AMD downgrades certain Ryzen CPUs to lesser stock coolers — Wraith Prism and Spire quietly retired, replaced with Wraith Stealth

Ever since the introduction of the Ryzen line-up, AMD has supplied a stock cooler in the box with most of its CPUs. These range from the basic Wraith Stealth units to the RGB-laden Wraith Prism, and the Wraith Spire which sits in between. While the Wraith line-up has existed prior to modern Ryzen processors, the Prism debuted with the Ryzen 2000 series in 2018, it is now retiring after seven years.

Spotted by @momomo_us, AMD has updated the OPN codes for some of its boxed Ryzen CPUs, with a new message highlighting the end-of-life status for Wraith Prism and Wraith Spire. Starting August, 2025, the cooler has been completely retired and will no longer come with processors such as the Ryzen 9 7900. There's no substitute either; there will simply be no stock cooler bundled with some AMD CPUs.

Alongside the Prism, even the Wraith Spire is being discontinued, with select units shifting to the lower-tier Wraith Stealth. AMD already moved away from including boxed coolers entirely with the Ryzen 9000 series, arguing that higher-end CPUs are paired with aftermarket solutions anyways. The only exception to this is the Ryzen 5 9600, which fittingly ships with a Wraith Stealth — so that's safe.

Image 1 of 3

Of the Ryzen 9000 series, only the Ryzen 5 9600 gets a Wraith Stealth cooler, but the Ryzen 7000 series fairs better with a handful of CPUs coming with in-box cooling. These are the Ryzen 9 7900 (Prism), 7 7700, 5 7600, , 5 7500F and the 5 7400F which all come with Wraith Stealth coolers. The older Ryzen 5 series CPUs fair much better with 11 of the 26 CPUs coming with cooling.

The Wraith Prism itself is an upgraded version of the original Wraith Max coolers that AMD shipped with its FX CPUs. It's the most capable of the bunch (or was), rated for 140W TDP which means it should be able to cool even flagship 16-core SKUs from the Red Team. On the other hand, the Wraith Stealth launched with the original 1000-series Ryzen chips and they're essentially the same cooler, just with different sized heatsinks.

While these coolers are technically nothing special, they still lowered the barrier to entry to a new platform. People previously using Intel processors, or building their first-ever PCs wouldn't have to worry about yet another component, avoiding the compatibility checks often needed before buying and pairing PC parts with each other. Nowadays, both AMD and Intel seem to have largely moved away from this model, forcing people to exclusively rely on a separate purchase.

Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!