AMD Ryzen 3000 XT Refresh Reportedly Pushes Boost Clocks Up To 4.8 GHz

AMD Ryzen 3000-Series Processor

AMD Ryzen 3000-Series Processor (Image credit: AMD)

Rumors about AMD refreshing its Ryzen 3000-series (codename Matisse) lineup are starting to pile up. The Ryzen 9 3900X, Ryzen 7 3800X, and Ryzen 5 3600X are reportedly the eligible candidates for the makeover.

To avoid confusion, AMD will need to find some way to differentiate the rewarmed processors from the regular models effectively. Apparently, that's where the chipmaker's own Radeon branding enters the game. The current buzz on the street is that AMD will market the new Zen 2 chips with the XT moniker. If there's credence to the rumor, the Matisse family could be on the verge of welcoming the Ryzen 9 3900 XT, Ryzen 7 3800 XT, and Ryzen 5 3600 XT.

When it comes to processors refreshes, it's best to keep realistic expectations. Currently, it doesn't make any sense for AMD to increase core counts because that would just cannibalize the existing Ryzen offerings. Much of the performance improvement on the refreshed versions will come along the lines of higher clock speeds. It stands to reason that TSMC's 7nm FinFET process node is aging like fine wine and could explain how AMD is receiving silicon with a higher level of quality than when Matisse first dropped.

The specifications for the Ryzen 3000 XT processors come at the hands of a Chinese user on the popular Chiphell forums. Normally, we wouldn't pay much attention to the rumor. As first spotted by Twitter user HXL, world-renowned overclocker Toppc had previously confirmed the specifications on his personal Facebook account before deleting the post. Either way, we should still treat the information with some caution.

AMD Ryzen 3000-Series XT Specifications

Swipe to scroll horizontally
ModelCores / ThreadsBase / Boost Clock (GHz)L3 Cache (MB)TDP (W)
Ryzen 9 3900 XT*12 / 244.1 / 4.864?
Ryzen 9 3900X12 / 243.8 / 4.664105
Ryzen 7 3800 XT*8 / 164.2 / 4.732?
Ryzen 7 3800X8 / 163.9 / 4.532105
Ryzen 5 3600 XT*6 / 124.0 / 4.732?
Ryzen 5 3600X6 / 123.8 / 4.43295

*Specifications are unconfirmed.

The Ryzen 9 3900 XT and Ryzen 7 3800 XT are rumored to come with a 300 MHz higher base clock and 200 MHz higher boost clock than the Ryzen 9 3900X and Ryzen 7 3800X, respectively. The situation is reversed in the case of the Ryzen 5 3600 XT as the refreshed part allegedly ticks with a 200 MHz base clock and a 300 MHz higher boost clock (compared to the Ryzen 5 3600X). 

The tipster also claims that the XT versions will arrive with improved support for a higher Fabric Clock (FCLK). Ryzen 3000-series debuted with a maximum FCLK of 1,800 MHz, where the FCLK runs in-sync with the memory clock in a 1:1 ratio. The XT versions are rumored to do 2,000 MHz out of the box.

AMD's exact reasoning behind refreshing an already successful product line are unknown. The first thing that comes to mind would be to fend off Intel's 10th Generation Comet Lake-S processors. Matisse already cemented itself as offering amazing value for your money, and the XT versions would likely keep the dream alive. Additionally, it's plausible that AMD could lower the pricing for the three vanilla chips after the XT variants are released.

The Ryzen 4000-series (codename Vermeer) processors are slated to make their debut at the end of Q3 or early Q4. We can't discard the possibility that AMD has run into some setbacks with Zen 3, and that's the real reason why the chipmaker is rolling out a Zen 2 refresh. For now, we can only hope that the refresh isn't some type of stop-gap solution because of a Zen 3 delay.

Zhiye Liu
News Editor and Memory Reviewer

Zhiye Liu is a news editor and memory reviewer at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

  • InvalidError
    Either AMD is micro-binning to milk a few extra bucks out of people or Zen 3 is slipping by some number of months. Between covid-19 messing everyone's schedules and next-gen console launches, AMD may need to borrow CPU 7nm wafers to meet Sony and Microsoft contract obligations..
    Reply
  • Flayed
    Perhaps it is just their response to Intels new chip launch.
    Reply
  • vinay2070
    Useless nanosecond boosts. A decent all core boost/manual overclocks to 4.5GHz OR atleast 1 or 2 core boost at 4.8Ghz for a few seconds would be helpful. PBO is so power hungry.
    Reply
  • Makaveli
    The extra clock speed and being able to run the FCLK that high with good Memory should actually provide some nice gains.
    Reply
  • jpe1701
    I know my 3900x that I bought in February has 4 of its cores able to hit 4.61 ghz so unless I just got lucky it seems the node has improved since the boosting problems they had early on.
    Reply
  • jeremyj_83
    vinay2070 said:
    PBO is so power hungry.
    Have you looked at the actual numbers? https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ryzen-9-3900x-7-3700x-review,6214-3.html PBO used 21W for the 3700X and 26W for 3900X.
    Reply
  • vinay2070
    jeremyj_83 said:
    Have you looked at the actual numbers? https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ryzen-9-3900x-7-3700x-review,6214-3.html PBO used 21W for the 3700X and 26W for 3900X.
    My 3700x ran hot on PBO. The board pushes more voltage to the CPU. 1.4+??? I undervolted to 1.25V and run the whole chip at 4.2GHz on the stock cooler. Much cooler. The average FPS might drop by 1% which I am not worried about.
    Reply
  • jeremyj_83
    vinay2070 said:
    My 3700x ran hot on PBO. The board pushes more voltage to the CPU. 1.4+??? I undervolted to 1.25V and run the whole chip at 4.2GHz on the stock cooler. Much cooler. The average FPS might drop by 1% which I am not worried about.
    Running hot is a product of cooling. Remember that if your CPU is pulling 117W and your cooler is rated for a 125W TDP, your temps will be high probably in the 85+C range.
    Reply
  • Chris Fetters
    vinay2070 said:
    Useless nanosecond boosts. A decent all core boost/manual overclocks to 4.5GHz OR atleast 1 or 2 core boost at 4.8Ghz for a few seconds would be helpful. PBO is so power hungry.
    You do realize PBO is an optional feature right? And it can actually drop your single-core clocks/performance if pushed too hard due to thermal reasons, and ESPECIALLY by setting everything to basically infinite. (It can't stay at max single-core boost as long due to the increased voltages). The secret to PBO is manual tuning of the parameters to maximize all-core boost w/o negatively impacting single-core. Definitely takes some work & time to find that sweet spot though. And many single-thread processes have super short spikes in load, so a short time at max boost IS definitely still useful vs not having that boost at all. Also, if you're running the latest AGESA version (1.0.0.5) it'll hit the max boost on a single core pretty regularly, especially with a good undervolt.

    And the stock all-core boost for the R9 3900XT will be around 4.3 - 4.4GHz (up from 4.0 - 4.1 GHz), meaning a 4.5GHz overclock is totally within reason (not that I would do it though, ≈4.35GHz all-core + 4.8GHz max single-core boost > 4.5GHz all-core with no boost). That's not where the biggest performance gains from the refresh are going to come though. It's the +200MHz to the maximum Infinity Fabric clock that's the total game changer. Overclocking a Ryzen 3000 chip to like 5GHz on LN2 barely improves gaming performance after like 4.4 - 4.6GHz or so, due to major core-to-core (specifically CCX to CCX) communication bottlenecks. Running 4000MHz RAM with a 2000MHz F-Clock will essentially unlock a new gaming performance tier Ryzen's never been able to hit before.
    Reply
  • King_V
    Call me a cynic, but I imagine there's much hand-wringing among the "Intel is better because its clock speeds are higher" crowd... and they will still talk about how AMD can't compete because they can't cross the 5GHz threshold, or somesuch.
    Reply