AMD Unveils 12-Core Ryzen 9 3900X at Half the Cost of Intel's Rival
AMD introduces its new 7-nanometer Ryzen 3000 processors, led by a 12-core chip that drastically undercuts Intel on price. The company also previews its Navi graphics cards and accelerates its data center processor launch.
AMD CEO Lisa Su delivers the Computex keynote in Taipei and unveils the third-generation Ryzen CPU lineup, marking the arrival of the first 7-nanometer desktop chips. The standout announcement is the 12-core, 24-thread Ryzen 9 3900X, which boasts a 4.6 GHz boost speed and a highly efficient 105-watt thermal design power. This flagship processor retails for $499, exactly half the price of Intel’s competing Core i9-9920X chipset.
The aggressive pricing strategy extends across the entire new Ryzen family, with the 6-core 3600 starting at $199, the 8-core 3700X at $329, and the 8-core 3800X at $399. AMD demonstrates that the 3900X completes rendering tasks about 18 percent faster than the Intel i9-9920X while consuming significantly less power. These performance and value metrics put immense competitive pressure on Intel's current desktop offerings.
Beyond desktop chips, AMD reveals the Radeon RX 5000 series as its first Navi architecture GPUs and schedules a full reveal for E3 next month to potentially challenge Nvidia's pricing. Additionally, the company accelerates the launch of its EPYC Rome data center processors to next quarter, moving it up by three months to directly compete with Intel's Cascade Lake. AMD claims these data center chips perform twice as fast as their Intel counterparts in benchmark tests.