Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing

Close to the Metal Ep. 52: AMD’s return to form with Vega and Ryzen

By
Everyone loves a good comeback. AMD’s budget-focused Bulldozer chips and modest R9 graphics line had lost them the favor of all but the most devout red team members, until now. AMD’s return has had a sharp takeoff, and a steady climb towards relevance, creating a competitive market its enemies can’t ignore.

badge_itunes-smallest   stitcher-smallest   rss-smallest

Recommended Videos

While the last few years have seen remarkable improvements to gaming PC performance, they were dominated by Intel and Nvidia. For a while, it seemed like every other system was sporting a Core i5 and GTX 970. AMD needed a saving throw, and the RX 480 struck that chord, offering a $200 GPU when Nvidia’s GTX 1070 started at almost $400.

Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming
Check your inbox!
Privacy Policy

Then along came Ryzen, with chips like the Ryzen 7 1700 offering more cores than Intel at the price point, a move the PC gaming community was quick to take advantage of. Our breakdown of all the Ryzen chips showed there was a lot of value from top to bottom, something the blue team wasn’t offering at the time.

Related

ThreadRipper pushed performance boundaries too, with 16 cores and 32 threads of massive computing power. All of a sudden, AMD’s $800 chip was beating out Intel’s $1,060 chip in multi-core performance tests like Cinebench. Intel will have a chance to fire back in September, but AMD’s platform support on the high-end chips may still be unmatched.

And finally, we come to Vega, the long-awaited GPUs based on a brand new architecture, so far only seen in workstation graphics cards. No longer content with taking the budget market, the Radeon RX Vega 64 and Radeon RX Vega 56 aim straight for Nvidia’s GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 Ti, and actually manage to land a solid blow to the other side’s thick armor.

We’ll talk Threadripper, Vega, and AMD’s steady march back into relevance, as well as what it means for the computing and PC gaming communities at large, on this week’s Close to the Metal.

Close to the Metal is a podcast from Digital Trends that takes a deep dive into computing and PC gaming topics. Each show, we’ll focus in on one topic, and leave no stone unturned as we show off the latest in hardware and software. Whether it’s the latest GPU, supercomputers, or which 2-in-1 you should buy, we break down the complicated jargon and talk about how user experience is affected in the real world. Please subscribe, share, and send your questions to podcast@digitaltrends.com. We broadcast the show live on YouTube and Facebook at 10 a.m. Pacific / 1 p.m. Eastern, every Tuesday.

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Brad Bourque
Brad Bourque
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Brad Bourque is a native Portlander, devout nerd, and craft beer enthusiast. He studied creative writing at Willamette…
I tested AMD’s latest claims about Ryzen 9000, and they don’t hold up
The Ryzen 9 9950X between someone's fingertips.

AMD says that gaming performance on Ryzen 9000 is actually better than what you've read. As you can read in our Ryzen 9 9950X and Ryzen 9 9900X review, AMD's new Zen 5 CPUs are the best processors you can buy when it comes to productivity. Gaming performance, on the other hand, is disappointing.

According to a new blog post from AMD, there are a few reasons why reviewers saw lower gaming performance than expected. Chief among them are the fact that AMD used an unreleased version of Windows 11 -- the 24H2 update, which is available to Windows Insiders -- and that it used an administrator account for its "automated test methodology." In light of that, I downloaded the Windows update, spun up an admin account, and retested the Ryzen 9 9950X. And I'm not seeing what AMD claims at all.

Read more
AMD Zen 5: everything we know about Ryzen 9000 and Ryzen AI 300
A hand holding AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X.

AMD Zen 5 is the next-generation Ryzen CPU architecture for Team Red, and its gunning for a spot among the best processors. After a major showing in June, the first Ryzen 9000 and Ryzen AI 300 CPUs are already here. AMD promises significant performance advantages for the new architecture that will give it a big leap in gaming and productivity tasks, and the company also claims it will have major leads over Intel's top 14th-generation alternatives, allowing it to compete among the best gaming processors.

Now that we've had the chips in hand for a while, here's everything you need to know about Zen 5, Ryzen 9000, and Ryzen AI 300.
Zen 5 release date, availability, and price
AMD originally confirmed that the Ryzen 9000 desktop processors will launch on July 31, 2024, two weeks after the launch date of the Ryzen AI 300. The initial lineup includes the Ryzen 9 9950X, the Ryzen 9 9900X, the Ryzen 7 9700X, and the Ryzen 5 9600X. However, AMD delayed the CPUs at the last minute, with the Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 showing up on August 8, and the Ryzen 9s showing up on August 15.

Read more
AMD’s new Ryzen 9000 CPUs are only cheaper in spirit
The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X between two finger tips.

Following up on reviews for the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X, a flurry of reports are coming out about AMD's pricing for its new Zen 5 CPUs. Across the lineup, which is sure to earn some spots among the best processors, AMD reduced prices compared to the previous generation. That's great. But it's not exactly an accurate picture of pricing right now.

First, the prices. You can see in the picture below the prices for the main four Zen 5 CPUs. Both Ryzen 9 models are $50 cheaper compared to their last-gen counterparts, the Ryzen 7 9700X is $40 cheaper, and the Ryzen 5 9600X is $20 cheaper. That's only true if you compare the list prices that AMD set. Ultimately, it's up to retailers to dictate the final price, which is something we saw in full effect with AMD's last-gen CPUs.

Read more