AMD Inadvertently Reveals Ryzen 3 1300 & 1200 Details
by Ryan Smith on June 29, 2017 9:10 AM EST
If you were paying close attention to this morning’s announcement of AMD’s new Ryzen Pro SKUs, then you likely noticed something interesting: the non-X PRO chips all have the same performance specifications as their standard consumer counterparts. Specifically, both of the non-X PRO SKUs with existing Ryzen 5 & 7 counterparts have the same core counts, clockspeeds, and TDPs. And for the final 2 Ryzen PRO 3 SKUS? Well, AMD has inadvertently shown their hand here when it comes to forthcoming Ryzen 3.
With the release of the Ryzen PRO 3 specifications, AMD has now confirmed what we’ve been suspecting for the Ryzen 3 specifications for a while now. Ryzen 3 is a quad-core CPU without SMT, so we’re looking at just 4 threads instead of 8, albeit 4 threads without any of the resource contention SMT can sometimes cause. On which matter, it’s worth pointing out that AMD has already previously commented that Ryzen 3 will use the same die as Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7, so we’re looking at 4 cores distributed over 2 CCXs, like the Ryzen 5 1400 & 1500X.
| AMD Ryzen 5 & 3 SKUs | |||||||
| Cores/ Threads |
Base/ Turbo |
XFR | L3 | TDP | Cost | Cooler | |
| Ryzen 5 1600X | 6/12 | 3.6/4.0 | +100 | 16 MB | 95 W | $249 | - |
| Ryzen 5 1600 | 6/12 | 3.2/3.6 | +100 | 16 MB | 65 W | $219 | Spire |
| Ryzen 5 1500X | 4/8 | 3.5/3.7 | +200 | 16 MB | 65 W | $189 | Spire |
| Ryzen 5 1400 | 4/8 | 3.2/3.4 | +50 | 8 MB | 65 W | $169 | Stealth |
| Ryzen 3 1300* | 4/4 | 3.5/3.7 | TBD | 8 MB | 65 W | TBD | - |
| Ryzen 3 1200* | 4/4 | 3.1/3.4 | TBD | 8 MB | 65 W | TBD | - |
Similarly, AMD’s reveal indicates that Ryzen 3 will have the same cache structure as the lowest-end Ryzen 5, the 1400. That means just half of the chip’s total 16MB of L3 cache is enabled. However each core still retains its full 512KB of L2 cache. Finally, this inadvertent reveal also confirms that TDPs for the lowest-end members of the Ryzen family will stick with the same 65W TDP as all but the highest-performance Ryzen chips.
Of course, it should be noted here that AMD’s accidental reveal doesn’t mean that the 1300 & 1200 will be the only Ryzen 3 chips we’ll see. Just like the Ryzen 5 and 7 only had a couple of PRO counterparts, it’s likely that the story will be the same for the Ryzen 3 series. In particular, Ian suspects a Ryzen 3 1300X will show up, but we shall see in due time…
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babadivad - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link
It's not even 10-15 fps slower anymore. More like 5fps now. And that will likely shrink to nothing as drivers and bois improve.Disputes_ - Friday, June 30, 2017 - link
Why sell a cpu that can net you £100 if you kill 4 of the cores and 8mb of cache when you can get £300 for the same chip. ryzen yileds are too good 80% fully working. a low cost 4 core would sell like hot cakes and they make less profit per chipand why would they want to sell the less than 20% defective dies for £100 as the 4c/4t when they can just enable smt and sell it for £140. or even use that chip in epyc or threadripper and selling it for more than a perfect 8 core!
thats why amd dont give consumers the 4c/4t cpus. they dont care. they make more money elsewhere
and do you really think intel will just shit out a 4c for £100 when they have the upper hand on ipc
2901bitslice - Saturday, July 1, 2017 - link
"Too bad AMD doesn't want to sell quads."Oh but they do. AMD likes QUADS so much they put two on every die.
"They keep the single core clocks too low to push people towards the 6 cores SKUs but not everybody needs 6 cores and AMD is loosing customers to Intel this way."
Intel has maxxed out Single Core performance. It a simple law of physics. The more performance one seeks out of a core the bigger you have to make it. Silicon Wafers contain defects. Defects can not be repaired. The bigger one makes a die the higher the likelihood it will contain a defect trashing the entire die. As Die sizes increase more of the Wafer is lost to defects. That increases manufacturing costs. NVIDIA has created a core so large that it cost 10,000 dollars to manufacturer a single core. That's OK if you are a University operating on a Grant or a government agency operating with Cost-Plus Contracts but not very good for you and me. AMD has developed a means to circumvent this problem. Keep the die size small and cluster groups of "Quads" connect them with Infinity Fabric. Infinity Fabric is an architectural means to allow one device to communicate to another. This is a very elegant solution AMD has found to resolve this problem. Intel and NVIDIA have been sitting back on their laurels content to design chips on bigger and bigger dies but that party is over now.
Have fun boys.
mpbello - Monday, July 10, 2017 - link
Well said!soliloquist - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link
I would imagine that AMD is waiting on the quad core SKUs because they are harvested parts. Once they have enough in the supply chain they will release them.wumpus - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link
Ryzen 5 1500X are harvested (or crippled good dice), and currently so are Ryzen 5 1400. There really isn't any other way to make a 1500X (thanks to the cache) and it will almost certainly require a slightly different name and SKU for the 1400 to put on a smaller die (they currently use a 2+2 instead of 4+0).I'd expect the ryzen 3 devices to switch to a 4+0 configuration, if only to harvest raven ridge (can you harvest GPUs? I'd assume they have enough redundant parts to make it futile). It might be awhile before AMD can justify building a "mask chopped in half" (but I'd expect them to leave that door open).
Spunjji - Friday, June 30, 2017 - link
They used to do precisely that with the Athlon X4 series - disable the GPU on a 'dozer APU and sell as a CPU. Given their yields have been good so far (and limited production) I doubt they will be in any rush to do this.2901bitslice - Saturday, July 1, 2017 - link
Have you seen the reported yield rates for Ryzen Wafers that have been reported over the last two weeks. 80% out of the oven perfect and used for Ryzen 7 8 Core. The next 12 percent good for 6 Core Ryzen 1600s. The next 7 percent for 4 Core Ryzen 1500s. That's 99%. With yields like that they might as well just drop prices and postpone Ryzen 3 indefinitely. The few FX4300 series CPUs left are going for $110 to $130 where you can find them. I'd love to see the price of the Ryzen 1400 set to $99.95 That way Bulldozer can die a fitting and ignominious death.Glock24 - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link
Pricing should be competitive, but the i3s and even the Pentiums will be faster than Ryzen 3 in light threaded applications, and also faster in some heavy threaded apps because of higher ipc and clock speeds.What I'm waiting for are the APUs. I imagine they'll have a single CCX and hopefully better than Ryzen 3 clock speeds.
Dr. Swag - Thursday, June 29, 2017 - link
I disagree. You have to remember that the CPUs are overclockable and that quad cores > dual core with hyperthreading, as evidenced by a 5 ghz 7350k not being better than i5s in gaming even though it has >30% higher clock speeds. Due to the i3s and pentiums being locked I'd expect Ryzen 3 only to have a small single threaded performance deficit (5-10%), while having a huge multi threaded advantage, making it the better buy for almost everyone.