AMD to refresh socket AM4 with Ryzen '5000 XT' CPUs — two new iGPU-less Ryzen 8000-series processors also announced

AMD Ryzen
(Image credit: AMD)

Hardware detective HXL @9550pro on X reports that AMD has officially announced several brand-new Zen 3 and Zen 4 CPUs in China. The new CPUs are comprised of a new "Ryzen 5000 XT" refresh and a pair of new purportedly iGPU-less Ryzen 8000-series parts, the Ryzen 7 8700F and Ryzen 5 8400F. A release date was not announced, but due to the Chinese locality of this announcement, it seems like most (if not all) of these CPUs could be exclusive to the Asian market.

According to the AMD slide shown off by HXL on X, AMD aims to "attack every price point" with these new chips. As a result, we can expect the Ryzen 5000 XT lineup to target prices that its outgoing AM4 chips don't currently cover. The same is true of the Ryzen 7 8700F and Ryzen 5 8400F, but these chips will be targeting AMD's newer AM5 platform instead.

If AMD repeats history, this new Ryzen 5000 XT refresh won't be impressive. The last time AMD did this with its Ryzen 3000 XT debut, the "XT" versions had a measly 100-200MHz higher clock speed than their vanilla "X" CPU counterparts. This minor change made their performance almost indistinguishable, and the higher price tags on the XT chips made them a poor purchasing choice. But as the saying goes, there are no bad products, only bad prices, and we don't know how much AMD plans to charge for the 5000 XT parts — we're not even sure how many new XT CPUs will become available.

Unless AMD changes the formula drastically, these Ryzen 5000 XT chips will be slightly higher clocked versions of the outgoing Ryzen 5000 X parts. We hope AMD learns from its past mistakes and tweaks the Ryzen 5000 XT lineup to be more appealing, whether that means pricing them more competitively or boosting specs to provide meatier performance improvements. We could even see Ryzen 5000 XT chips with 3D-VCache technology, but none of this is confirmed yet.

Arguably the more exciting CPUs are the Ryzen 7 8700F and Ryzen 5 8400F. Due to their nomenclature, we can already extrapolate that these chips are binned versions of the Ryzen 5 8500G and Ryzen 7 8700G, which incorporate AMD's speedy Zen 4 cores plus a fast RDNA 2 integrated graphics chip and an XDNA NPU.

The F nomenclature means that these new CPUs will not have integrated graphics functionality. These chips will be targeted at lower price points, where AMD's outgoing Ryzen 7000 series chips don't compete. The interesting tidbit will be if AMD will also disable the XDNA NPU on top of the iGPU. This is the first generation of processors where AMD has incorporated an NPU solution into its desktop offerings, we'll have to see if AMD keeps the NPU or disables it alongside the GPU.

Aaron Klotz
Freelance News Writer

Aaron Klotz is a freelance writer for Tom’s Hardware US, covering news topics related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

  • Neilbob
    'The same is true of the Ryzen 7 8700F and Ryzen 5 8400F, but these chips will be targeting AMD's newer AM5 platform instead.'
    I think that bit ought to be clarified a little more. I very nearly missed it; just for a minute there I was thinking that these would be Zen 4 for AM4, and how would that even be possible?
    Reply
  • Amdlova
    Yes the amd topology can mix anything :) you can have zen 5 6 on am4. Who say what combo you can make is the i/o chip but will not be cheap
    Reply
  • Ethan Feinhaus
    Amdlova said:
    Yes the amd topology can mix anything :) you can have zen 5 6 on am4. Who say what combo you can make is the i/o chip but will not be cheap
    I'm still annoyed there was no Zen upgrade of the AM1 platform, the ultimate budget option back in the day, or AM3+.
    Reply
  • hotaru251
    Whats record for longevity of a socket as seems like AM4 might be getting there (if not already)
    Reply
  • Amdlova
    Ethan Feinhaus said:
    I'm still annoyed there was no Zen upgrade of the AM1 platform, the ultimate budget option back in the day, or AM3+.
    The AM1 and FM2 are the AMD "science schol project". Just to test how APU work and what kind of market they can take share.
    Reply
  • PastafarianLemur
    Well this is good news. I bought the Microcenter exclusive 5600X3D and that has been quite good for gaming so far. A 5800XT3D (if it gets released) would probably be a nice stopgap two or three years in the future until building an entirely new system about five years from now.
    Reply