AMD Ryzen 5 Cores Are Disabled in Symmetrical Pairs

By Nathan Kirsch

AMD Ryzen CPU Die

There seems to be some confusion about what CCX arrangement the recently announced AMD Ryzen 5 processors will be shipping with, so we’ve been pestering AMD trying to get that sorted out. After speaking with AMD this afternoon we’ve confirmed that AMD is disabling cores in symmetrical pairs only and that all Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5 processors use the same exact die. This means that you’ll end up with 4:4, 3:3 ,2:2 CCX arrangement and different amounts of L3 and L2 (512kb/core) cache on some of the processors. No Ryzen 5 series processors will be shipping with a 4:0 or 0:4 CCX arrangement like some were thinking.

Here’s rundown of how they compare:

  • Ryzen 7 1800X: 8 cores (4+4), 16 threads, 16MB L3, 4MB L2, 3.6GHz to 4GHz, $499
  • Ryzen 7 1700X: 8 cores (4+4), 16 threads, 16MB L3, 4MB L2, 3.4GHz to 3.8GHz, $399
  • Ryzen 7 1700: 8 cores (4+4), 16 threads, 16MB L3, 4MB L2, 3GHz to 3.7GHz, $329
  • Ryzen 5 1600X: 6 cores (3+3), 12 threads, 16MB L3, 3MB L2, 3.6GHz to 4GHz, $249
  • Ryzen 5 1600: 6 cores (3+3), 12 threads, 16MB L3, 3MB L2, 3.2GHz to 3.6GHz, $219
  • Ryzen 5 1500X: 4 cores (2+2), 8 threads, 16MB L3, 2MB L2, 3.5GHz to 3.7GHz, $189
  • Ryzen 5 1400: 4 cores (2+2), 8 threads, 8MB L3 (split 4MB per CCX), 2MB L2, 3.2GHz to 3.4GHz, $169

Hopefully that clears things up a bit as some of the things we’ve run across online are wrong. We expect Ryzen 3 will be using a new Zen die, but AMD does not comment on unreleased products.

Take a look at the AMD Ryzen 5 Desktop Processor Sneak Peak below where AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su and VP of Marketing John Taylor discuss Ryzen and head into the labs for a sneak peek into how Ryzen 5 processors are performing in advance of their April 11, 2017 launch.