What AMD EPYC Pricing Means for AMD Ryzen Threadripper Processors
When the AMD Ryzen Threadripper processor was announced at Computex 2017 no pricing guidance was given and in recent weeks we’ve seen a number of rumors where that price might land. Last night at the AMD EPYC 7000 processor launch event the starting price points were given for the 8-, 16-, 24- and 32-core parts when purchased in 1ku tray quantities.
The upcoming AMD EPYC 7281 16-core, 32-thread processor is priced at $650 with the AMD EPYC 7351P one-socket only processor running $750. The AMD EPYC series processors are aimed at use in the datacenter, but it gives some insight on what AMD might do with desktop part pricing.
The clock speeds on those 16-core parts start at 2.1GHz on the base clock and 2.7GHz on the boost clock and as you go up the 16-core product stack you get up to 2.4GHz base and 2.9GHz boost clocks. The highest clock speed is 2.9 GHz on these datacenter chips in either one-socket or the dual-socket support version, so it will be interesting to see if AMD can get those clock speeds up at all.
AMD EPYC 7000 Series Server Lineup:
| CPU Name | CPU Cores | CPU Threads | L3 Cache | Base Clock | Boost Clock | TDP | Pricing Range |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EPYC 7351 | 16 | 32 | 32 MB | 2.4 GHz | 2.9 GHz | 155/170W | >$1,100 USD |
| EPYC 7301 | 16 | 32 | 32 MB | 2.2 GHz | 2.7 GHz | 155/170W | >$800 USD |
| EPYC 7281 | 16 | 32 | 32 MB | 2.1 GHz | 2.7 GHz | 155/170W | $650 USD |
| EPYC 7281P | 16 | 32 | 32 MB | 2.4 GHz | 2.9 GHz | 155/170W | $750 USD |
The latest rumors that are going around online is that the flagship AMD Ryzen Threadripper 16-core processor could cost $849 and then there will be some other lower cost options with lower memory clocks. The AMD EPYC 7000 series pricing that was released last night looks like that rumors might not be too far off as the closest thing we have to a desktop part would be the AMD EPYC 7281P and it is priced at $750. The AMD EPYC 7601P 32-core processor has a 3.2GHz boost clock, so we are fairly sure AMD can get the 16-core consumer version up over a 3.0 GHz boost clock just as easily. You’ll be looking at 170-180W TDP, but water cooling the processor has become normal for the latest flagship processors to come to market. The Intel Core i9-7900X ‘Skylake-X’ 10-core processor was released this week at $999 and requires water cooling.
Were do you think AMD’s flagship Ryzen Threadripper processor will land when it comes to pricing and clock speeds? Could it be clocked up to 3.2GHz at an $849 price tag?
Let us know in the comments below!