Ryzen 9000 is here and AMD says it's the most powerful desktop processor

Today at Computex, AMD is announcing its Ryzen 9000 family of processors, based on the Zen 5 architecture. As usual, there are four SKUs to start with, and the main story is that there's a 16% improvement in IPC over the last generation.

The AMD Ryzen 9000 series

It looks mostly the same from the outside

At first glance, you'll notice that Ryzen 9000 chips have the same core counts and frequencies as their predecessors did. The biggest difference is that 16% boost in IPC I mentioned earlier, thanks to the new architecture.

Ryzen 9 9950X	16 cores / 32 threads	5.7GHz max boost	80MB cache	170W TDP
Ryzen 9 9900X	12 cores / 24 threads	5.6GHz max boost	76MB cache	120W TDP
Ryzen 7 9700X	8 cores / 16 threads	5.5GHz max boost	40MB cache	65W TDP
Ryzen 5 9600X	6 cores / 12 threads	5.4GHz max boost	38MB cache	65W TDP

These new chips also come alongside new X870 and X870E boards. The biggest difference with these is that USB 4.0 is standard, PCIe 5 is available on all boards (it was only on some of the previous ones), and higher EXPO memory clock support.

AMD noted that older chips will work on the new motherboards, and vice versa.

Longer life for motherboards

AMD is extending its AM5 promise

When AMD first announced AM5 with the Ryzen 7000 series, it promised to support the platform until at least 2025. It wasn't too impressive given how long the firm had supported AM4, but it was still better than the lack of longevity you get from Intel sockets.

Now, the company is promising to support AM5 until at least 2027, meaning that any new processor families announced between now and then will use the same socket.

That's not all, because AMD is also introducing the Ryzen 9 5900XT and Ryzen 7 5800XT today, breathing new life into the AM4 platform. Indeed, the company just seems to keep announcing new AM4 products, and the reason is pretty simple: people are still buying them.

Ryzen 9 5900XT	16 cores / 32 threads	4.8GHz max boost	72MB cache	105W TDP
Ryzen 7 5800XT	8 cores / 16 threads	4.8GHz max boost	36MB cache	105W TDP

Lots of people have old CPUs in AM4 boards that they want to upgrade without the cost of moving to not only a new motherboard, but PCIe 5 and DDR5. Indeed, DDR4 memory is pretty cheap these days.

All of the new processors announced today will be available in July.