too. So, we've offered an overview of the controllers, in addition to the drives themselves, to assess the current state of the PCIe 6.0 market.

• The current state of PCIe 6.0 SSDs and controllers — Marvell, Phison, and SMI prepare controllers as drives finally come to market following years of delays

In the news

In addition to the three features that we ran on Tom's Hardware Premium this week, we've also published a slew of News Analysis pieces, which aim to dig deeper into the biggest topics in the hardware and semiconductor industry.

Firstly, there have been dozens of headlines across the U.S. over the ongoing AI data center buildout. We've covered the protests, the impact, and the voices who are lending their ears to striking back against Big Tech's appetite for more compute by any means necessary. Our report collates the ongoing sentiment surrounding the accelerating buildout and how residents are fighting back.

• Over 70% of Americans oppose AI data centers; US protests intensify as more arrests are being made — almost 40 arrested this year in backlash to AI factory buildout

Hyperscalers are not backing down from putting money down to build more compute, which is currently constrained as AI models grow larger and more complex and as demand grows. To that end, we've seen that an eye-watering $2 trillion USD has been pledged to secure AI hardware and DRAM alone. The ongoing AI megatrend is transforming the semiconductor industry, all the way down the entire supply chain, and that's forcing companies to rethink how compute is purchased. At least for Apple and Google, that means putting up billions to secure critical components like NAND, DRAM, and more.

• Hyperscalers commit nearly $2 trillion to secure AI hardware and memory — Google leads $811 billion spending surge while Apple trails at $57 billion

Optical interconnects and photonics have become a flashpoint amid the ongoing AI saga. With the limitations of copper meeting the very real demand for faster connection speeds, optics is the answer that the industry has been developing for quite some time. However, the FCC's proposed Secure Networks Act could put the deployment of silicon photonics in jeopardy. The FCC's proposal to ban new-model optical transceivers could put an already incredibly strained supply chain at risk.

With 56% of global manufacturing for optical modules shored up in China, this would pose an immediate problem, and one that the markets have already responded to in-kind. We have broken down exactly how optical became the hottest topic in the semiconductor manufacturing industry, as well as how the U.S-China trade summit next month could weaponize the technology.

But what if there were other options? The photonics supply chain remains constrained and relatively immature. Full co-packaged optics chips might not be ready for full volume production, despite Spectrum-X CPO being rolled out across Nvidia's Vera Rubin lineup. The answer, in the short-term, may be near-packaged optics, as we explain all of the comings and goings in the wild world of silicon photonics.

• FCC proposes import ban on Chinese optical transceivers — blockade targets key AI interconnects as China holds 56% global market share
• How optical interconnects and silicon photonics emerged as AI's next hot commodity — looming US-China summit puts photonics into the crosshairs
• Near-packaged optics (NPO) gains ground as the industry hedges against CPO's growing pains

That just about wraps up everything we've published over on Tom's Hardware Premium this week. To read the above articles and to gain access to Bench, you'll need to purchase a subscription, which we've linked above.

We'll be back next week with another roundup of exclusive Tom's Hardware Premium reads that you won't find anywhere else.

Coming on the heels of Intel's $19.7 billion common stock offering from earlier this week, AMD on Thursday announced plans to borrow $4.75 billion through a new senior unsecured debt offering. AMD does not tie the proceeds to a particular project, saying they will be available for general corporate purposes, including potentially paying down existing debt. Meanwhile, the increasing capital intensity of the industry gives AMD numerous options to use the money.

"We intend to use the net proceeds from this offering for general corporate purposes, which may include the repayment of debt," an AMD statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission reads.

The offering comprises four tranches: $1.25 billion of 4.6% notes due in 2029; $1.50 billion of 5% notes due in 2031; $1 billion of 5.25% notes due in 2033; and $1 billion of 5.5% notes due in 2036. Their yields to maturity are 4.64%, 5.018%, 5.264%, and 5.532%, respectively, while spreads over comparable U.S. Treasuries range from 43 to 90 basis points, which indicates that the market is generally confident in AMD and is willing to lend it money at rates that barely exceed those of the U.S. Treasury. Moody's and S&P are expected to rate the securities A1 and A, respectively.

AMD did not disclose how it plans to spend $4.75 billion, but the additional money obtained at attractive rates gives it room to finance its increasingly capital-intensive business as well as cash for debt repayment and other corporate requirements.

AMD hardly appears desperate for additional money. At the end of Q2 2026, the company had approximately $13.1 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments. AMD's debt totaled $3.2 billion, and only $875 million is classified as current, which means that the proceeds from the offering by far exceed AMD's current obligations. Meanwhile, AMD's business is becoming very capital intensive.

At the end of 2025, the company had around $12.2 billion in unconditional commitments, which include purchases of wafers and substrates, multi-year cloud-service agreements, software and technology licenses, and guaranteed obligations to third parties. Approximately $8.5 billion was due in 2026.

Also, AMD's working capital requirements are growing. Inventories reached approximately $8.47 billion by the end of Q2, while accounts payable climbed to $5.36 billion. AMD also spent $1.20 billion on property and equipment during the first half of 2026, compared with $494 million a year earlier.

If we were to speculate where AMD can put $4.75 billion, then long-term supply agreements for commodities like memory, logic production, or advanced packaging immediately come to mind. However, given the current market realities, $4.75 billion is 1.8x smaller than AMD's inventories as of late Q2 2026. Furthermore, an average long-term supply deal with a major memory maker now amounts to $7.14 billion (according to Micron's comments made in its recent earnings release).

That said, $4.75 billion may not be enough for AMD to make strategically important purchase commitments. Nonetheless, getting nearly $5 billion at attractive rates amid global undersupply of pretty much everything certainly gives AMD some additional flexibility to run its business.

Many cybersecurity exploits have been deemed The One Ring To Rule Them All, but that moniker is rarely as true as a literal bit that disables the memory mapping on some AMD CPUs, granting access to normally inaccessible areas. With just one instruction, you can access off-limits software like Platform Security Processor (PSP) where the TPM runs, the System Management Mode (SMM), microcode patch RAM, and other various sundries — in other words, full hardware-level control.

The exploit is called Skitter Creek Bath Salts (Skitter), and was developed by prolific hacker Christopher Domas, famous for finding CPU flaws like Sandsifter and God Mode Unlocked. Only AMD chips from the 15h and 16h families are affected, roughly 2011 to 2015 vintages. Family 15 is FX-series desktop chips and some Opterons, while 16h includes low-power Jaguar- and Puma-based SoCs like those in the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, plus a handful of Athlon, Sempron, and Opteron-X chips, among others.

To pull off this exploit, you'll need kernel-level access, meaning the ability to run your own drivers. But once you do, the entirety of DRAM is your oyster. AMD published a security bulletin on the matter, saying these chips are out of security support, plus, as mentioned, the necessary access level means an attacker already controls the machine anyway.

If you're confused as to how one instruction opens up a system, here's our attempt at a simplification. Say you have 16 GB of RAM. You'd think that Windows gets all 16 GB to play with, from address 0 to the end of memory — but as you may have noticed before, it's actually a bit less than that. The rest is reserved for system-level data.

Some parts are visible to the OS so it can interact with devices, but others include Very Important Things like PSP, SMM, microcode patches, all in sections supposed to be completely untouchable. If they were accessible, the system as a whole wasn't secure by definition anymore — just think of a malicious driver being able to freely mess with how your processor handles data.

For performance reasons, modern processors' RAM controllers don't use memory in a straight line, so to speak — they use bank interleaving, meaning that the actual bytes in the DRAM are jumbled, all while the OS sees a nice, tidy, flat surface. As it turns out, the CPU setting that controls this feature is accessible to the OS in the aforementioned chip families, and it's called BankSwizzleMode (Swizzle). It can be toggled on or off with the instruction "xor dword [0xf80c2094], 0x00400000", a simple bit twiddle. And as it turns out, this can be exploited.

First, you run a loop to figure out how the mapping normally functions. You place a canary value in memory (say, 0xDEADBEEF, according to tradition), disable Swizzle, run through memory to see where it landed, and reenable Swizzle again. Do this enough times, and you know exactly how visible memory is mapped into physical DRAM, and vice versa.

With the map now in your possession, you can now disable Swizzle and force a read or write to normally inaccessible areas of the DRAM, since you now know where it will land. With this, you can access all the previously hidden code and data, netting you hardware-level access to do anything you want, including reading fTPM signing code and any other low-level shenanigans you can think of.

Attentive readers might be wondering why the system doesn't crash during this process since you're effectively temporarily turning the RAM into a spaghetti mess. The answer is that every time you enable and disable Swizzle, you prepare the CPU by disabling interrupts, along with a number of other measures. Even still, the machine can crash during the map-collection step, but that only needs to be done once. After you have the map, the likelihood of a crash is fairly low since you'll be targeting specific locations.

Another question might be why sending a bit to a memory location somehow messes with the CPU, and the answer is that part of OS-accessible memory is actually mapped to hardware according to the Memory-Mapped Configuration Space standard (MMCONFIG) — meaning that reads or writes to that space are directed to hardware configuration settings, not actual RAM.

Edit 8/14/2026: Clarified TPM.

If you've ever stumbled upon the Amazon CPU best sellers list over the past few years, you've been greeted by a wall of red boxes. This list isn't a good source of data, without hard sales figures and heavily skewed toward what's available on Amazon at any given time. But AMD senior marketing director Saša Marinković recently shared a screenshot of the Amazon CPU best-sellers list, bragging on AMD's representation. The interesting bit is that the screenshot Marinković shared shows the $80, DDR4-based Ryzen 5 5500 at the top of the charts.

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D has since reclaimed the top slot — it is the best CPU for gaming, after all — but the screenshot touches on the prevalence of DDR4 platforms, nearly four years after the launch of Zen 4 and introduction of DDR5 to AMD's platform. It's not just the Ryzen 5 5500, either.

Of the 25 best sellers on Amazon, three slots are occupied by Intel, and one slot is claimed by the Thermal Grizzly AM5 contact frame. AMD holds every other slot, though it's nearly an even split between DDR4 and DDR5. There are nine Zen 3 CPUs on DDR4 platforms to 12 Zen 4/5 CPUs on DDR5 platforms.

It seems Marinković's screenshot is a bit out of date — currently, the split is even closer, with Intel picking up two extra spots and the split between DDR4 and DDR5 AMD CPUs moving to nine and 10 slots, respectively.

The irony here is that Marinković is highlighting AMD's representation on the best-sellers list while a four-year-old CPU is at the top of the charts, not one of the many performant DDR5 processors AMD has released since. It's not hard to draw a straight line between DDR4 popularity and current RAM pricing on your own. However, several motherboard vendors have previously confirmed to Tom's Hardware that they're increasing DDR4 motherboard production due to demand for older platforms.

The Ryzen 5 5500 is one of the cheapest CPUs you can buy at only $80, and it comes with a Wraith Stealth cooler in the box, saving you some money on an aftermarket CPU cooler. It's based on the Zen 3 architecture with six cores and 12 threads and boosts up to 4.2 GHz. It has a cut-down L3 cache compared to other Zen 3 CPUs at 16 MB, however, and it tops out at PCIe 3.0.

We recently published a $100 CPU shootout comparing the Ryzen 5 5500 to some other options around the same price and found its performance lacking, particularly in games; the Intel Core i3-14100F consistently offered better performance with DDR4. That conclusion only holds up if you don't already have an AM4 motherboard, however. If you're in the market for the Ryzen 5 5500, you're already on a tight budget, so a new motherboard probably isn't in the cards.

The AMD BC-250 has taken on a new life. It’s a PS5 APU that was repurposed for mining during the crypto boom, and now it’s being repurposed once again as a Linux gaming board. The BC-250 has seen some coverage in years past. It was originally a board you could pick up for less than $100, but now you’ll likely spend over $200 on one. We’re taking a closer look at the board and the performance it offers now for a few key reasons.

First, we have the Steam Machine. Valve’s long-awaited console-like PC is here and much more expensive than anyone expected at over $1,000. You can easily put together a BC-250 build for around $400 or $500, and even less if you have a power supply and SSD lying around. If you can get in the realm of Steam Machine performance for half the price (and the BC-250 can, based on our testing), that’s pretty compelling.

There have also been some significant developments among the BC-250 community. The board only works in the first place due to a community-developed BIOS and GPU driver, and developers have continued to experiment with what’s possible with the hardware. Now, there are tools that enable all 40 Compute Units (CUs) on the board (it defaults to 24 CUs), as well as tools to enable the two disabled Zen 2 cores, taking the six-core CPU to an eight-core CPU.

Now, the BC-250 isn’t a cut-down PS5 APU, at least from a hardware perspective. It actually patches two more graphics CUs compared to the PS5. Though, as should become clear throughout this story, relating the BC-250 to the PS5 on anything but the silicon on the board isn’t the best idea.

All in, we spent about $350 on the BC-250, with around $200 of that going toward the board (it’s currently listed for around $175 on eBay) and the additional budget going toward a 3D-printed case, fans, and a power supply. You could spend as little as the cost of the board if you can 3D print a case, bring your own fans, and repurpose an old PSU and NVMe SSD. If you’re starting from scratch, you’ll spend between $400 and $500.

Even for “full” price, the BC-250 is significantly cheaper than what you can get elsewhere. The PS5 digital edition is now $600, while the Pro will run you $900. The newly-released Steam Machine starts at $1,050, and that’s with just 512 GB of storage. The BC-250 is significantly cheaper and offers performance that can rival these platforms. What you save in money, however, you spend in time.

The BC-250 is a great project if you like tinkering, but it’s not a set-it-and-forget-it gaming device, even after the initial setup. After a few weeks of using the board, that much became clear.

A PS5 APU, not a PS5: BC-250 specifications

The BC-250 is described as a cut-down PS5 APU, and that’s exactly what it is, but the “cut-down” portion of the description carries a lot of weight. It comes with eight Zen 2 cores, but two of them are disabled, and a 40-CU RDNA 2 GPU, though only 24 of those CUs work out of the box.

The community has been able to unlock all 40 CUs with good success. Ultimately, your mileage with unlocking all 40 CUs will vary; some boards will work just fine with all 40, others with 32 or 36, and some with the base 24. As I’ll dig into more later, I was able to unlock all 40 CUs and run them stably up to 1,850 MHz, much higher than the recommended 1,500 MHz max frequency.

Out of the box, both the CPU and GPU run at locked frequencies of around 3.5 GHz and 1,500 MHz, respectively. You’ll need to separately install a GPU and CPU governor for dynamic frequency scaling (a necessity in the case of the GPU, though optional for the CPU). Achievable frequency on the CPU and GPU is entirely determined by your thermals. Both governors allow for overclocking, but the BC-250 is thermally constrained, even with active airflow, so don’t expect to push far beyond the stock frequency, particularly on the CPU.

Unfortunately, storage is a big bottleneck for the BC-250, and one of the biggest points of divergence compared to a PS5. The M.2 runs at just PCIe 2.0 x2 speeds, delivering about 1 GB/s of maximum performance with an NVMe SSD. The good news is that, due to how slow the interface is, you can save some money and get a less-performant but larger drive for storage.

As of a few days ago, at the time of writing, some initial fixes to unlock the extra two CPU cores have rolled out, which I was able to get working after a bit of trial and error. Outside of the GPU and CPU, the BC-250 has a bit less L3 cache. The APU, from a hardware perspective, is very similar to the PS5. Though that ignores the complex I/O system present in the PS5, not to mention the various layers of software that Sony runs on the APU.

Given that the BC-250 wasn’t designed for gaming, it’s important to keep that context in mind. You could just as easily describe it as a crypto mining board that’s been repurposed for gaming as you could a PS5 APU that’s been repurposed for mining. The BC-250 is a mining board, and the only reason it works is due to a large number of enthusiasts trying to get the damn thing to work and sharing their advancements along the way.

Although Linux gaming broadly has made a ton of advancements over the past few years, the BC-250 has unique hurdles you need to overcome. It needs fixes to scale the frequency on both the CPU and GPU; otherwise, it’s locked at a fixed frequency. It needs a custom BIOS image to even boot, and a specific configuration in the BIOS to avoid immediately crashing. Those are all steps you need to take to get the BC-250 to work in the first place, let alone start optimizing it to squeeze out the best performance.

There is extensive community documentation for the BC-250, which I referenced ad nauseam throughout this process. It’s an excellent resource, but even still, I had to search out solutions outside of the documentation. This is cobbled together from community fixes, and the documentation seeks to cover as many distros as possible. But it’s nigh impossible to have complete documentation on the BC-250, as valiant as the effort linked above is.

Expect a bumpy (but rewarding) road. It’s better to think of the BC-250 as a project, rather than a commodity like the PS5. Yes, you can play games on it and get surprisingly good performance, but you’ll spend a good amount of time simply tinkering with the machine, at first to get it to work, and later to optimize it. And you will inevitably run up against games that either don’t work or have poor performance, prompting another investigation and optimization cycle. I find the process rewarding; others will find it frustrating.

Setting up and configuring the BC-250

Getting the BC-250 is only one part of the process here. At the least, you need a power supply that can deliver at least 20A on the 12V rail. A standard PSU will work, but FlexATX power supplies are a better fit. I ended up purchasing a 3D-printed case, along with a power supply, from eBay. The BC-250 documentation includes several PSU recommendations, along with case designs, if you want to go about choosing your parts piecemeal.

Here’s what I’d recommend at minimum:

• BC-250
• 300W+ PSU (at least 20A on 12V rail)
• 2x Arctic P12 high-pressure fans (if using CU unlock)

Regardless of the route you choose, double-check fan mounting points (there aren’t any mounts on the BC-250 itself) and case/PSU compatibility. Many small form factor BC-250 designs you can 3D print are designed around a FlexATX PSU. Before booting, verify your 8-pin pinout against the community documentation. If the 12V pins are in the wrong position, you can fry your board.

With the board ready, the first step is to flash a new BIOS from the shell. It’s straightforward enough, though without the modern conveniences of firmware flashback in the event of a failure. If you lose power, you’ll brick your board and need a hardware controller to reset it, so I recommend connecting to a UPS during the flashing process. You can grab the correct files from the documentation.

From there, you need to clear your CMOS by removing the battery and configure a few BIOS options to force the integrated graphics, set the UMA frame buffer size, and disable IOMMU. From there, you need to choose which Linux distro you’re going to use, which is very important. I’d recommend experimenting with a few different distros, especially if you’re new to Linux.

For gaming, the go-to options are Bazzite and CachyOS, the former of which I originally went with. There are some “optimized” images floating around for the BC-250 that supposedly rope in all of the configuration and fixes you need into a fresh OS image. I wouldn’t recommend using those. Setting up the BC-250 is getting easier by the day (I have found new fixes and scripts that automate installing several fixes just in the time I’ve been testing the board), so these optimized images are, at best, out of date, and at worst, not actually optimized at all. Tread carefully.

You don’t need an optimized image because, at least for Bazzite and CachyOS, scripts exist that can automate the entire setup process. Strictly speaking, the only thing you need is the GPU governor. Previously, you would need a kernel patch, but a GPU governor via an SMU now exists and is what I used. The governor is what allows dynamic frequency scaling on the GPU, as well as overclocking.

You’ll also need a compatible kernel, which is easier to manage on rolling distros like CachyOS. 6.18.18 LTS is the recommended kernel at the time of writing, but 6.17.11+ works, along with 6.12.x to 6.14.x LTS. Other kernels may work, though some (such as 6.15.0) are broken and will trigger a kernel panic.

With your distro chosen and a correct kernel working, here are the optimization steps I took:

• Install GPU and CPU governor
• Unlock 40 CUs
• Setup Zswap with 32GB swap page
• Install ACPI fix
• Configure PWM sensors

Again, scripts exist for these patches, the most critical of which don’t even require kernel patching any longer. The exact fixes you need and the method to install them will depend on the distro you choose, however, so make sure to keep the setup documentation handy.

The list above is in order of importance. Once you have the GPU governor, the next step is to try to enable the full GPU. Previously, you would need a kernel patch, but the bc250-cu-live-manager utility can enable the CUs via a User Mode Register (UMR) without the need for a kernel patch. Not only is this easier to do, but it also persists across updates, unlike a kernel patch, where new kernels will force you to go through the unlock process again. The end result is identical regardless of the path you choose.

I spent a good deal of time testing the 40 CUs before doing any other optimizations, and I’d recommend you do the same. Just because the board has 40 CUs doesn’t mean you can use all of them. I was able to unlock all 40, though not at the frequencies some others have reported. And some users aren’t able to use all 40, rooting out bad clusters for a 32-CU or 36-CU configuration. Overclocking-like trial and error is necessary here, though, as we’ll get to in the performance section later, experimenting is worth the hassle. Using all 40 CUs, even at suboptimal clock speeds, offers much better performance.

Although setting everything up on Bazzite should be easy, I ran into issues numerous times. It’s an immutable OS image, which can cause problems depending on the fixes you’re trying to apply. It’s a great choice if you want to quickly set up the BC-250, but it became clear that an immutable image isn’t optimal if you want to get the best performance. Further, some newer fixes simply wouldn’t work, such as unlocking the extra two CPU cores.

The CachyOS pivot

After a few days of optimizing, testing, and troubleshooting Bazzite, I made the hard decision to wipe the machine and start fresh with CachyOS. In hindsight, I should have started with CachyOS from the beginning for numerous reasons, but mainly because it’s a rolling Arch-based distro. Bazzite is a Fedora Atomic-based distro. It’s immutable, adding guardrails to make it difficult to break anything, but in the process, making it much more difficult to apply low-level changes like kernel patches.

If you’re not familiar with Linux and don’t care to become familiar, Bazzite is your best bet. It’s convenient, and it includes a ton of small community fixes right in the startup menu, such as the LSFG-VK project for Lossless Scaling. It became clear, however, that you’re trading performance for convenience with Bazzite. CachyOS is more hands-on, but it’s much easier to actually accomplish what you need to with the BC-250.

Most notably, CachyOS (and other rolling release distros) allow you to easily manage your kernel. There are alternative methods for critical setup items like the GPU governor and CU unlock that don’t require a kernel patch. However, having the ability to easily patch your kernel helps when you run up against compatibility or performance issues, allowing you to try alternative installation methods or community fixes.

Further, CachyOS has access to yay, or Yet Another Yogurt, the simple command-line call to search and install packages from the Arch User Repository (AUR). It takes some time getting used to living in the command line as often as you do on any Arch-based distro. But even knowing just a few basic commands allows you to accomplish what you want much faster than fumbling around with flatpaks, at least in my experience.

Getting set back up was simple thanks to a community script that automates nearly all of the configuration and optimization for the BC-250. The BC250-Toolkit script brings together all of the various community patches, including optional optimizations, and it just worked. Coming off of Bazzite, it was a treat not to run up against the immutable walls of the distro. I was able to accomplish in a few hours what took me more than a day with Bazzite.

CachyOS specifically has a few optimizations for gaming, as well. First, there’s the BORE, or Burst-Oriented Response Enhancer, scheduler that, as the name implies, is optimized for bursty workloads (Michael Larabel over at Phoronix has a great writeup on that). CachyOS also includes packages for x86-64 v3 and v4, the former of which is relevant to the BC-250.

These optimizations represent a substantial performance improvement. In Forza Horizon 6, for example, I went from 61 FPS at 4K with the Low preset to 72 FPS on CachyOS after it was configured properly (with 40 CUs in both cases). In Cyberpunk 2077, I went from 74.7 FPS on Bazzite to 82.2 FPS at 1080p with the Steam Deck preset, and perhaps more impressively, from 47.8 FPS to 56.5 FPS at 1440p.

I saw higher peak performance on Bazzite in Unigine Superposition, though that’s likely due to more thermal headroom for the GPU, as I wasn’t able to enable the extra CPU cores on Bazzite. I mainly wanted to show this chart to bring the “optimized” Bazzite image into the fold, which was supposedly an image that was already configured for the BC-250. Using a script to automate the installation of several tools (like the one available for CachyOS) is one thing. Using an entirely custom image is another. I’d suggest starting with a clean, official image regardless of the distro you choose.

Testing performance on the BC-250

The best touchstone for comparisons with the BC-250 is the Steam Machine. The Steam Machine is more powerful simply based on the spec sheet. I ran a truncated list of benchmarks to see how the BC-250 stacks up, as well as several additional benchmarks on the BC-250 alone. Performance here is tough to compare fairly. Even just with CachyOS and Bazzite above, we see large performance differences. And, as will become clear in this section, there were numerous tests that either showed performance issues inconsistently or simply failed to run at all.

Our best point of comparison between the Steam Machine and BC-250 comes in Cyberpunk 2077. Neither machine is capable of achieving a playable frame rate at 4K, but the fully-optimized BC-250 is just 6.7% behind at 1440p. At 1080p, however, the performance drop is 16.1%, exposing perhaps the biggest performance issue with the BC-250.

Forza Horizon 6 also highlights this issue; the CPU in the BC-250 is very weak. It’s not only weak because it’s using the aging Zen 2 architecture, but it also has only six cores (or eight, if you can enable them). It’s such a hurdle because the clock speed is severely limited to just 3.5 GHz, the same as the PS5. We are completely CPU-bound at 1080p and even 1440p in Forza Horizon 6, and then miraculously, at 4K, the larger GPU of the BC-250 is able to take over and actually beat the Steam Machine.

A system so hamstrung by the CPU makes sense in the context of a console. Sony has a performance target, and it makes sense to opt for a weaker CPU and a more powerful GPU. The CPU can reach that performance target. But in the context of a PC where you’re given more options, resolutions, and performance-enhancing features, the limitation of the CPU becomes clear. There’s an obvious performance wall you’ll run into with the BC-250 that no amount of tweaking can solve.

For a clear view of the CPU limitation here, look at the Forza Horizon 6 benchmark above. Running at 1080p with Low graphics is going to induce a CPU bottleneck in most systems, but the gap between GPU render performance and CPU render performance here is massive. According to the game’s benchmark, we were bottlenecked by the CPU entirely throughout the run.

Even at 4K, you can see that the CPU is still a significant influence on performance in this game, showcasing just how unbalanced this system is. Again, that imbalance makes sense for the PS5, but it’s a critical caveat with the BC-250.

In the gallery above, you can browse our other comparative results to get an idea where the BC-250 lands. I’m going to move past comparisons and look at the BC-250 in isolation. An apples-to-apples comparison really isn’t possible (nor fair) with the BC-250. That’s not only due to the wide performance window depending on your specific board and software stack, but also the clear performance limitations of the BC-250 that require certain workloads that wouldn’t make sense with other machines.

Chief among those limitations is VRAM, and memory in general. You have just 16 GB of GDDR6 for the whole system, which is much less of an issue on the PS5 where there’s careful memory management. As you can see in the chart above, I don’t have 4K results for Spider-Man 2 or Doom: The Dark Ages, and that’s due to a lack of VRAM.

In both cases, the games crashed at 4K, but worse, they wouldn’t start back up. I made the mistake of flipping to 4K before turning FSR on, which locked me out of starting the game until I manually edited the settings file prior to launch. 4K is possible on the BC-250, though it has a very narrow performance window considering the VRAM limitations and CPU performance.

Although FSR Performance mode is ideal for 4K (50% scaling, 1080p input resolution), I opted for Balanced to avoid the CPU bottleneck we can see present in other games (you can even see it here in some games, such as Spider-Man 2). However, turning up the input resolution also puts a greater strain on VRAM. You’ll need time and patience to experiment with these more demanding titles to find the ideal balance of settings on the BC-250; of course, if you’re just playing Silksong, none of this matters much.

The VRAM limitation is also relevant for frame generation. With such a narrow memory footprint, you’ll struggle to use frame generation at 4K if you’re already pushing the VRAM to its limits (those buffered frames need to live somewhere). Thankfully, Lossless Scaling is an option on Linux with LSFG-VK, which doesn’t strain your VRAM like in-engine tools.

An important aspect of performance with the BC-250 is cooling. Most governor profiles cap temperature at 80 degrees for multiple reasons. First, the heatsink of the BC-250 is closed on top. You can sit and rip apart the top of the heatsink for direct airflow with a pair of tweezers, but I left the heatsink on my board intact for now, using two Arctic P12 fans to assist with cooling.

Cooling is all the more important with the 40CU unlock and enabling the extra two Zen 2 cores. Stress-testing in Furmark over a 20-minute run, you can see how quickly the GPU throttles from 1,850 MHz back down to 1,500 MHz as it reaches the temperature cap of 80 degrees.

Remember, however, that Furmark is a stress test. I wasn’t thermal throttling in games, with the CPU and GPU settling around 70 degrees in Doom: The Dark Ages. I’ve included CPU and GPU power in the chart above, as well, and you can see that, combined, they rarely poked over 100W. Keep in mind that we’re exclusively looking at GPU and CPU power here, not whole system power. Whole system power can peak above 225W.

The stock heatsink and dual Arctic P12S do a good job keeping the BC-250 chugging along, even with all of the silicon unlocked and a moderate overclock on the GPU. However, Furmark makes it clear that this current iteration of the system can’t sustain its performance over long periods of time. It would take longer for that drop to show up in the most demanding games, unlike in Furmark, where we can see the drop in just 20 minutes. But I plan on revisiting the cooling solution in this BC-250 build. Maybe I can even raise the temperature limit closer to the 100-degree TJmax.

The bad and the ugly of BC-250 gaming

Although the BC-250 offers compelling performance for the price, I’d be remiss if I didn’t highlight the numerous quirks I ran into while testing. There are performance issues and limitations with the board that you can explain with hardware, and further compatibility issues that you can explain away with Linux. Then, there’s everything else: the weird bugs, quirks, and oddities that pop up when running a largely community-developed software stack on unofficial hardware that wasn’t built for this purpose.

The above image of Resident Evil 9 is a microcosm of what I’m talking about. The RE Engine is remarkably scalable, and that was on full display with my BC-250 testing. Requiem offered excellent performance, even all the way up to 4K. It didn’t feel like I was compromising much of anything with the BC-250. But then I turned on the “hair strands” setting, and the result is what you can see above.

No, it’s not due to the CU unlock, any overclock, or even the overlay you can see. It’s just something with this set of hardware, this software stack, and the hair strands setting in Resident Evil Requiem.

Similarly, in Doom: The Dark Ages, any resolution change I would apply necessitated a restart of the game. Otherwise, I’d get the ghostly streaking you can see in the image above. On one of these reboots, the game suddenly stopped rendering reflective surfaces, resulting in the strange black voids you can see below.

This isn’t a criticism of the BC-250, and certainly not of the remarkable work of the passionate developers and enthusiasts who’ve created fixes and workarounds for the hardware. The fact that this board boots at all and runs games is a minor miracle. The context of what the board is, however, is important.

You will, inevitably, run into strange issues that aren’t documented anywhere. These are two examples, but I also ran into strange problems elsewhere. The widely used MangoHUD overlay, for example, didn’t pull in my GPU’s clock speed correctly after an update, even after ensuring I applied the community fix through the GPU governor to map the reporting correctly. And once you add external devices, compatibility gets even more complex. The board doesn’t have Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, for example, and an external adapter should work (this UGreen Wi-Fi 6 adapter I purchased does), but it’s just as likely that a driver for another adapter doesn’t work or isn’t available.

I don’t have an issue with these quirks, but the BC-250 also isn’t my primary gaming machine. You should just be aware of them. And, if you’re going to invest in a BC-250 build of your own, be ready to encounter some strange issues that you might not be able to easily troubleshoot.

What’s next?

The BC-250 is a project, and like any good project, it isn’t done here. Now that I’ve messed around with the configuration, tried out different distros, got the critical mods working, and measured performance, I want to actually use the BC-250 long-term. Maybe I can find some additional optimization steps I can take, or workarounds for some of the strange issues that I noticed during testing. Regardless of what it is, I’m confident that I’ll mess around with the BC-250 more outside of just playing games on it.

My clear next step is to work on cooling. I kept things conservative here in order to get valid data in a timely manner, but I want to dig deeper into what I can do on the thermal front, not only to raise the temperature limit, but also to push the GPU overclock further. That may involve some CU tinkering, as well; if I can get similar performance at 36 CUs and better thermal headroom, I may be able to push higher overall performance.

A very rare sight indeed; that's how I'd describe the price of the deal on AMD's Gigabyte Gaming Radeon RX 9070 GRE graphics card, on sale at Newegg for $499, a return to its lowest-ever price. It's a very grim time for hunting down PC component upgrades, so to see an actual deal on a GPU that takes it below its MSRP in today's climate is a bit of a shock. The MSRP on the RX 9070 GRE is $549, having only recently extended its availability outside of the Chinese market. To grab the $35 discount and hit the $499 deal price, you must provide your email address to Newegg by clicking the "Extra Discount Available" link.

● Check out this deal at Newegg

The Radeon RX 9070 GRE is built on AMD’s RDNA 4 graphics architecture and uses the same Navi 48 GPU as the Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT. Initially released for the Chinese market, the RX 9070 GRE features a cut-down version of the Navi 48 chip with 48 compute units compared to the RX 9070's 56.

The RX 9070 GRE also cuts the available VRAM to just 12GB of GDDR6, but still sports bandwidth speeds of 18 Gbps on a 192-bit bus, producing 432 GB/s of memory bandwidth in gaming and applications.

It's also reasonably power efficient, using just 220W total power draw. Identical to the standard Radeon RX 9070 GPU.

In our benchmark testing, from our review of the Radeon RX 9070 GRE, we found that the card averages 120 FPS at 1080p and 86.6 FPS at 1440p across our 11-game raster-only test suite. Perfect for 1080p and 1440p gaming, the RX 9070 GRE has ample VRAM, but pushing ultra settings on 1440p may tax the 12GB quite quickly.

Taking a quick peek at our performance charts, you can see the GPU outperform the RX 9060 XT 16GB and RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, and slip in closely behind Nvidia's RTX 5070.

In the current PC component market, this is a very rare opportunity to pick up a graphics card for well below its MSRP launch price. So if you're looking for a competent card for 1080p and 1440p gaming, then consider the Gigabyte Gaming RX 9070 GRE for $499.99.

The mid-range CPU segment has become more competitive than ever, with both Intel and AMD refreshing their lineups and pushing aggressive pricing. In one corner, we have the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, an important reset for Intel that prioritizes class-leading productivity performance over efficiency, while also offering solid value. In the other corner is AMD's newly launched Ryzen 7 7700X3D, a more affordable, slightly lower-clocked alternative to the 7800X3D.

This faceoff is particularly interesting because the two chips take very different approaches despite costing about the same price. The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus packs 24 cores and excels in productivity workloads, while also delivering Intel's strongest gaming performance in years. The Ryzen 7 7700X3D, meanwhile, relies on AMD's proven 3D V-Cache technology to deliver gaming performance within 5% of the 7800X3D, although it trails significantly in single- and multi-threaded workloads.

While the Ryzen 7 7700X3D is aimed at gamers looking for X3D performance at a lower price, it faces stiff competition from Intel's aggressively -priced Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, as well as its own sibling, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, which is often available for only a little more.

So, is AMD's gaming-focused approach enough to beat Intel's well-rounded Arrow Lake Refresh processor, or has Intel finally found the right balance of price and performance to reclaim the mid-range crown? In this six-round faceoff, we compare these two sub-$350 CPUs to find out which one comes out on top.

Features and Specifications: Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus vs AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D

Taking a look at the technical specifications, it's clear that each chip adopts a distinct strategy for the mid-range market. While Intel has optimized its architecture for a higher core and thread count along with improved interconnect speeds, AMD continues to leverage its stacked cache to maintain gaming dominance on a long-lived platform.

The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is based on the original Arrow Lake-S family, utilizing the same microarchitecture that we saw on the 265K, built using TSMC’s 3nm process. It matches the flagship 285K with a 24-core configuration (8 Lion Cove P-cores and 16 Skymont E-cores) and operates with a 125W TDP. The chip can scale to a 250W Maximum Turbo Power (MTP), which is the maximum power limit that this CPU can consume for short periods when running at maximum turbo boost frequencies

Intel has also standardized several enthusiast-level performance tweaks for Arrow Lake Refresh, most notably a 900 MHz increase in die-to-die frequency and a 400 MHz fabric speed boost. It also officially supports faster DDR5-7200, along with 20 lanes of PCIe Gen 5 and 76MB of total cache. Possibly the only major concern with the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is the LGA 1851 platform. With Intel's next-generation Nova Lake processors expected to launch later this year, the current platform will have a relatively short lifespan, restricting any future upgrade options.

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D serves as a more affordable, lower-clocked variant of the 7800X3D, featuring the same eight Zen 4 cores with a peak boost clock of 4.5 GHz. Its primary architectural strength is its 104MB of total cache including 64MB of vertically stacked L3, which is specifically tuned to eliminate memory latency bottlenecks.

The chip is rated at a 120W TDP with a 162W Package Power Tracking (PPT) limit, though it frequently operates well below these levels during gaming. A major selling point for Team Red is motherboard flexibility as the 7700X3D can be used with existing AM5 motherboards (600 and 800-series chipsets), and AMD has committed to supporting the socket through at least 2029.

⭐ Winner: Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus

While AMD offers a more stable platform and superior gaming efficiency thanks to its large cache size, Intel’s hardware package is more comprehensive for the price. The 270K Plus offers triple the core count, significantly higher frequencies, and faster memory support.

Gaming Benchmarks and Performance: Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus vs Ryzen 7 9700X

To evaluate the gaming performance of these two chips, we conducted our testing at 1080p resolution using an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090. We used this setup to prevent the GPU from becoming the bottleneck, allowing each CPU's gaming performance to shine through. By removing the graphics card as a limiting factor, we can see exactly how the 7700X3D’s 3D V-Cache stacks up against the higher core count and clock speeds of the 270K Plus.

We used identical systems for testing. You can read more about our full system configuration in our Ryzen 7 7700X3D review and Core Ultra 7 270K Plus review.

Across a comprehensive 16-game geomean, the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D holds its position as the superior gaming chip, delivering a 174.3 FPS average. This represents a 5.3% performance lead over the 270K Plus, which produced a 165.6 FPS average. While Intel's latest flagship has significantly narrowed the gap compared to the original Arrow Lake silicon, AMD’s 3D V-cache architecture continues to provide a higher performance in the majority of tested titles.

Even when examining the 1% low frame rates, which is the perceived smoothness while gaming, the 7700X3D maintains a slight edge with a 118 FPS average compared to the 115 FPS from the 270K Plus.

AMD's stacked cache gives the 7700X3D a clear edge in games that are sensitive to memory latency. For instance, in Minecraft RT, the 7700X3D delivered 144.5 FPS average, dwarfing the 89.7 FPS produced by the 270K Plus for a massive 61.1% performance advantage. We see similarly dominant leads for AMD in F1 2024, where it leads by 30.4% (201.8 vs. 154.7 FPS), and in Final Fantasy XIV, where it holds a 21.7% lead (177.7 vs. 146.0 FPS). Even in esports titles like Counter-Strike 2, the 7700X3D maintains a comfortable 7.3% lead with 707.9 FPS over Intel’s 660.0 FPS.

Intel’s Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is no slouch, however, as it leverages its higher boost frequencies and the new iBOT runtime translation layer to take the lead in several games. Intel manages a win in Hogwarts Legacy, producing 135.3 FPS for a 9.1% advantage over AMD’s 124.0 FPS, a result directly attributed to iBOT. Team Blue also edges out victories in The Last of Us Part 1 with 175.6 FPS (6% lead) and Spider-Man 2 with 207.2 FPS (5% lead).

In many other modern titles, the two processors are essentially locked in a dead heat. For example, in DOOM: The Dark Ages, the 270K Plus delivers 200.4 FPS while the 7700X3D is right beside it at 200.0 FPS. The story is similar in Flight Simulator 24, where Intel's 120.5 FPS and AMD's 114.9 FPS result in a negligible difference during actual gameplay. These results indicate that while the 7700X3D is the more consistent gaming choice, especially in cache-heavy titles, the 270K Plus is a highly competitive gaming chip that delivers impressive results for its $300 price tag.

The biggest difference between these two architectures is noticeable when analyzing power consumption and efficiency metrics. Based on our 16-game CPU power geomean, the 7700X3D is clearly way more efficient, drawing an average of just 60.9 watts while gaming. In comparison, the 270K Plus consumed 107.3 watts on average, which is a significant 76.2% increase in power. This results in a massive gap in gaming efficiency where the 7700X3D delivers 2.86 FPS per watt, making it roughly 85.7% more efficient than the 270K Plus, which trails at 1.54 FPS per watt.

Intel does take the lead when it comes to raw frequency, with the 270K Plus maintaining an impressive 5,247 MHz average clock speed across our gaming suite. This is over 700 MHz faster than the 7700X3D, which averaged 4,505 MHz. Despite the much higher clocks and power draw of the Intel chip, its thermal management remains surprisingly competitive when paired with the right cooling solution. The 270K Plus averaged 59°C during gaming, though it still runs warmer than the 7700X3D, which stays at a cooler 55°C average.

When factoring in the cost of the silicon, the competition for the best bang for your buck is incredibly tight. The Ryzen 7 7700X3D provides a value of 0.53 FPS per dollar, narrowly edging out the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, which sits at 0.52 FPS per dollar.

⭐ Winner: AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D

The 7700X3D’s overall higher average frame rates and excellent efficiency makes it the more attractive option for a dedicated gaming build. Since raw gaming performance, efficiency, and thermals all favor Team Red in this category, the Ryzen 7 7700X3D takes the win for this round.

Productivity Performance: Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus vs AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D

AMD's X3D processors are widely known for their gaming prowess. However, they have historically struggled to maintain the same level of dominance in productivity performance. The Ryzen 7 7700X3D is no exception, as its cache-focused architecture and lower clock speeds result in relatively weak single- and multi-threaded results.

In contrast, Intel has managed to maintain its standing in the productivity segment even when its gaming performance faced challenges. The 270K Plus is a productivity workhorse that is capable of delivering excellent productivity performance making it a standout choice for users who need a balanced system for both work and play.

In multi-threaded workloads, the performance gap between these two processors is pretty massive, primarily driven by Intel's higher core count advantage. Across our multi-threaded performance ranking geomean, the Intel chip delivers a score of 626 compared to the 272 produced by the 7700X3D, representing a staggering 130% performance lead for Team Blue. This level of parallel processing power places the 270K Plus in a completely different performance tier, making it more comparable to much more expensive flagship processors.

Individual benchmarks further highlight this lopsided victory for Intel across various professional tasks. In Cinebench 2024’s multi-core test, the 270K Plus scores 2,509 points, which is roughly 135.6% faster than the 1,065 points achieved by the 7700X3D. This trend continues in POV-Ray, where Intel leads by approximately 169.5% (15,697 vs. 5,823 PPS), and in V-Ray 6, where it maintains a massive 129.5% advantage (45,016 vs. 19,615). Even in intensive video encoding tasks via HandBrake x265, the Intel chip more than doubles the performance of its AMD rival, delivering 29.9 FPS compared to just 14.3 FPS for the 7700X3D. These results demonstrate that for heavy rendering or data-crunching workloads, Intel is the undisputed leader in this price bracket.

A similar trend can be seen when examining single-threaded performance, a crucial metric for general system responsiveness and applications that do not scale across multiple cores. In our single-threaded geomean, the 270K Plus scores 278 points, which is 42.5% faster than the 195 achieved by the 7700X3D. Specific tests like Cinebench 2024’s single-core benchmark show the 270K Plus maintaining a 39.7% lead over the 7700X3D (145 vs. 103.8 points), while the lead grows to a staggering 82.6% in POV-Ray’s single-core test (1,138 vs. 623 PPS). Even in audio encoding, the Intel chip finishes the Lame Extended task in 68.61 seconds, whereas the 7700X3D trails at 91.53 seconds.

⭐Winner: Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus

Ultimately, the 270K Plus simply blows the competition out of the water when it comes to productivity. While the 7700X3D is a highly efficient and specialized CPU for gaming, it cannot match the raw horsepower that Intel offers. For any user whose daily routine involves video editing, 3D rendering, or heavy multitasking, the 270K Plus is the obvious choice and should be the clear favorite for a multi-purpose system.

Overclocking: Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus vs AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D

While both manufacturers provide tools to squeeze extra performance from their silicon, the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is built as an enthusiast-friendly, fully unlocked processor. The AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D, on the other hand, is a more restricted processor designed primarily for out-of-the-box gaming efficiency.

For the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, overclocking is a centerpiece of the experience. As a fully unlocked K-series SKU, it offers users granular control over per-core voltages, power limits, and clock speeds via an unlocked multiplier. While these changes can be done by entering the BIOS, one can also download the Intel XTU (Extreme Tuning Utility) software to fine tune the CPU.

One of the most significant changes seen on Arrow Lake Refresh is that Intel has standardized several high-end performance tweaks including the 900MHz die-to-die frequency bump and the 400MHz fabric speed increase. This means users receive enthusiast-level interconnect performance without necessarily needing a premium Z-series motherboard. That said, Z890 boards are still necessary as they offer sophisticated tools for manual tuning and pushing the CPU to its limits.

In contrast, the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D follows the same path as previous Zen 4 X3D processors including a locked multiplier, which prevents traditional manual overclocking. Users are instead limited to automated and semi-automated features like Precision Boost Overdrive 2 (PBO2) and Curve Optimizer. PBO2 allows the CPU to dynamically adjust its frequencies based on available power and thermal headroom, while Curve Optimizer enables more advanced fine-tune voltage offsets for each of the eight Zen 4 cores.

While these tools can lead to sustained higher boost clocks, the sensitive nature of the 3D V-Cache stack leads to thermal challenges that limit frequency headroom. Thus, overclocking gains on the 7700X3D are often minimal compared to the flexibility offered by the Intel chip.

⭐Winner: Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus

The 270K Plus is a far more overclocking-friendly product. It offers a vast suite of features that AMD simply cannot match due to its architectural restrictions and locked multiplier.

Power Consumption, Efficiency, and Cooling: Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus vs AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D

This is a crucial section of the faceoff as it highlights the most significant architectural divide between these two processors. While the 270K Plus prioritizes raw performance throughput, the 7700X3D focuses on extreme efficiency. This is immediately evident in their official power ratings where Intel specifies a 125W TDP with a massive 250W Maximum Turbo Power (MTP), while AMD utilizes a 120W TDP with a 162W Package Power Tracking (PPT) limit.

In synthethic multi-threaded workloads, the difference is quite evident. While running HandBrake x265 10-bit encode, the 270K Plus consumes an average of 226W, which is more than triple the 72W required by the Ryzen 7 7700X3D. A similar trend appears in VP9 encoding, where Intel draws 184W compared to AMD’s efficient 65W. Even in lighter tasks like single-threaded y-cruncher AVX workloads, the Intel chip requires 55W while the AMD chip stays at a modest 32W. Idle power consumption also favors Team Red where the 7700X3D idles at 19W and draws 22W during YouTube playback, whereas the 270K Plus sits higher at 29W and 38W, respectively.

When we translate these power figures into efficiency metrics, AMD’s lead tends to stay ahead in most traditional benchmarks. In Cinebench 2024, the 7700X3D produces 14.4 points per watt, significantly outperforming the 10.4 points per watt from the 270K Plus. In HandBrake x265, AMD achieves a superior efficiency rating of 5W per FPS , while Intel trails at 7.56W per FPS.

However, the efficiency scatter plots provide a more nuanced look at how performance scaling impacts total energy consumption. In the Blender Classroom scatterplot, the 270K Plus delivers a much higher performance of roughly 135 samples per minute, but it consumes over 33,000 kJ of task energy. In contrast, the 7700X3D finishes with only around 60 samples per minute but uses significantly less total energy at roughly 4,500 kJ.

The HandBrake x265 scatterplot shows a similar trade-off where Intel reaches 30 FPS but consumes over 55 kJ, while AMD provides 14 FPS at roughly 36 kJ. Interestingly, the Linpack scatterplot shows the 270K Plus reaching over 850 GFLOPS with roughly 11WHr of energy, making it slightly more efficient in terms of performance-per-energy than the 7700X3D, which delivers roughly 340 GFLOPS for 10Whr.

From a cooling perspective, the 250W MTP on the 270K Plus means that it requires a robust cooling solution, like a 360mm AIO, to avoid thermal throttling during extended all-core loads. The 7700X3D is far easier to manage, remaining remarkably efficient and manageable with a mid-range air cooler. While the 270K Plus delivers class leading performance, it does so by significantly compromising efficiency in heavy workloads compared to AMD.

⭐Winner: AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D

Pricing: Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus vs AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D

The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus was initially introduced with a justified $300 price tag, but you'll now find it between $300 and $320. The AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D made its debut just last month and carries a $330 MSRP, placing it right under the 7800X3D. Essentially, there is not a major difference when it comes to the chips themselves, however, the true financial divide becomes apparent when we look at the total platform cost.

The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus demands a more substantial investment to reach its full potential. While one can opt for a B860 motherboard, a compatible Z890 motherboard is necessary in order to access premium overclocking and tuning features. These typically start around $150-$200, and can go as high as $600 packed with premium features. To handle the processor′s 250W Maximum Turbo Power(MTP) during heavy productivity tasks, a high−end 360mm AIO liquid cooler ($100-$150) or a dual-tower air-cooler ($50-$100) is recommended.

In contrast, the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D offers a much more budget-friendly entry point. A solid B650 motherboard can be found for around $120-$150 and the chip can be effectively cooled with a modest $50 air cooler.

Unfortunately, both platforms are held back by the ongoing global shortage of memory, which has caused prices to shoot up significantly. Since both CPUs require DDR5 RAM, builders are stuck in a RAMpocalypse where a basic 32GB kit costs over $400. This extra cost is bad news for both sides as it cancels out any price advantage.

Overall, the lower upfront platform cost makes the 7700X3D a slightly more attractive option for users prioritizing their budget. Furthermore, the AM5 socket offers a clear upgrade path through at least 2029, ensuring that your motherboard investment remains viable for future CPU generations. That is not the case with Intel, as the LGA 1851 socket is expected to be replaced once the next-generation of Nova Lake CPUs arrive.

⭐ Winner: AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D

Ultimately, while both the chips are available at a very similar price range, the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D is the smarter financial play for a majority of users. Its significantly lower platform costs, superior gaming efficiency, and guaranteed platform longevity provide a level of value that the more power-hungry Intel refresh cannot quite match.

Bottom Line: Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus vs AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D

The Ryzen 7 7700X3D and Core Ultra 7 270K Plus are designed for very different users, even though they sit in roughly the same price range. Like previous X3D chips, AMD's latest processor is built with gaming in mind, using its large 3D V-Cache to deliver excellent frame rates while keeping power consumption impressively low. Intel, on the other hand, combines a 24-core design with higher clock speeds and platform improvements to create one of the strongest productivity processors in its class without giving up much gaming performance.

The final score is tied at three rounds apiece. AMD comfortably wins gaming performance, power efficiency, and platform value, three factors that matter a lot for buyers shopping in this price segment. The AM5 platform also provides a significantly longer upgrade path, allowing users to drop in future processors without replacing their motherboard.

Intel, however, deserves recognition for what it has accomplished with the 270K Plus. It delivers outstanding single- and multi-threaded performance, offers a fully unlocked overclocking experience, and narrows the gaming gap to just a few percentage points in many modern titles. If your workload includes video editing, software development, 3D rendering, or other heavily threaded applications, the 270K Plus is the obvious choice and justifies its higher power draw.

For everyone else, the Ryzen 7 7700X3D is the more compelling CPU. It offers faster gaming performance, exceptional efficiency, lower platform costs, and a future-proof AM5 ecosystem. Unless your workload regularly extends beyond gaming into demanding productivity applications, AMD's latest X3D chip is the easier processor to recommend.

⭐ Winner: Tie

More CPU Faceoffs

• AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 vs Ryzen 9 9950X3D
• Intel Core i5-14400 vs AMD Ryzen 5 7600X
• AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D vs Intel Core i9-14900K
• AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D vs Ryzen 7 9800X3D

AMD’s Q2 2026 financial results show record revenue across the business, but gaming is contributing less and less to that overall pie. Overall, AMD’s Q2 revenue was $11.5 billion, up 50% year-over-year and up 13% quarter-over-quarter. In AMD’s gaming segment, however, it saw $779 million in revenue, down 31% YoY due to “lower semi-custom revenue,” according to AMD’s press release.

That’s not a new story, as AMD has continually pointed to the late stage of the console lifecycle as the driving force behind declining gaming revenue. CEO Lisa Su, however, also says revenue is declining due to rising component costs. “Gaming graphics revenue also declined year-over-year as higher industry-wide component costs contributed to higher graphics card prices and weighed on overall demand,” Su said.

Earlier this year, AMD said that it expected a 20% decline in gaming revenue in the second half of the year, which is reaffirmed in its Q2 2026 earnings call. “[We expect] a modest decline in our client gaming segment, with slight growth in client offset by strong double-digit decline in gaming,” said AMD's Jean Hu, executive vice president and Chief Financial Officer.

Despite these declines, Su says she's 'optimistic' about the future of AMD's client CPU business, particularly when it comes to AI PCs. "I think AI PCs will become more important as it relates to our client business in 2026. I think our first half performance has been very strong, and although we are expecting that the market will decline in the second half, the market's actually held up, you know, better than you know most people would have thought," said Su.

Despite a large decline in gaming revenue, AMD’s overall client business (including gaming) brought in $3.8 billion, up 6% year-over-year. Su says this is due to strong demand for Ryzen CPUs, but also increased market share for Ryzen PRO chips. “Commercial adoption continued to expand in the quarter, with Ryzen PRO sales growing more than 50% year over year as we closed new wins with large healthcare, technology, automotive, and financial services companies,” Su said.

Declining gaming revenue has been massively offset by increasing data center revenue, unsurprisingly. AMD’s data center revenue is up 107% year-over-year, representing $6.7 billion of revenue. AMD expects that the data center will continue growing the business in the next quarter, as well.

“We expect [Q3] revenue to be approximately $13 billion plus or minus $300 million, at the middle point of our guidance, revenue is expected to be up 41% year over year, driven by very strong double-digit growth in our data center segment,” said Hu.

Surprisingly, AMD also says it expected “strong” double-digit growth in its embedded business, which has traditionally represented the smallest slice of AMD’s revenue pie. In Q2, embedded revenue was $977 million, which is up 19% year-over-year, which AMD attributes to increased demand (perhaps in the realm of physical AI). That means gaming is the smallest part of AMD's revenue pie for the moment, and that position seems likely to continue until we see some kind of new discrete GPU or console hardware from the division that might spur upgrades.

We're celebrating the 30th anniversary of Tom's Hardware. Since the beginning of Tom’s Hardware in 1996, we’ve been covering CPUs. Over the course of the past 30 years, we’ve maintained a comprehensive list of the best CPUs for gaming by reviewing each new release, and we’ve compiled thousands of data points spanning years to compile our CPU benchmark hierarchy. From the Pentium II and the introduction of Dual Data Rate memory to dual 3D V-Cache CPUs, Tom’s Hardware has been there for it all.

It’s time to look back, not just on Tom’s Hardware’s role in the world of CPUs over the past 30 years, but on the broader CPU market. Earth-shattering releases at a given time turned out to be footnotes in hindsight, and bubbling competition that seemed like no real threat turned into seismic shifts in the AMD vs. Intel battle. Hopefully, along the way, we’ll see some reflections of what’s going on in the world of CPUs today.

This is a celebration of 30 years of CPU coverage here at Tom’s Hardware, a history lesson about how the AMD and Intel of yesteryear arrived at the positions they’re in today, and a retrospective of the CPUs that stood the test of time against the refreshes that faded into obscurity just as soon as they were released. We hope you enjoy it.

Ruffling feathers from day one (1996 - 1998)

Ruffling feathers from day one (1996 - 1998)

Like much of the early internet, the true beginnings of Tom’s Hardware (or, rather, Tom’s Hardware Guide) is difficult to pin down, but the earliest archived article concerns the SoftMenu BIOS, which allowed you to change CPU settings through software rather than physical jumper cables; it should go without saying that this article was from July 1, 1996. There were articles before this one, with the original domain of sysdoc.pair.com going online in February 1996.

Tom’s Hardware gained a lot of traction a year later with a CPU review: a look at the Intel Pentium II ‘Klamath’ processor.

Tom’s Hardware’s founder, Thomas Pabst, had discussed CPUs previously, like in a dense CPU guide published the same year, but the Intel Pentium II review marked a turning point. It was published March 1, 1997, more than two months before Intel launched the Pentium II 80522 (or Klamath). It was not positive: “...since I wouldn't eat [Mad Cow Disease] infected beef, I wouldn't be interested in risking an infection of my computer with this CPU either,” wrote Pabst.

The CPU wasn’t officially available, but Pabst was able to test the chip with a pre-release unit shared by two German magazines: C'T Magazin fur Computertechnik and PC Professionell. Following the publication of all three reviews, Intel targeted the two German magazines, threatening to withhold advertising dollars and take legal action against them. Pabst publicized this fiasco and was contacted by The New York Times, which also covered the story. Intel backed down. Pabst later wrote that “...this 'David against Goliath'-incident made Tom's Hardware Guide very famous.”

In the following months, Pabst focused on CPUs quite a bit, breaking from the performance-tuning guides and general enthusiast information the website had previously published. The situation with Intel made Pabst a “secret star,” so much so that AMD not only offered Pabst a free review unit of the upcoming K6, but also apparently offered to cover legal fees should Intel pursue the situation further.

Although the unofficial review of the Pentium II predates it, the first review that looks most like the technical reviews that have been published on Tom’s Hardware for decades came in April 1997 with a review of the AMD K6, a CPU that established AMD as a true competitor to Intel, claiming Pentium II-like speeds for less money.

The performance wasn’t quite on the level of a Pentium II, most notably because the K6 originally arrived at 233 MHz, when 266 MHz was promised. But it was competitive, particularly when compared to the Pentium II 233, and much cheaper. Pabst concluded the review, “All in all I'm sure that this CPU will be very successful… Whoever is contemplating the purchase of an Intel Pentium or Pentium MMX CPU can forget about this now. The AMD K6 is faster and cheaper.”

Later that same month, Pabst published a proper review of the Pentium II, now using finalized silicon. In DOS games and the 32-bit Windows NT, Pentium IIs showed a commanding lead over the K6, though the battle on Windows 95 was closer. “The world is back to normal. Intel’s managers can sleep quietly again. The Pentium II shows that Intel is still the leader in the CPU market,” the review concluded.

A review of the Cyrix/IBM 6x86MX went live in 1997, as well, showing competitive performance with the K6, but much of the rest of the year was focused elsewhere after the Pentium II/K6 showdown. Looking back, it’s interesting to note the dynamic at play between AMD and Intel, with Pabst using a running gag of referring to Intel as the “Empire,” and competitors like AMD and Cynix as “Rebels.” Although Intel backed away from further action on Pentium II, it wouldn’t be the last time Pabst and Intel butted heads.

The Pentium III incident (1999 - 2001)

The Pentium III incident (1999 - 2001)

The competitive performance of K6 brought AMD into focus as the rival to Intel, which Pabst often described as “almost-monopolistic” at the time. However, AMD really put itself on the map with the release of K7, or as it’s better known, Athlon, in June 1999. In our review, we described it as “a milestone in the whole processor scene,” due in part to AMD’s unique three-way instruction decoder, which allows instructions of variable complexity through all three lanes. Intel’s P6 architecture in Pentium III also had a three-way instruction decoder, but they were segmented based on the complexity of the instruction.

We’re still firmly in the single-core era of CPUs here, so an architectural divergence like this, even before testing, represented a goldmine of speed gains. Rather than releasing several variants of silicon sliced up in different ways, as we see with modern CPUs, Intel and AMD refined their chips and released new versions with faster clock speeds. AMD released the Athlon 600 as the fastest chip in the range at 600 MHz first, but less than two months later, it introduced the Athlon 650, and two months after that, the Athlon 700.

Intel was caught off guard and quickly introduced the Pentium III 600 to counter AMD. The original Pentium III range, codenamed Katmai, was largely a refinement of Pentium II ‘Deschutes’ chips; both were built using a 250nm node, in fact. In our original Athlon review, we noted instability with the Pentium III 600, suggesting the architecture couldn’t handle such high clock speeds.

The original ‘Katmai’ range of Pentium IIIs was short-lived, and later in 1999, Intel introduced a new revision called Coppermine. Coppermine introduced an on-chip L2 cache for Intel, and it was built on a 180nm node, allowing Intel to go from 9.5 million transistors on Katmai to 28 million on Coppermine, as well as push clock speeds up to 733 MHz with the initial range, squeezing out a minor increase over the Athlon 700. Less than two months later, AMD introduced Orion, or Athlon Model 2, which also used a 180nm node and clocked up to 750 MHz. This back and forth of minor clock speed improvements is going to stick with us for at least another half of a decade, so strap in.

The goal, of course, was the first 1 GHz CPU, a milestone that AMD claimed for itself in March 2000 with the introduction of the Athlon 1000. Intel had shown a 1 GHz Pentium III, but AMD released a 1 GHz Athlon first. Intel followed shortly after with its first CPU to hit the gigahertz milestone. Intel didn’t want to place second again, so it went to work on the Pentium III 1.13 GHz, which it introduced in July.

Pentium II made Tom’s Hardware a name in the PC industry, but the Pentium III 1.13 GHz gave it a name among enthusiasts. Our review found that the processor wasn’t stable at 1.13 GHz, and less than a month after introducing the chip, Intel recalled it. The Pentium 1.13 GHz would eventually come back in 2001, but at the pace of CPU innovation at the time, even a six-month delay was detrimental.

In June 2000, AMD introduced a refinement of Athlon, codenamed Thunderbird, and days before Intel’s recall, introduced the Athlon 1100. AMD remained uncontested throughout the rest of the year, pushing Thunderbird up to 1.2 GHz. Intel was closing the curtain on Pentium III and trying to move attention away from Athlon toward its upcoming Pentium 4 range.

Going for gigahertz (2001 - 2004)

Going for gigahertz (2001 - 2004)

Intel was struggling to keep pace with Athlon, but work was going on behind the scenes on the new NetBurst microarchitecture, which was set to become the successor to P6. It was introduced to the world with the Willamette core inside the first Pentium 4. Like most major microarchitecture shifts we’ve seen from Intel and AMD, NetBurst wasn’t an immediate success. However, Pabst noted in our review: “I am certain that Intel will deliver very fast Pentium 4 processors very soon. Intel has finally won back the ability to make AMD's life a lot harder.”

Intel pushed P6 down to a 130nm node with the release of Tualatin Pentium III chips, but the focus was on Pentium 4 and optimizing NetBurst. In March, AMD introduced the Athlon 1333, but Team Red was losing steam. Intel had already released a Pentium 4 1.5 GHz, and it introduced the Pentium 4 1.7 GHz (along with a price cut to the range) in April 2001. With a new microarchitecture seemingly bursting with potential, it was only a matter of time before Intel made its way back to the top.

That came in August, when Intel planted its flag on the 2 GHz milestone with Pentium 4, and beat out AMD’s fastest Athlon chip. AMD didn’t like that. Later in the year, in October, AMD introduced its Athlon XP range, and with it came a sneaky switch in marketing strategy. Rather than include the clock speed as part of the processor name (i.e., Athlon 1333), AMD started using model names. No, the Athlon XP 1500+ wasn’t clocked at 1.5 GHz; it was clocked at 1.3 GHz. This nomenclature climbed all the way to the top, with the Athlon XP 2100+, which was not 2.1 GHz, but rather 1.7 GHz.

At the time, AMD described this shift as an alignment with what it was able to deliver with Athlon. During this era, we start to see more significant architecture divergences between Intel and AMD, so much so that like-for-like clocks could result in vastly different performance. That’s what we found in our Athlon XP review, in fact, with the Athlon XP 1800+ (clocked at 1,533 MHz) contesting the Pentium 4 2 GHz. Still, it’s not hard to see what AMD was trying to do. In January 2002, Intel introduced its Northwood core for Pentium 4, which could clock up to 2.2 GHz. AMD wasn’t able to break the 2 GHz barrier yet, but it used product names to suggest it had.

Names weren’t enough. By the middle of 2002, Northwood had picked up steam and could clock as high as 2.8 GHz; even the 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 was able to beat AMD’s fastest Athlon XP 2100+ across our benchmarks. AMD was working on the Thoroughbred revision of Athlon XP, including a node shrink down to 130nm to match Intel’s new Northwood core, which it trickled out through 2002. By the end of the year, AMD had shown the Athlon XP 2800+ as a rival to the Pentium 4 2.8 GHz.

Despite lagging in clocks, AMD had become quite popular during this time due to the competitive performance of Athlon XP and (most importantly) a lower price point than the expensive Pentium 4s. Still, there was a stalemate in technology between Intel and AMD, and Intel would break it in November 2002 with the Pentium 4 3.06 GHz.

It was the first consumer CPU to clock to 3 GHz out of the box, adding another notch to Intel’s belt, but it was also the first CPU to bring Intel’s long-standing simultaneous multithreading implementation, called Hyper-Threading, to market. With higher clocks and two threads to play with, the Pentium 4 3.06 GHz cemented Intel at the top of the performance charts, beating out AMD’s fastest Athlon XP and even a 3.6 GHz Pentium 4 (no Hyper-Threading) in some benchmarks. Tom’s Hardware actually benchmarked the Pentium 4 3.6 GHz nearly a year before it was available, and had data in time to compare to the Pentium 4 3.06 GHz with Hyper-Threading.

More cores, more fun (2004 - 2007)

More cores, more fun (2004 - 2007)

The clock speed battle from the late 90s and early 2000s was starting to fall apart. AMD had demonstrated that performance was more than peak clocks with Athlon XP, and Intel was pushing ahead with Hyper-Threading to get more work done simultaneously each clock cycle. The first half of 2003 was dull in the world of CPUs as Intel worked on its Prescott core and AMD mulled over “ClawHammer,” which would eventually become Athlon 64.

Athlon 64 would be the first to bring AMD’s x86-64 ISA extension (called AMD64) to the desktop market (it previously showed up in Opteron). It rolled out in September 2003, and just a week before release, Intel launched the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, which was widely considered a panic switch in response to Athlon 64 while Prescott was still under wraps. Although Intel maintained the performance crown with P4 Extreme against the Athlon 64 FX-51, it did so at a much higher price.

Still, this late-stage battle as Intel and AMD moved toward a 90nm node was important. Intel started marketing expensive, high-performance processors directly to enthusiasts in a market that would eventually get the HEDT, or high-end desktop, name. Meanwhile, AMD designated some Athlon XP chips with the FX name, which signaled high-performance chips with unlocked multipliers.

Intel was first to get down to 90nm with its highly anticipated Prescott core, though it arrived with a whimper. It clocked slower, allowing the FX-51 to remain competitive and Northwood chips to remain at the top of the charts in our review. There, our reviewer Patrick Schmid wrote: “In our opinion, Intel today does not care about Prescott as a processor, but as a marketing instrument. It is fast enough, which is mainly what counts, and since the 90 nm production process yields cheap processors in vast quantities, the Santa Clara-based company gains new flexibility.”

AMD made it down to 90nm later in the year with the FX-55. The FX-55 allowed AMD to close the gap with higher-clocked Pentium 4s, as we found in our review. However, it was becoming clear that the chase for higher clocks wouldn’t be enough. In our review, Schmid wrote in 2004: “Today, the performance gap between the fastest and the slowest processors in our benchmark charts is rather small.”

Intel fired back at the beginning of 2005 with Prescott 2M, a minor revision to the Prescott core with 64-bit ISA extensions, and released the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.73. The tide shift came in the summer of 2005 when AMD launched the Athlon 64 X2, built on a 90nm node, and featuring two cores on the same package.

Intel had released its double-core Pentium D just weeks earlier, which was also a dual-core chip, but the design forced Intel to compromise clock speeds — an important spec given how few applications could actually leverage a dual-core chip in consumer software. AMD ultimately won the battle with the Athlon 64 X2, largely due to the fact that it could keep pace with single-core Athlons in most benchmarks, as you can see in our early preview of the chip.

AMD released more Athlon 64 X2 chips throughout 2005, while Intel rolled out various chips under different Pentium brands, including the Smithfield core on Pentium D. Intel built out the range into 2006, using another node shrink down to 65nm with the Presler core, which was the final revision under the Pentium brand. In January 2006, Tom’s Hardware first reported that Intel planned to drop the Pentium brand, a name that it had kept for over a decade.

In its place? The new Core microarchitecture, finally moving on from NetBurst, which had been plagued with thermal issues as clocks climbed. Built out of Intel’s work in mobile chips, the Core 2 Duo was Intel’s first proper dual-core processor — the “double-core” Pentium D was just two Pentium dies fused together. It was a tide shift.

As we found in our Core 2 Duo review, the base E6600 and E6700 often beat, or at least matched, AMD’s Athlon 64 FX-62, while the supercharged Core 2 Extreme X6800 established a new performance tier at the high-end. Further, it did so at reasonable power levels, finally taking the efficiency fight back to AMD.

Intel doubled down, literally, with the Core 2 Extreme QX6700 at the end of 2006. Although Intel had introduced a four-thread processor previously, the Core 2 Extreme QX6700 was the first CPU with four cores to hit the market. It took two dual-core dies from Core 2 Duo and put them together on a single package. AMD brute-forced a quad-core with the 4x4 platform and dual Athlon 64 FX-70 chips, but there was a major tradeoff in cost, thermals, and power demands.

The coast of Nehalem (2007 - 2010)

The coast of Nehalem (2007 - 2010)

For the first time in the early aughts, Intel was firmly in the driver’s seat for enthusiasts. AMD drummed up some interest with its dual-chip Athlon 64 systems, and it finally moved down to a 65nm node at the start of 2007. But Intel was on a tear, and it would continue its momentum for years to come.

That started by formalizing the success of the Core microarchitecture. Instead of squeezing everything out of a microarchitecture for several generations, as it had done with P6 and NetBurst, Intel transitioned to its well-known tick-tock cycle. First, there’s a node shrink on its existing architecture, then there’s a new microarchitecture on that node, and the cycle continues. Core was the tock at 65nm, and it would move down to Penryn revision at 45nm later in 2007.

AMD struggled to keep pace. After introducing its AM2 socket in 2006, it continued refining the Athlon 64 X2 lineup with a new 65nm node, but Intel was firmly in the lead, forcing AMD to slash prices and settle into the market as a budget-focused alternative to the shiny Core 2 Duos. AMD doubled down in this area with its K8 microarchitecture, releasing a series of efficient “BE” series chips throughout the back half of 2007, which we found were excellent for efficiency and price-to-performance in our review.

Team Red had its chips on K10, and specifically, the new Phenom brand that it made noise about throughout 2006 and 2007. The Phenom X4 series launched in November, featuring the first true quad-core design; that is, using a monolithic die as opposed to MCM like Intel’s Core 2 Quad. Unlike Intel’s Core 2 Extreme, which was reserved for only the most entrenched enthusiasts, AMD targeted midrange builders.

In our Phenom 9700 review, we found that Intel still maintained the performance crown, but AMD offered a cheaper quad-core and offered identical price-to-performance at release. Further, AMD offered support for the chips on both the AM2 socket and the new AM2+ socket, starting a trend of socket longevity that we can still see in action today. With cheaper quad-core CPUs and less upgrade cost, AMD focused less on battling Intel at the high-end and more on delivering in the midrange.

Intel continued to release more Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad models throughout 2008, but behind the scenes, it was working on its next major architectural shift: Nehalem. AMD built out its Phenom line, meanwhile, introducing a tri-core variant, as well as several “Black Edition” models that featured peak clocks and unlocked multipliers for enthusiasts, likely in a bid to grab some attention from Intel’s Extreme lineup.

Nealem came onto the scene in late 2008 in the form of Bloomfield chips. They required an entirely new platform and DDR3 memory, but also promised entirely new performance benefits. Intel managed to create a true quad-core chip with Bloomfield, and one that enthusiasts could actually afford, with the range going down as low as $280. Further, it reintroduced Hyper-Threading after ditching the technology during the early dual-core days, giving enthusiasts eight threads to play with.

The spread between Intel and AMD grew wider. In our review of the Core i7-965 Extreme, we found it was 64% faster than AMD’s fastest chip at the time. Despite offering compelling products at competitive prices, AMD was falling further behind. Intel was far ahead; it had a die shrink ahead, and the legendary Sandy Bridge microarchitecture was waiting in the wings to pick up the tick-tock cycle once again.

AMD bit back in early 2009 with Phenom II (along with Athlon II), finally moving down to 45nm. It brought Team Red back up in the rankings, but Bloomfield still held onto top-end performance. In our original Phemon II review, we found that Intel was about 22% ahead of AMD at the high-end, but AMD offered compelling performance given the platform costs. Sounds familiar.

With tight integration of design and manufacturing under one roof, Intel was moving faster than AMD on process improvements, allowing it to keep a consistent lead in performance, particularly at the high-end. Intel had its Lynnfield chips at 45nm, as well as Clarkdale chips at 32nm, but the 32nm successor to Bloomfield came in early 2010, known as Gulftown. And with Gulftown, Intel could claim a multi-core milestone on a monolithic die for the first time with the six-core Core i7-980X.

At $1,000, the Core i7-980X still only appealed to a small number of enthusiasts. AMD helped fill the gap later in the year with the Phenom X6 launch, introducing six-core models of its own. AMD couldn’t match the 980X at the high-end, but Phenom represented an affordable entry-point to six-core chips if you ran heavily-threaded workloads, as we noted in our review. Still, Phenom X6 was AMD trying to keep pace with Intel. Behind the scenes, AMD was working on a new microarchitecture called Bulldozer, which was built from the ground up for a new generation of chips and finally allowed AMD to move down to 32nm.

Bulldozer bulldozes world records, thermals (2010 - 2013)

Bulldozer bulldozes world records, thermals (2010 - 2013)

It’s easy to pick on Bulldozer in hindsight, but leading up to release, the anticipation was palpable. K8 was a smash success, and K10 built on that success, but Bulldozer was built from the ground up, presumably for the position AMD had found itself in the market. Nearly a year before Bulldozer showed up on the market, however, Intel introduced an architecture that still resonates among enthusiasts today — Sandy Bridge.

Intel unified its product stack with Sandy Bridge and set much of the foundation for the company’s releases through Raptor Lake Refresh. Instead of two broad ranges, Intel placed most of the Sandy Bridge lineup on a single socket. It also brought integrated graphics to all the chips in the lineup, at least in the initial range (some later releases cut the iGPU), as well as unlocked the multiplier on some non-Extreme SKUs to compete with AMD’s unlocked Black Edition chips.

It was a smash success. Reviewing four Sandy Bridge chips, our reviewer Chris Angelini wrote: “Existing Lynnfield- and Clarkdale-based processors already offer strong performance compared to AMD’s lineup. Significant gains, clock-for-clock, compound in the face of notable frequency increases across the board (thanks to a mature 32 nm process), giving Sandy Bridge an even more commanding position.”

Raw performance improvements are one thing, but Sandy Bridge was attractive for several other reasons, as well. Overclocking still represented a solid performance boost in this era, and Intel was offering overclocking capabilities at mainstream price points alongside chart-topping performance out of the box. They also introduced Quick Sync to accelerate video encode/decode, and although we have video encode/decode acceleration in modern GPUs, Quick Sync still serves as a fundamental feature for video editing and media servers.

AMD’s response was Bulldozer, which was rumored ahead of release to outperform Intel’s Core i7-950 by upwards of 50%, as well as introduce a true eight-core chip to the consumer market for the first time. If that wasn’t enough, prior to release, the flagship FX-8150 set a world record for clock speed, peaking at 8.429 GHz. AMD would be the first to release a consumer CPU with eight cores, but just about every other aspect of Bulldozer was problematic.

Achieving eight cores in a single package came with significant trade-offs. Up to this point, AMD hadn’t used any form of simultaneous multithreading, but it implemented a version of SMT in Bulldozer. Unlike Intel’s traditional SMT implementation, Bulldozer used two integer units on a core, but shared floating point resources. The major trade-off was how small the integer execution clusters were in order to save space. AMD designed an architecture for a world of heavily-threaded software that just didn’t exist at the time, and it traded very important single-core speeds to achieve that design.

The flagship FX-8150 was marketed as an eight-core chip, with the eight-core count coming from AMD’s odd SMT implementation. Although there were two integer execution units per “module,” as AMD calls them, the floating point unit was shared. This discrepancy was actually the focal point of a 2015 lawsuit, which AMD settled in 2019 to the tune of over $12 million.

It was a flop. Angelini sums up the issue nicely in his October 2011 review of the FX-8150: “[Intel doesn’t] have to do anything at all. Its nearly year-old 95 W parts fend for themselves without even a price adjustment.” Intel had new chips of its own, as well. Just six months later, it introduced Ivy Bridge, taking the solid foundation of Sandy Bridge and moving it down to a 22nm node.

Ivy Bridge wasn’t a big hit on desktop, but it didn’t need to be, given the advantage Intel had already established with Sandy Bridge. Improvements were in the single digits, as we noted in our Core i7-3770K review, but Ivy Bridge brought improvements to integrated graphics to fight against AMD’s burgeoning lineup of APUs and thermal improvements targeting small form factor devices — especially laptops in a new category of “ultrabooks” that Intel was targeting.

12 months after the FX-8150 was introduced, AMD released a revision of the Bulldozer architecture named Piledriver. It promised better IPC and higher clock speeds, which was compelling, as AMD’s FX-4170 released earlier in the year as the first CPU to hit 4 GHz out of the box. Piledriver had a test run earlier in the year through AMD’s Trinity APUs, as well, showing around a 15% improvement compared to Bulldozer.

The flagship Piledriver, the FX-8350, was indeed better than its Bulldozer predecessor, but it was clear the underlying architecture had issues that wouldn’t allow AMD to scale up. AMD’s flagship was only competitive with Intel’s Core i5 options, and power use, although tamed in Piledriver, still meant the chip ran hot. It was immediately forced into a price cut upon release. After two failures to launch flagships, Intel effectively owned the high-end, which it continued to dominate with CPUs like the Core i7-3970X.

Around six months after Piledriver chips shipped, AMD released another two chips, both running at an insane 220W TDP and shipping with their own liquid cooling system. The highest-end offering, the FX-9590, was the first CPU to hit 5 GHz out of the box. AMD had learned the hard way what it had preached back in the Athlon XP days — clock speed isn’t everything.

The dawn of 14nm (2014 - 2016)

The dawn of 14nm (2014 - 2016)

With a 22nm product shipped, Intel went back to a tock and came out the other side with Haswell. Today, Haswell is heralded as a legendary architecture; we’ve all seen forum comments about gaming with a Core i7-4770K more than a decade after it was released. At the time, however, it established a narrative that would follow Intel for the next several years. That narrative being that Intel ships a new generation of quad-cores, each year, with minor IPC improvements and not much more. That’s certainly the impression Angelini came away with after reviewing the Core i7-4770K.

Intel didn’t have to move the needle beyond that point. Although AMD had shipped Bulldozer and Piledriver, a lot of turmoil was going on behind the scenes. Two further revisions of Bulldozer, Steamroller, and Excavator were planned, but AMD largely canceled the two revisions outside of a few low-end products. During this time, AMD underwent a series of sweeping layoffs and executive changes, cutting thousands of employees. Looking back at the time through a modern lens, some long-time AMD employees say that the company would’ve faced bankruptcy had it not been for semi-custom partnerships with Microsoft and Sony for their game consoles.

From the release of Piledriver in late 2012 through 2017, AMD didn’t release a ton of new CPUs. It released some revisions of Piledriver chips like the FX-8370, but we didn’t see any new microarchitecture. And planned node shrinks with Steamroller and Excavator were canned, with only a handful of desktop CPUs surviving, which were repurposed as low-end Athlon X4 CPUs years later. Intel had won.

It didn’t immediately rest on its laurels, however. Hearing the criticism of Haswell for desktop enthusiasts, Intel introduced the Core i7-4790K alongside other ‘Devil’s Canyon’ chips in mid-2014 as it worked on another tick behind the scenes down to 14nm. The result, which arrived almost a year to the day after Devil’s Canyon, was Broadwell. The Broadwell-H range — not Broadwell-E, which shows up later — isn’t very big and didn’t have much for enthusiasts. But Broadwell got Intel down to 14nm, and it would stay there until the release of Alder Lake CPUs in 2021.

We didn’t know that at the time, though. Broadwell laid the 14nm foundation for Skylake, which came hot on the heels of Broadwell-H after that architecture experienced a series of delays. Intel’s first true eight-core chip, the Core i7-5960X from the Haswell-E range, still gave the HEDT market what they were looking for, but Skylake was pushing ahead in the mainstream. In early performance testing, we said Skylake was the first architecture “to really get enthusiasts excited since Sandy Bridge.”

Intel didn’t need to rush at the time, so it didn’t. There wasn’t an Athlon 64 breathing down Team Blue’s neck. A year later, in 2016, Intel launched Broadwell-E for HEDT, marking the first-ever 10-core desktop CPU with the Core i7-6950X. It wasn’t a massive leap forward over Haswell-E, but Intel was competing with itself. “Intel’s clearly the prettiest girl in the room, is well aware of this fact and, based on Broadwell-E's pricing, doesn't need to beat the ‘value’ of last generation's -Es by much,” our reviewer Igor Wallossek wrote in his Broadwell-E review.

Although Intel was a clear market leader, it was slowing down significantly. Earlier in 2016, it quietly revised its tick-tock cycle, moving to a tick-tock-tock cadence where we’d see a new process followed by a new microarchitecture followed by an optimization of that architecture. Intel wasn’t juiced up with Moore’s Law like it was in the early aughts, but it competed in a category of one. What were you going to do? Buy AMD?

Feeling Zen (2017 - 2020)

Feeling Zen (2017 - 2020)

Shortly after the ball dropped into 2017, Intel released its Kaby Lake range of CPUs, now sporting the “14nm+” process and serving as the first optimization pass in Intel’s new release cadence. It was fine. The range came with a clock speed bump over Skylake, but otherwise, Intel released the same architecture sporting nearly identical specs, from core counts to cache sizes.

Behind the scenes, trouble was brewing. Six months before Kaby Lake made its way to market, AMD detailed its first entirely new microarchitecture since Bulldozer, named Zen. In addition to promising a 40% improvement in IPC over Excavator, the Zen platform would come with support for DDR4 and finally move AMD down to a 14nm node. For the architecture itself, AMD implemented SMT, completely redesigned its cache hierarchy, and added a micro-op cache to aid an updated branch predictor.

Two months after Kaby Lake rolled out, AMD launched the Ryzen 7 1800X. The revolution didn’t happen in a day. In our Ryzen 7 1800X review, reviewer Paul Alcorn (now Tom’s Hardware editor-in-chief) wrote: “AMD's Ryzen 7 launch represents more than just a new CPU family. For most of our readers, it signals the return of competition to the enthusiast-oriented processor market. And considering the flagship 1800X’s potent cost advantage compared to Intel's Core i7-6900K… Ryzen 7 does deliver. It's just not as universally superior as the company wanted everyone to believe.”

AMD still had quite the year ahead. A month later, the Ryzen 5 1600X launched with performance that could rival Broadwell-E, just for a much cheaper price. And by Summer, the Ryzen 3 1300X proved you didn’t need an expensive CPU and motherboard to get into overclocking. AMD capped its Ryzen rollout with Threadripper, scaling up the Zen microarchitecture to massive core arrays and finally bringing something to the HEDT market — a market that Intel had almost wholly owned since the Pentium 4 days.

Still, Zen had shortcomings, particularly in games, where just about any quad-core from Intel still ruled the roost. AMD was competitive, but Intel was still firmly in the driver’s seat. It barely reacted to the Ryzen onslaught over the summer, rolling out its high-end Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X HEDT offerings throughout the back half of 2017. Even then, however, problems started emerging.

Kaby Lake-X was effectively a rerelease of Kaby Lake with a bit of extra headroom, but restricted to the expensive X299 platform. It was discontinued less than a year after release. Skylake-X was Intel’s true next-gen HEDT offering, signaled by the first use of “Core i9” in front of its flagship SKU. It performed like an Extreme Edition, and it was priced like one too, despite an issue in thermal dissipation that we uncovered in our Core i9-7900X review. Meanwhile, AMD was rapid-firing firmware and chipset updates for its small Ryzen range, and fixing several issues that came up in reviews in the process.

Less than a year after Kaby Lake launched, Intel released Coffee Lake, which was yet another Skylake revision built on 14nm, but this time with extra cores in tow. As you can read in our Core i7-8700K review, Coffee Lake did what Intel wanted it to do, shoring up the fight in heavily-threaded productivity applications against AMD while maintaining leadership in games. Still, AMD was making headway. By the end of 2017, estimates suggest AMD took back anywhere from 2% to 12% market share from Intel, with the higher end of the spectrum coming mainly from the DIY PC market. That’s no small feat for a company that was dead in the water with CPUs 12 months earlier.

Back on more even footing, the next goal post was a node shrink. Intel was gunning for 10nm, which is a milestone it failed to meet with both Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake. AMD, as a fabless designer, was at the mercy of its then-partner GlobalFoundries for the next node shrink. AMD struck first with Ryzen 2000 in early 2018, built on GlobalFoundries 12LP node, which was a revision of the 14LP (14nm) node used in the original Zen. Fittingly, AMD called it Zen+.

Debuting the architecture was the Ryzen 7 2700X, which was an iterative update. However, it helped reacquaint the market with the progress AMD had made. Zen+ came with higher frequencies and reduced memory latency, and all of the software adjustments AMD had made after the original Zen launch. And the range seemed specifically designed to undermine Intel, offering overclocking support across the full stack (and with B-series chipsets), and bundling a surprisingly decent cooler in the box.

Intel still held the edge in gaming, but the margins were narrowing, especially with a bit of overclocking thrown into the mix. Intel was feeling the heat, due in no small part to its continued issues moving down to 10nm. It responded in late 2018 with Coffee Lake Refresh, bringing the Core i9 branding into its main lineup for the first time with the Core i9-9900K and offering an eight-core, 16-thread chip. The strategy, it seems, was to push out AMD at the high-end, as Ryzen 7 was closing in on Core i7.

It worked. Intel had the fastest gaming processor on the market, and even the Core i7-9700K managed to push Intel’s lead in the Ryzen 7 battle higher. These marginal updates were buying time for AMD and Intel. Both companies clearly understood that whoever could go below 14nm first would have a massive advantage, and likely define an entirely new market dynamic.

AMD claimed that advantage for itself with the introduction of Zen 2 in mid-2019. Bolstered by TSMC’s 7nm node, AMD pushed out the Ryzen 9 3900X, moving beyond eight cores to AMD’s first 12-core consumer design. Intel held a slight edge in gaming through Coffee Lake Refresh, as you can read in our Ryzen 7 3800X review, but that delta was becoming less important as AMD took the lead in heavily-threaded workloads.

Later in the year, AMD rolled out the Ryzen 9 3950X, the first 16-core desktop processor ever. It was a bloodbath. Less than a year earlier, Intel had introduced its Skylake-X HEDT platform, including the Core i9-9980XE priced at $2,000. Now, at stock settings, the $750 Ryzen 9 3950X offered better multithreaded performance, along with competitive single-threaded and gaming performance. And you didn’t need to shell out for Intel’s expensive HEDT platform. And you could unlock PCIe 4.0, whereas Skylake-X (and even the following Cascade Lake-X) were locked to PCIe 3.0. You don’t spend top dollar on an HEDT platform for last-gen connectivity.

Intel was getting pushed into a corner, and it followed up less than six months later with Comet Lake to stave off AMD’s Ryzen onslaught. The flagship Core i9-10900K allowed Intel to maintain the lead in gaming, but now, AMD was in a clear lead in applications with the Ryzen 9 3950X.

Reviewing the Core i9-10900K, Alcorn wrote: “The Core i9-10900K is exactly what we would expect from an overclocked 10-core 14nm Skylake derivative: Exceptional performance in gaming and lightly-threaded workloads, competitive performance in multi-threaded work, and downright ugly power consumption and thermal output. And that's pretty much what you get with the Core i9-10900K – an overclocked 14nm processor right out of the box.”

AMD didn’t let up. It moved onto Zen 3 later in the year, launching its 16-core Ryzen 9 5950X alongside the main range in late 2020. And with its fourth Ryzen salvo launched, the battle was over. Opening our Ryzen 9 5950X review, Alcorn wrote, “With the Ryzen 5000 series, it's fair to say that AMD has finally, and fully, eclipsed Intel's performance dominance in desktop PCs.” It was a clean sweep, with AMD taking the lead in gaming, multithreaded, and single-threaded performance. Three years and four CPU generations later, AMD was back on top.

Forging a new path (2021 - 2024)

Forging a new path (2021 - 2024)

In the years leading up to 2021, it had become clear that a tick-tock, or even a tick-tock-tock, wasn’t possible any longer. Process shrinks were arriving later, and a pesky little pandemic threw the tight supply chain required for chip manufacturing into a frenzy. Both AMD and Intel knew they needed a different approach, but that would manifest in wildly different ways.

Intel was all-in on a hybrid architecture, using a mixture of microarchitectures on a single package to bolster core counts, similar to Arm-based designs. Intel talked a lot about Alder Lake leading into 2021, overshadowing its own launch of 11th-Gen Rocket Lake chips. The flagship Core i9-11900K was a massive disappointment, carrying all of the issues of the previous-gen Core i9-10900K while packing two fewer cores. Yes, Intel actually cut two cores from its flagship.

It seems Intel knew the issues with Rocket Lake. The chips launched with little to no fanfare, and as opposed to a gradual rollout like we see with most CPU generations, Intel blasted every model of Rocket Lake onto the market, knowing full well that Alder Lake chips would take their place eight months later. AMD, with renewed confidence, slowly built out the Zen 3 lineup with new APUs and variations of Ryzen 5000 as it worked on its next-gen Zen 4 architecture.

In late 2021, Intel swept Rocket Lake under the rug with the release of Alder Lake. Intel had finally moved on from 14nm with Intel 7 (10nm), and it was mostly successful. Intel reclaimed top placements in gaming, multithreaded, and single-threaded performance, and although the margins were thin, Alder Lake made it clear that Intel wouldn’t go quietly. “The Alder Lake processors mark a massive generational leap forward for Intel in nearly all facets, including gaming, performance in lightly- and heavily-threaded work, power consumption, overclocking, and platform connectivity options,” wrote Alcorn in our Core i9-12900K review.

AMD was working on something unique of its own, however. Zen 4 was in the oven, and it was clear there would be a competitive battle with Alder Lake. But before Zen 4 arrived, AMD introduced the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. It was the first processor with AMD’s 3D V-Cache packaging, and at the time, it looked like a slightly-tuned processor targeting gamers, with somewhere in the range of a 10% to 15% uplift in gaming performance specifically. In a surprising turn, the speculation actually undersold just how big of a deal the Ryzen 7 5800X3D would become.

Six months after the release of the Core i9-12900K, AMD was back on top of the gaming charts with the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, no less sporting a last-gen architecture and an SRAM stacking technique that limited boost clocks and locked the multiplier down. It outran the Core i9-12900K by nearly 10% in games while costing hundreds less, and it was nearly 30% faster than a stock Ryzen 7 5800X, as you can see in our Ryzen 7 5800X3D review.

Intel would come back with Raptor Lake in late 2022, but the Ryzen 7 5800X3D established a new category of true gaming CPUs that traded some application performance for peak frame rates. And that’s a category of chips that even today Intel hasn’t managed to crack.

AMD came first, however, launching Zen 4 in September 2022. The flagship Ryzen 9 7950X managed to leapfrog the Core i9-12900K, as you can see in our Ryzen 9 7950X review, but not by much, and the Ryzen 7 5800X3D remained at the top of the gaming charts. Immediately, speculation around 3D V-Cache chips for Zen 4 went into motion. Also tampering the Zen 4 release was an entirely new platform, which required costly DDR5 memory.

Intel capitalized with Raptor Lake mere weeks later. The flagship Core i9-13900K was back on top across tests, even managing to outclass the Ryzen 7 5800X3D in games. For the first time since the heyday of Athlon, we had a hotly competitive CPU market with AMD and Intel leapfrogging each other with each new release. Still, there was a niche that wasn’t being filled. 3D V-Cache disrupted the status quo for gaming processors, but it came with a significant trade-off to application performance. The stage was set for a CPU that could offer the best of both worlds.

AMD delivered that in early 2023 with the Ryzen 9 7950X3D and (to a much lesser degree) Ryzen 9 7900X3D. A couple months before, Intel cracked the 6 GHz barrier out of the box with the Core i9-13900KS, but AMD was offering something more compelling than peak clocks. The Ryzen 9 7950X3D managed to outclass Intel in multithreaded and single-threaded performance, all while offering a double-digit jump in gaming performance thanks to 3D V-Cache.

Raptor Lake saw a refresh later in 2023, and although the flagship was able to close the application performance gap in our Core i9-14900K review, AMD still held a firm grip on gaming performance, especially with the trimmed-down and relatively affordable Ryzen 7 7800X3D. AMD had taken the lead, but Intel, finally, executed its tick-tock-tock strategy and set its eyes on a radically new architecture in the form of Arrow Lake.

Reckoning with the real world (2024 - today)

Reckoning with the real world (2024 - today)

Under AMD’s thumb and clearly behind in pace, Intel needed to innovate. The result was Arrow Lake. Like Bulldozer, it’s easy to write Arrow Lake off in hindsight, especially given how recent it is. As you can read in our Core Ultra 9 285K review, Arrow Lake chips only marginally improved in application performance over their 14th-Gen counterparts, and they were actually slower across most games. But, architecturally, Arrow Lake is as big a swing as Bulldozer was.

For the first time, Intel outsourced manufacturing to TSMC, clearly behind the Taiwanese manufacturer for cutting-edge nodes. It disabled Hyper-Threading, killing off a staple of Intel CPUs for decades, and it doubled down on Intel’s hybrid architecture. Those bets didn’t pay off, but they were big bets for a company struggling to reckon with a reinvigorated AMD.

AMD followed up Zen 4, predictably, with Zen 5 in mid-2024, shortly before the Arrow Lake release. With Arrow Lakes' struggles, it’s easy to forget the problems Zen 5 had at launch, and the relatively small generational uplift it offers even today. AMD has continued to build out this lineup with X3D chips, and it finally delivered 3D V-Cache on both CCDs with the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2. But going back to our Ryzen 9 9950X review, Zen 5, at its core, isn’t the massive uplift we had become accustomed to in the early days of Zen.

Intel tried to give Arrow Lake a bit more life with a small refresh earlier this year in the form of the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Core Ultra 5 250K Plus, and those CPUs set the stage for the next era of CPUs. They put Intel into the position AMD found itself during the Bulldozer/Steamroller days, clearancing off silicon to maintain a competitive position in the market.

That’s where we are today, with our sights set on Zen 6 and Nova Lake. But there are some realities in the PC enthusiast space that we have to contend with today. DRAM pricing is out of control, and showing no signs of slowing down, and a sudden boost in demand for CPUs for agentic AI means consumer chips have taken a backseat. Zen 6 and Nova Lake were both expected by the end of the year; it’s looking more likely that they’ll slip into 2027.

History doesn’t repeat, but it often rhymes, and we can see traces of days past over the last 30 years start to creep into the dynamics today. Today, we see a defiant AMD and an Intel that seems ready to get scrappy in order to earn back market share. Will it pay off? We don’t know, but Tom’s Hardware will be here to cover whatever comes next in the world of CPUs, just as we’ve been for the past 30 years.

The Steam Machine helped grow the popularity of Linux gaming, including installations of Bazzite and other gaming-oriented Linux distributions. Valve seemingly doesn't want to stop its open-source development efforts anytime soon, and is now working on a port of the Mesa Radeon Vulkan driver (RADV) to Windows; It's already running Counter-Strike 2, according to developers at Collabora.

As cross-platform development is rather tricky, Valve opted to get a port of RADV to Windows going by way of sponsoring contractors at Collabora. In its blog post, Collabora explained the several hoops it had to jump through to accomplish this task.

With Windows 10 and WDDM 2.0, Microsoft improved the split between graphics drivers' userspace code (the vast majority of the driver itself) and the kernel-level portion that actually talks to the graphics card. This presented the opportunity to hook RADV to the AMD kernel card driver. That's easier said than done, however, as communication between those parts often carries non-standardized data that RADV needs to understand. And to understand the "conversation," it needs to be recorded and analyzed.

An earlier 2024 effort by Faith Ekstrand yielded a basic-but-valuable utility for logging WDDM 2.0 calls and reverse-engineering them to produce a basic RADV implementation. Out of both debugging necessity and as a development tool, Collabora built and expanded upon Ekstrand's work, improving the logger to the point where it can now fully analyze any Vulkan application that runs with AMD's official driver and dump all the data passing to the kernel.

After a lot of work getting to grips with how the AMD driver interacts with the kernel driver, including but not limited to reverse-engineering obscure data structures, the team made progress, and Windows RADV is now able to run some games, including Counter-Strike 2.

Despite the ongoing effort, Collabora explains that since user- and kernel-space driver are a matched pair, changes to those aren't guaranteed to be backwards-compatible, meaning that even a fully functional RADV could break at any point. For that reason, Collobora is requesting that AMD, Microsoft, or both provide a documented interface to the kernel driver or an intermediary compatibility layer.

AMD graphics driver development on Linux has coalesced around the Mesa Vulkan stack, with both company and community devs contributing to the RADV project. Over in the Windows world, the only option is AMD's proprietary driver, which can cause a lot of headaches when developing cross-platform games and applications.

AMD's Vulkan driver for Windows has developed a reputation for instability. Meanwhile, Linux RADV is generally praised for its stability and performance, sometimes running faster than the AMD Windows driver, especially on older cards. With a rapid development schedule, it also generally sees fixes and speed upticks often.

If at some point using RADV on Windows becomes viable, you'd be getting an arguably more stable, mature driver with active development. Games' graphical issues could become far easier to debug and patch thanks to the open nature of RADV, and studios developing with Linux in mind can target the one platform instead of two with different behaviors. Any developer or company can contribute to the project, too.

Furthermore, this lets Valve improve Windows compatibility layers, and any optimizations can be carried over to both operating systems. All told, this is likely one of the several moving parts to improve Linux — thus the Steam Deck, Steam Machine, and upcoming hardware — as a viable gaming platform. Even a future notion of gamers installing RADV on Windows to get a performance or stability boost isn't too far-fetched.

Additionally, RADV on Windows would also help keep discontinued cards usable, and given pricing right now, that certainly would be a good thing.

AMD officially launched its cheapest RDNA 4 graphics card, the Radeon RX 9050, a few days ago, and we already have some performance numbers for it. Preliminary testing from Japanese outlet GDM puts the GPU up against its closest Nvidia rival, the RTX 5050, in a matchup that sees the AMD offering lose by a big margin. The RX 9050 is fine on its own, especially if you're limited to 1080p gaming, but in the head-to-head it leaves a lot to be desired based on its roughly 30% slower framerates averaged across various titles.

The test bench consisted of a Ryzen 7 9800X3D and specifically the ASRock Challenger variant of the 9050, alongside the Gigabyte Windforce OC variant of the RTX 5050. Starting with synthetic benchmarks, the Red Team's GPU is almost 20% slower in the 3DMark suite. The biggest difference lies in Port Royal, where the RTX 5050 scores 6,181 points but the RX 9050 only manages 4,531 points. Time Spy sees the smallest delta, where both cards are separated by about 500 points.

Moving onto gaming, the testing was conducted across multiple resolutions, so we've chosen to show the most representative results possible. When talking about esports titles such as Apex Legends and Rainbow Six Siege, the RX 9050 holds its ground well, especially as you scale up the resolution. At 4K Ultra+ settings, both GPUs actually match at 64 FPS. The biggest difference was 20%, reported at 1440p medium, where the RTX 5050 pushed 150 FPS while the RX 9050 could only manage 125 FPS.

The rest of the games show a more underwhelming result for the RX 9050, with DOOM: The Dark Ages acting as an outlier where both GPUs take turns destroying the other. The game has multi-frame gen support at up to 6x for the Nvidia card, while the FSR frame gen is limited to just 2x. Regardless, the RX 9050 wins at higher resolutions in all settings due. As mentioned, however, this is the only test where the 9050 seemed to beat the 5050.

The remaining titles show rather boring numbers where the RX 9050 loses every single time, no matter the resolution or preset. It comes the closest in Final Fantasy XIV at 1080p, where the internal benchmark separates the two GPUs by 23%, whereas the biggest difference lies in Onimusha, where the RTX 5050 is almost twice as fast. Across these games, on average, the RX 9050 is 31% slower at 1080p, 34% slower at 1440p, and 42% slower at 4K.

The RX 9050 scores a win in power consumption, drawing about 8W less when idling and about 35W less under heavy load compared to the RTX 5050. The card seems to run cool and quiet, and can be manufactured to be rather small, making it ideal for SFF builds. Overall, it's an okay experience when it comes to gaming, performing amicably in a vacuum, but disappointing against competition. Thankfully, the 4GB variant of the RX 9050 seems to be limited to OEMs. As always, these are preliminary testing results from one outlet, so take them with the customary grain of salt.

A few months ago, reports of AMD working on a new entry-level GPU began making the rounds, and today we've just got our clearest look yet at the rumored cards. ASRock has just listed the rumored Radeon RX 9050 on its website in two different configurations, 4GB and 8GB, but we have no word on pricing or availability. AMD hasn't made any official announcements yet, so we only have a limited amount of info to dissect, and it should naturally be taken with a grain of salt. However, the leaked specs from an official vendor, which have since been taken down, would herald the return of 4GB VRAM GPUs in 2026, not seen since 2022.

The RX 9050 seems to be using a cut-down Navi 44 GPU from the RX 9060 series, with 1,024 cores spread across 16 Compute Units. The leak from May claimed it had 32 CUs instead. ASRock's Challenger variant lists a 1,920 MHz base clock and a 2,600 MHz boost clock. The listing also recommends a 450W power supply, which is 50W less than the RX 9060's 500W recommendation, though we don't know the board power for the RX 9050 yet.

Those were the mutual specs between both variants — the only difference lies in the memory config. The 4GB variant listing notes 4GB of GDDR6 VRAM operating over a 64-bit bus, giving us a bandwidth of 144 GB/s. We haven't seen a 4GB memory pool in GPUs since 2022, when Intel's Arc A310 and Nvidia's GTX 1630 came out. All current-gen cards have adopted 8GB as a baseline, which already gets criticized for not being future-proof.

The 8GB variant specs listed would double the bandwidth to 288 GB/s thanks to its 128-bit-wide bus. There's a chance AMD is planning to sell the 8GB to consumers directly while keeping the 4GB variant limited to OEMs. We can't say for sure since ASRock is listing it as a Challenger card on its website, but things could always change. We did find the 4GB RX 9050 already included in a CyberPower prebuilt on Best Buy, though, currently listed for $900.

The design in the leaked images appears rather generic: a black shroud with silver accents and some RGB lighting. They show two DisplayPort 2.1a and one HDMI 2.1b ports, and the card is powered via a single 8-pin PCIe connector. In terms of performance, the 8GB model should cruise through 1080p gaming, especially with the help of FSR 4. Since this is an RDNA 4 GPU, you get the full benefits of the architecture, including better ray tracing and upscaling tech.

As mentioned earlier, the last GPUs to ship with 4GB of VRAM were released four years ago. The industry is going through a turbulent period given the ongoing component crisis and memory shortage, but this would be another level of desperation.

AMD used its recent Advancing AI 2026 event in San Francisco to launch sixth-gen EPYC "Venice" processors, Instinct MI400 Series GPUs, and Helios rack-scale systems, and to confirm that the Zen 7 generation arriving in 2028 will launch as three separate EPYC families rather than one.

The company named Florence, Ferrara, and Fidenza in its launch release, extended its annual CPU, GPU, networking, and rack cadence out to 2030, and put its total addressable market at roughly $2 trillion in 2030. It also introduced a competitive yardstick it hasn't used before, claiming the most AI agents per watt, per dollar, and per rack, though its own endnotes state those agent counts are estimated from CPU thread resources used as a proxy.

Three Zen 7 CPUs

Florence carries fresh Zen 7 cores, a new set of AI compute extensions, and support for newer memory technologies, AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su said during the keynote. Ferrara is the AI host node portion, and it appears a second time further along the roadmap as the CPU inside the Helios 600 rack alongside MI600 Series GPUs and Pensando "Palma" and "Levanzo" networking. Fidenza, meanwhile, is the agentic sandbox product. AMD disclosed no core counts, no process node, and no socket for any of the three, and said only that Zen 7 uses leading-edge process technology.

The fourth-gen EPYC generation, built on Zen 4, spanned Genoa, Bergamo, Genoa-X, and Siena across two sockets. The fifth-gen "Turin" generation then went the other way, folding Zen 5 and Zen 5c parts into a single 27-SKU stack on one socket with no separate cache-stacked or edge line at launch. Venice restarts the fan-out, with the 9006 series on the new SP7 socket now, and Venice-X arriving in 2027 with 1,152MB of 3D V-Cache, 96 cores, and a 5.15 GHz boost clock. Three named Zen 7 families at announcement, two years out, is a wider spread than AMD has ever opened a generation with.

AMD's own portfolio endnote describes the EPYC range as covering general-purpose enterprise, cloud, telecom, SMB, and HPC systems, plus, as a distinct category, sandboxed agentic AI deployments and GPU head node servers. Su told analysts in May that AMD was already working with customers on architectures beyond Venice, without naming categories at the time. The Zen 7 lineup puts a name to those two AI-specific segments for the first time.

Agents per rack

AMD's main server CPU claim at the event is that sixth-gen EPYC enables the most agents per watt, per dollar, and per rack. Endnote 9xx6-012 in the launch release states that agent counts are estimates derived from available CPU thread resources used as a proxy under a consistent theoretical workload, and that real capacity varies with workload, model, memory, software, orchestration, and system configuration. The per-rack comparison behind it is core count at a 100 kW rack power envelope, pitting the 256-core EPYC 9996 against an 88-core Nvidia Vera, AMD's own 192-core EPYC 9965, and Intel's 128-core Xeon 6980P. The per-dollar metric is based on top-of-stack thread count divided by the 1,000-unit list pricing.

The per-watt comparison in that endnote lists Nvidia Vera at 450W and Arm's AGI CPU at 300W with one thread per core, alongside Intel's Xeon 6980P at 500W and AMD's EPYC 9965 at 500W. AMD had already claimed a 3.3 times rack-level advantage over Vera in June. Mercury Research put AMD at a record 46.2% of x86 server CPU revenue in Q1 2026, against 33.2% of units, and Arm-based designs took roughly 17.7% of server shipments in the same quarter, so the widening comparison shows where these units are going.

Starting with sixth-gen EPYC, AMD has replaced TDP with a figure it calls Default CPU Power, defined as total power consumed across the processor's compute and I/O dies at a stated performance target. AMD says both references can serve for product comparison and performance-per-watt analysis, and the endnote itself mixes the two conventions, quoting the EPYC 9956 at 400W Default CPU Power against TDP figures for the Nvidia, Intel, and Arm parts.

2030 cadence

Helios racks pair 72 Instinct MI455X GPUs with 18 Venice CPUs, 31TB of HBM4, and 1.4 PB/s of aggregate memory bandwidth, and are in production now. AMD claims up to 30% more inference tokens per dollar than Nvidia's Vera Rubin NVL72, based on AMD Performance Labs estimates from July 2026 using a Kimi K2 Thinking workload at 32K input and 8K output, with hourly GPU pricing projections. The 34-times token throughput gain AMD quotes for MI455X over MI355X comes from AMD's own measurements on DeepSeek V4 Flash at FP4. Both, however, are vendor-provided benchmarks with no independent verification yet.

The forward roadmap runs MI500 Series GPUs in 2027 inside a Helios 500 rack built on EPYC "Verano" and Pensando "Como" and "Monza" networking, MI600 Series in 2028 inside Helios 600 on Ferrara, and Ravenna on Zen 8 in 2030.

OpenAI expects to bring Helios online from the fourth quarter of 2026, with deployments accelerating through 2027, while Meta is validating sixth-gen EPYC platforms in its labs and has begun testing Helios racks. Anthropic committed the day before the keynote to up to 2GW of MI455X GPUs in Helios systems, with the first gigawatt due in the first half of 2027. SemiAnalysis reported in February that manufacturing delays would push mass production and first production tokens on an MI455X UALoE72 system to Q2 2027; AMD software chief Anush Elangovan publicly rejected that assessment and said Helios remained on target for 2H 2026.

AMD's cautionary statement in the launch release lists the availability of essential components, naming memory supply specifically, among the risk factors that could cause results to differ from its projections. A Helios rack carries 31 TB of HBM4, and DRAM contract prices roughly doubled quarter-on-quarter in Q1 2026 before rising again in Q2.

Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing has filed a lawsuit in a bid to gain access to Colorado River water, 287 million gallons of which it says it needs to cool a 330-megawatt data center, which would be the largest in the state. Despite only representing a fraction of the region's water supply, the buildout of the data center may affect the local farming and adjacent industries and terminate hundreds, if not thousands, of positions, reports Business Insider.

After two cities in the region denied the California-based AI data center recycled wastewater for cooling, it filed a lawsuit demanding to get water from the Colorado River for cooling. The 330-megawatt facility was not only designed to be the biggest AI data center in California, but it specifically committed not to use water from the Colorado River because it was promised wastewater. But now the owner of the data center is essentially asking to redirect water supply from agriculture to the facility.

Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing — the owner of the 330 MW AI data center — is requesting access to approximately 287 million gallons of water per year after two cities — El Centro and Imperial — declined to supply reclaimed wastewater for cooling. The Imperial Irrigation District (IID), which distributes Colorado River water throughout Imperial Valley, also denied the company's request. The Colorado River supplies water to roughly 40 million people across seven western states and serves as the valley's sole freshwater source for roughly 180,000 people. Agriculture consumes about 80% of California's allocation from the river, while roughly 95–97% of the water IID delivers goes to agriculture.

The data center is seeking roughly 287 million gallons per year (about 750,000 gallons per day, or ~880 acre-feet per year), whereas the Imperial Irrigation District (IID) holds rights to approximately 3.1 million acre-feet of Colorado River water annually, which means that the data center demands only a small fraction — 0.028% — of IID's total water supply.

Sebastian Rucci, a Huntington Beach attorney who leads the project, claims that the facility's water consumption would be comparable to that of a 160-acre farm and will require no additional Colorado River allocation. In fact, he states that the facility would not increase pressure on the river because the company intends to purchase nearby farmland together with its associated water allocations.

Under the proposal, irrigation on those properties would cease, thus transferring the existing water quotas to be redirected to the data center cooling, at the expense of local farming output and associated jobs. "There's a lot of resistance in any agricultural community to 'buy and dry' because that's jobs," a senior fellow at the Pacific Institute focused on Colorado River Basin water use told the outlet. According to them, local resistance to the plan is less about the amount of water, and more about buying up farmland and reallocating it for industrial use.

The approach, of course, differs from the earlier plan that intended to avoid using Colorado River water altogether. However, after the data center was denied wastewater from two cities, it does not have a choice if it wants to go ahead with the buildout.

Rucci reportedly indicated that the project would provide substantial economic benefits for the local community, including 1,688 construction jobs, more than 100 permanent positions, and an estimated $2.95 billion in economic impact over 30 years. For a region where unemployment stood at approximately 17% in May, the economic diversification is essential. However, the big question is whether 100 permanent roles could offset the lost positions in the farming industry and industries tied to agriculture.

Water policy specialists interviewed by Business Insider said that the debate extends beyond the project's annual consumption. Instead, they questioned whether converting irrigated farmland into industrial use is an appropriate long-term direction for the region, which has historically depended on farming. The experts also warned that although landowners could benefit from selling land or water rights, surrounding rural communities may lose employment and business activity adjacent to agriculture, which includes equipment suppliers, repair shops, and sellers of fertilizers. Another factor mentioned by the experts was the U.S. reliance on farms around Imperial, California, and Yuma, Arizona, as they were the main suppliers of certain agricultural products in winter.

A new 3D V-Cache-equipped CPU is reportedly in the works and could arrive as a mobile counterpart to the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. According to prominent tech industry insider Golden Pig Upgrade Pack on Weibo, the Ryzen 9 9800HX3D is expected to enter mass production in Q4 2026, with a potential launch at CES 2027. The chip is rumored to feature an 8-core, 16-thread configuration with boost clock speeds of up to 5.1 GHz, and 96MB of L3 cache.

It is also claimed that the processor was previously rumored to launch as the Ryzen 7 9755HX3D; however, it seems that the company might settle on the 9800HX3D. This essentially brings the branding in line with the desktop Ryzen 7 9800X3D. The chip could follow the same cache configuration with an eight-core CCD with 32MB of native L3 cache and a 64MB 3D V-cache stack.

Currently, AMD's most powerful 3D V-Cache-equipped mobile processor is the Ryzen 9 9955HX3D, featuring 16 cores, 32 threads, and a maximum boost clock of 5.4 GHz. It also offers a substantially higher L3 cache at 128MB and a configurable TDP of 55-75W.

While AMD hasn’t confirmed any details, the Ryzen 7 9800HX3D could likely be featured on premium gaming laptops that don't require the additional cores of the flagship 9955HX3D. An 8-core Zen 5 processor paired with 3D V-Cache could strike a better balance between gaming performance, power consumption, and overall system cost.

The rumored processor also aligns with AMD's recent approach of refreshing its X3D lineup instead of introducing new gaming CPUs. Similar to the recently announced Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 and the reintroduction of the 5800X3D, the 9800HX3D appears to build on an existing design while bringing AMD's latest branding and gaming-focused cache technology to another product tier.

The introduction of the 9800HX3D would also give laptop manufacturers a new gaming-focused option that is positioned below the flagship 9955HX3D. The processor would likely attract consumers seeking desktop-class gaming performance without paying the premium typically associated with 16-core mobile CPUs. As always, the rumored specifications and launch timeline should be treated with caution until AMD makes an official announcement.

Although the industry has largely learned to move out of the way when the big green giant that is Nvidia steps into the room, one AMD executive said he was “very happy” to see Nvidia publish SPEC CPU 2026 benchmarks for its Vera CPU ahead of the Advancing AI 2026 event. AMD used the configuration in Nvidia’s white paper as a basis to run SPEC on its new Zen 6 ‘Venice’ CPUs, offering what it calls an “apples-to-apples” comparison between the two chips.

“We are very happy that Nvidia published their Vera performance [numbers],” said AMD’s Ravi Kuppuswany, corporate VP of compute and enterprise solutions. “We were actually being a little conservative. I actually thought we were beating them by smaller numbers than what I have here… we thought we’d have at least a 10% advantage. What we’re finding is… we have 20% advantage, and we have not even finished completely tuning.”

Kuppuswany’s comments overlaid the slide you can see above, claiming 2.2x higher throughput with Venice compared to Vera, and 1.2x faster per-core performance. AMD has certainly stacked the deck in its favor here (as did Nvidia when it first published its Vera results), so let’s go through what this chart actually says.

As a quick aside, you’ll see “estimated” in the images above and below. These numbers aren’t guesses (they’re based on real runs), but SPEC maintains strict reporting guidelines for “official” runs. And because these runs aren’t reported to SPEC and therefore haven’t gained official status, they must come with the “estimated” disclaimer.

The throughput number is the easiest one to clarify. AMD compared its 256-core, 600W Epyc 9996 against the 88-core Vera, both in a 2P configuration. Yes, the CPU with more than twice the number of threads and an extra 150W stacked on top of its TDP has significantly higher throughput, as it should.

AMD would argue that it’s a fair comparison given that Nvidia is only offering Vera as a single, 88-core SKU. But the reality remains that the throughput comparison is one Vera could never win, and Nvidia would (and has) argued that it’s not trying to win in a race against the 256-core Venice. It’s building a single CPU for a single purpose.

The more interesting and consequential number here is the per-core performance. SPECrate_int is a throughput benchmark. A typical run loads all threads with a copy of an application and measures how much work gets done within a set amount of time. SPECspeed is the inverse of that, looking at a single application and how quickly it can run. AMD arrived at the numbers above by taking the overall SPECrate_int score and dividing it by the number of cores.

Nvidia’s results show Vera achieving a score of 925 overall. AMD says a 96-core High Frequency Epyc CPU achieved a score of 1,210. This processor, however, doesn’t seem to exist. AMD has the 96-core Epyc 9686F that boosts up to 5 GHz (much higher than the standard max frequency across the stack), but it has a rated TDP of 500W, not 600W.

Regardless, AMD divided that score by the number of cores; about 6.3 for AMD, and about 5.3 for Nvidia (remember these are 2P configurations). AMD says 1.2x, which actually translates to about an 18.8% lead. That’s not far off enough to say AMD was maliciously juicing its own numbers, but it’s important to note.

Given that AMD is using two different SKUs here (or maybe just one, considering the 9686F discrepancy), we can do the same per-core napkin math on the Epyc 9996 against Vera. Once again, Nvidia shared an overall score of 925, while the Epyc 9996 achieved a score of 2,070. That gives AMD a per-core score of 4.04.

That number isn’t important as a comparison point to Nvidia – again, we’re comparing a 256-core CPU to an 88-core one – but rather as a metric to see how Venice scales when normalized for per-core performance on a fully-loaded chip. That’s about 35% lower than the per-core score from the souped-up 9686F.

Although dissecting these numbers and sidelining the back-and-forth of two of the most powerful companies in the world is interesting, it’s not all that informative. SPEC maintains its strict reporting requirements for a reason. We won’t be able to say, with certainty, how these chips match up until we have official, reported runs. And even then, there’s an additional layer of compiler optimization (AMD and Nvidia both used GCC 15.2) and the broader context of the servers and workloads that these chips will serve.

The battle lines have been drawn, though only when looking at integer-based workloads. Vectorized performance is important, as well, and that’s an area where AMD holds a strong position in the current server CPU market. It doesn’t look like that will change with Vera, though we don’t have floating-point results to draw any conclusions from yet.

On this day in 2006, AMD confirmed its acquisition of graphics chip firm ATI. AMD stumped up a cash and stock deal worth a total of $5.4B for the Canadian PC graphics innovators. With 20/20 vision now 20 years on, we can see the deal helped AMD prosper on three fronts: continuation and innovation of Radeon GPUs, the rise of the APU, and AMD’s dominance in the console business. That’s not all, of course, and it is also interesting to recall that AMD approached Nvidia before it bought ATI.

AMD CEO Hector Ruiz and ATI CEO Dave Orton appeared together in New York on the morning of July 24, 2006, to publicly announce the deal. Ruiz told the press that the deal, unanimously approved by the directors of both companies, would "reinvent our industry." The AMD CEO went on, “We believe AMD and ATI will drive growth and innovation for the entire industry, enabling our partners to create differentiated solutions and empowering our customers to choose what is best for them.” Orton added that “Joining with AMD will enable us to innovate aggressively on the PC platform.”

In the next couple of years, the ATI graphics brand slowly melted away. For example, the ATI R600 (Terascale 1, unified shader architecture) GPU, which was in development at the time of the acquisition, would become the Radeon HD 2900 series under AMD branding. As a transition product, some HD 2900 XT boxes would still carry ATI packaging and branding. Taking the cooling solution off an AMD graphics card, you might still see an ATI GPU under the thermal paste, all the way up to around 2010. In 2011, Tom’s Hardware published its 25 Years Of Graphics History: A Farewell To ATI, In Pictures, which is a must-read for fans of the era.

While graphics card development rolled on in a tit-for-tat battle with Nvidia, AMD’s next fortuitous chunk of synergy came from integrating its Radeon IP alongside its CPU cores to create APUs. It started this journey with the AMD Fusion line in 2011. Nowadays we have APUs that have taken this vision far further, with the Ryzen AI Max / Max+ (Strix Halo and Gorgon Halo) series. The integrated graphics on these processors pack up to 40 RDNA 3.5 Compute Units and can go toe-to-toe with desktop graphics like the RTX 4060/4070, depending on workload. They also benefit from unified memory, allowing users to configure oodles of VRAM, if they have it spare.

As the Radeon developers forged ahead moving from the GCN to RDNA graphics architecture era, AMD saw an opportunity in the console space. From the early to mid 2010s, AMD made inroads into APU development that meant the processors became attractive solutions for console developers. It still holds pretty tightly to that market today, which has spilled over to handhelds. However, Intel looks far more serious in this market now, with Panther Lake and B390 iGPUs. Moreover, Nvidia could surely make a dent on consoles with Arm plus GeForce semi-custom SoCs if it wasn’t living it up in the lucrative AI market.

Red and green would never be seen

Before the AMD and ATI deal was inked, reports indicated there were chances of a similar merger involving AMD and Nvidia. Our 2012 report on this ‘missed opportunity’ suggests Jensen Huang was being quite difficult during the negotiations. Apparently the man in the leather jacket insisted that he become chief executive of the combined company. That made Hector Ruiz pretty cool on the prospect, so AMD’s attention was diverted towards ATI.

AMD has announced its long-term CPU roadmap, including multiple generations of its Zen microarchitecture at its Advancing AI event. Much of the event was focused on the new 256-core EPYC 9996 sporting the Zen 6 architecture, as well as Venice-X, which is slated to arrive next year. But AMD also teased a Zen CPU roadmap going out to Zen 8.

"In 2028, we are going to introduce Florence," Lisa Su, chief executive of AMD, said. "Florence brings the next-gen Zen 7 cores and its leading-edge process technology. It's a new set of AI compute extensions to really ensure that we have all of the AI capability, and it supports the latest memory technologies."

Su did not disclose specific details about the process technology, core counts, memory subsystem, or AI extensions planned for (Zen 7) Florence. However, she indicated that Florence will not be a standalone processor family, instead joined by the Ferrara AI host node and Faenza Agentic Sandbox for different AI workloads. AMD says this approach will enable it to offer purpose-built CPUs for a wider range of applications rather than relying on a single architecture configuration across the entire server market.

"And we are not stopping there," Su said. "We are already deep in development of Ravenna, our 8th Generation EPYC family built on Zen 8, and that family is already well under development for 2030."

The CPU roadmap is part of AMD's general strategy to offer a predictable cadence for its data center platforms.

On the accelerator side, the company is developing its MI500-series Instinct products with next-generation HBM, larger scale-up domains, and new copper and optical interconnect technologies, similar to Nvidia's outlook toward Rubin Ultra and Feynman.

"MI500 will deliver the largest generational leap in the history of Instinct, putting us on track to deliver more than 2,000 times higher inference throughput in just four years," Su said.

AMD also confirmed that its CDNA Next-based Instinct MI600 family is already deep in development for 2028. At the event, AMD launched its MI455X GPU, as well as teased more about its upcoming MI500X range, which we expect to launch next year.

AMD is bringing its Strix Halo APUs into the world of physical AI. The new X100 series of processors come with similar specs as the various Ryzen AI Max models floating around in client devices, but they’re tailored for 24/7 operation, with a 10-year lifecycle in embedded applications like robotics.

There are three SKUs that align with the three original Strix Halo models (not the updated versions with 40 CUs). The top-end X199 comes with 16 Zen 5 cores and 40 RDNA 3.5 CUs. The X188 steps down to 12 cores and 32 CUs, while the X168 comes with eight cores and the same 32 CUs. AMD hasn’t shared detailed specifications for each model, but the company says the range goes up to a 5.1 GHz boost clock and 128 GB of unified memory. They also include an XDNA 2 NPU with up to 50 TOPS, a configurable TDP between 45W and 120W, and operating temperature between -40 degrees Celsius up to 105 degrees.

AMD’s range bites back at Intel, which launched a range of Panther Lake SoCs for physical AI at the beginning of the year. Both make an argument for SoCs in robotics, reducing latency when the CPU, AI accelerator, and memory are fragmented across separate chips. The X100 range is just physically larger than Panther Lake, packing much more silicon on the SoC for more powerful deployments.

The company shared a range of benchmarks comparing the flagship X199 against Intel’s Core Ultra X7 358H, a 16-core chip with Intel’s Arc B390 iGPU that has 12 Xe3 cores. AMD claims a lead of 1.2X and 1.3X, respectively, in GeekBench 6.1 and PassMark, as well as 1.5X in an unofficial SPECrate 2017 run looking at integer workloads. In graphics, AMD unsurprisingly takes the edge with 1.4X faster Vulkan and 1.7X faster OpenGL performance (both measured with GFXBench 5 on Ubuntu), as well as a 1.6X lead in Unigine Heaven Extreme.

On the physical AI front, AMD claims a 1.4X improvement in Time to First Token (TTFT) and 3.5X faster tokens per second in Llama-bench, with a Vulkan backend running at a 45W TDP. These results need a massive dash of salt, however.

AMD tested the Ryzen AI Max 395+ “configured to reflect Ryzen AI Embedded X199 specifications.” It tested on the Maple reference board with a 5.1 GHz CPU clock, 2.9 GHz GPU clock, and sustained 45W TDP. The X7 358H, meanwhile, was tested in an MSI Prestige 16 Flip AI+ with an enforced TDP limit of 30W. AMD then “projected” 45W performance on the Intel chip “using scaling factors derived from public benchmark data.”

It’s not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison, in other words. There’s some sort of proxy stand-in or extrapolation of data across all of the benchmarks here, so keep that in mind as we work through the rest of AMD’s X100 announcements.

AMD X100 Kria SOM and robotics developer platform

utside of the chips themselves, AMD is offering X100 models as part of a Kria System on Module (SOM) or an integrated robotics developer platform. The Kria X100 board measures 120mm x 120mm and conforms to the standardized COM-HPC form factor. If you’re a developer that wants to develop for the board, AMD is offering its Kria AI robotics developer platform.

It’s a fully-integrated box, leveraging the X100 Kria SOM alongside AMD’s Spartan UltraScale+ FPGA baseboard. AMD says it’s a “turnkey” solution for robotics development, including specialized connectivity for cameras and industrial networking, along with robotic sensors. The platform is available in early access now, and AMD says it’ll be in full production in Q4 of this year. .

AMD shared some benchmarks for the X100 Kria, as well, comparing it to Nvidia’s Thor T5000. These benchmarks weren’t run internally at AMD. They were commissioned by AMD and ran by Open Navigation and Mimix. Critically, the benchmarks didn’t test an X100 Kria board, or at least, not exactly in the form it will take once it’s inside a robot or AMD’s developer box.

Instead, AMD is comparing Nvidia’s Jetson AGX Thor developer kit to a GMKtech EVO-X2 AI mini PC with a Ryzen AI Max+ 395 “configured to reflect Ryzen AI embedded x199 specifications.” Naturally, the thermal and power environment of these chips will heavily influence performance.

AMD is continuing its attempt to siphon developers away from Nvidia’s CUDA platform for development, as well. It’s HIPIFY tool converts CUDA code to AMD’s HIP C++ portable code, and the company claims it can now handle 70-80% of the “effort” of porting on its own. AMD tested on a Ryzen AI Max+ 395, once again configured to match the X199, and it ported 15 CUDA applications, comprising 1,199 lines of code, to arrive at that 70% to 80% range.

X100 Kria lives at the “brain” of the robotics platform, but AMD envisions an end-to-end solution for humanoid-style robots with its Spartan UltraScale+. Zynq UltraScale+, and Versal AI Edge Gen 2 FPGAs and SoCs

At AMD’s Advancing AI event this week, the company revealed more details of its upcoming MI455X GPU and the Helios rack-scale architecture that will join 72 of those GPUs into a coherent accelerator—the largest such system that AMD has built so far and its first to truly compete with Nvidia’s NVL72 rack-scale design, as used in the Blackwell and Rubin generations.

AMD calls the MI455X “by leaps and bounds the most advanced AI accelerator we’ve ever built,” and from what we’ve seen, it’s the most competitive product at both the chip level and at rack scale that AMD has ever put up against Nvidia’s thorough dominance of the AI compute race.

The full MI455X GPU is a massive chip encompassing 320 billion transistors, and it’s built up using advanced packaging technologies. Four Accelerator Complex Dies (XCDs) are stacked on top of each Fabric and Cache Die (FCD) using hybrid bonding. In turn, the two FCDs are each joined to six stacks of HBM4, the two I/O dies, and to one another using TSMC’s CoWoS-L technology.

This chiplet design lets AMD use the most advanced TSMC 2N gate-all-around (GAA) process technology on the XCDs, where it’s most beneficial for power and performance, while the FCDs and I/O dies, which contain elements that don’t benefit from the densest process technologies, are fabricated on TSMC N3P.

CDNA 5 represents a large shift in the shape of the CDNA architecture. AMD now calls the fundamental building block of the CDNA 5 Accelerator Complex Die a “Work Group Processor” instead of a “Compute Unit,” but in practice, the basic layout of the rest of the Accelerated Complex Die (XCD) is largely similar.

The number of WGPs on the MI455X remains the same as on the MI355X at 256. Because there hasn’t been a change to the number of fundamental compute resources on the chip, the per-WGP throughput on the CDNA 5 MI455X has to be much higher than on the MI355X to deliver its large performance boost.

Among the many other changes for this generation, CDNA 5 marks a major shift for the programming model of an Instinct GPU. The width of a wavefront, or group of work items or threads that each workgroup processor addresses, is now 32 instead of 64, a choice AMD says improves instruction latency, branch divergence penalties, and register pressure. It further explains that a 32-wide approach increases the flexibility of the architecture for interacting with different tensor tile sizes and mapping compute kernels to the hardware. RDNA GPUs have used a native wavefront size of 32 since their introduction.

CDNA 5 greatly enhances compute performance over CDNA 4, theoretically doubling and in some cases quadrupling the peak FLOPS possible from the chip. The MI455X especially benefits lower-precision floating-point formats now common for use in inference. OCP MXFP8 and MXFP4 formats are theoretically up to 4X faster than on the CDNA 4 MI355X.

Here’s an overview of the MI455X’s theoretical peak FLOPS compared to both the previous-generation MI355X and Nvidia’s Rubin GPU.