AMD reveals 2018 roadmap, lowers current gen Ryzen prices

We are just 24 hours away from the start of CES, which means we'll be getting plenty of major announcements today ahead of the show. We've already seen some of what Nvidia and Intel are bringing to the table this year, but now it's AMD's turn. Today, AMD announced its CPU roadmap for 2018, while also lowering prices for 1st gen Ryzen processors.

Let's start off with the pricing changes. AMD's Ryzen Threadripper 1950X and 1920X processors will remain at $999 and $799 for now, but the 8C/16T 1900X has been cut from an SEP of $549 to $449. As for Ryzen 7, the 1800X is down from $499 to $349, the 1700X is down from $399 to $309 and the 1700 is going from $329 to $299.

The 6C/12T Ryzen 5 lineup is getting price changes too, with the 1600X now at $219 and the 1600 at $189. The 4C/8T Ryzen 5 1500X now carries an SEP of $174 and the new Ryzen 5 2400G is $169. AMD's Ryzen 3 1300X is staying at its $129 price point but the new Ryzen 3 2200G will have an SEP of $99.

Now you probably noticed the new additions of the Ryzen 5 2400G and Ryzen 3 2200G- these are second generation Ryzen desktop processors. AMD's Ryzen desktop 2000 series is expected to launch this year, with improvements made to the technology introduced in the first generation Ryzen series. They will all be based on the 12nm process node, rather than the 14nm we saw on the 1st Gen series.

Process technology optimizations have been made to allow for higher clock speeds with lower power requirements. Silicon improvements have been made for better cache, latency and importantly, memory speed. DDR4 speeds is something that Ryzen struggled with a bit at launch, so it seems like this was an area of focus for the 2000 series. Second Gen Ryzen desktop CPUs will also bring in new 400-series motherboards, which will be compatible with older Ryzen processors as the AM4 socket has not changed.

So in 2018 we can expect 2nd Gen Ryzen 7, Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 3 desktop processors. There will also be APU variants of Ryzen 5 and 3 with Radeon Vega graphics on board. We'll also be seeing new x470 and B450 motherboards hit the market with various feature improvements compared to X370 and B350.

KitGuru Says: We still don't have specific release dates for second-gen Ryzen processors but it looks like they are well on the way. Hopefully we'll get a chance to see the Ryzen 5 2400G and Ryzen 3 2200G in action over the course of CES this week.

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