AMD could release faster versions of last-gen Ryzen CPUs that are perfect for budget builds and upgrades

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
(Image credit: Future)

It seems that AMD is preparing to launch some new budget-friendly CPUs which will come from the last generation of Ryzen processors – in other words, Ryzen 5000 (not the current Ryzen 7000 or Zen 4 range).

These will be slightly faster ‘XT’ spins on existing Ryzen 5000 models, and the existence of Ryzen 5000XT chips was highlighted by well-known leaker HXL on X (formerly Twitter).

The photo in the above tweet comes from a presentation in China and clearly shows AMD’s intent to ‘attack every price point’ with Ryzen 5000XT models being part of that strategy. (Along Ryzen 8700F and 8400F silicon, too).

The XT spins on CPUs were previously seen with the Ryzen 3000 range, four years ago now. For example, AMD launched the Ryzen 3800XT to go alongside the Ryzen 3800X, bumping up the power usage to squeeze out an extra 200MHz of boost speed with the XT version.

Presumably the plan with Ryzen 5000 would be similar, bumping up clocks and TDP to get slightly faster variants (100-200MHz) of popular existing CPUs from the last-gen Zen 3 range.


Analysis: A laudable level of support for AM4

Is there a catch here? Well, perhaps the suggestion from HXL that these could be processors for the Chinese market only. Of course, we don’t know whether that’s the case, and while the presentation was in China, previous Ryzen 3000XT models were launched in the US and elsewhere globally – so we’d hope the same scenario will apply here.

If so, these could be some compelling wallet-friendly chips offering slightly better performance than existing models. It’s also commendable to see AMD still supporting its AM4 last-gen chipset with fresh CPU models, and that bodes well for continued support of current-gen AM5 motherboards into the future. (Something Team Red has already made positive noises about, if you recall).

We shouldn’t get too excited about a single leaked presentation slide, of course, but there’s a good deal of promise here for those mulling a budget PC build – or upgrade – in the future, who will be hunting for a value-for-money engine to sit in an AM4 motherboard.

Via VideoCardz

You might also like

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).