AMD’s 8-Core Ryzen 7 1700X Allegedly Delivers Core i7-6900K Performance At A Bargain $389 Price

Excitement for AMD's next-generation Ryzen series of processors seems to have reached a fever pitch. For the first time in far too long, we have the prospect of an AMD processor that's not only competitive with Intel's latest and greatest, but perhaps potentially a better value in some cases, too.

Following-up on our report of leaked Ryzen models earlier, we now get some rumored performance characteristics of one particular chip, the ~$389 Ryzen 7 1700X. The 1700X could become AMD's best bang-for-the-buck Ryzen processor in the enthusiast segment. It is rumored to cost $110 less than the 1800X, with the only trade-off (that we know of) being a 200MHz reduction in base frequency (from 3600MHz). As the "X" in the model number designates, however, the 1700X includes support for AMD's Extended Frequency Range (XFR) tech, just like the top-end 1800X.

Apparently, WCCF Tech was able to dig up some Ryzen 7 1700X Sysmark and CPU Mark numbers from the benchmarks' databases and had some impressive results to share. On the single-threaded front, the 1700X comes close to the 3.20GHz Intel Core i7-6900K, but falls a bit behind the 4.2GHz Core i7-7700K. Compared to the 8-core FX-8350 from AMD, the Ryzen 7 1700X is allegedly an impressive 37% faster.

Things begin to get more interesting with the other tests though, potentially highlighting the significant architectural improvements AMD has made with Ryzen. With an Integer math test, the Ryzen 7 1700X simply cleans house, even beating out Intel's high-end Core i7-6900K, which is a ~$1,000 8-core monster clocked at 3.2GHz. In this specific test, the AMD Ryzen 7 1700X manages to outperform the Intel Core i7-7700K (4-core at 4.20GHz) by a massive 85% - that is if the numbers are to be trusted, of course.

A steady stream of recent "leaks" like this one, that paint Ryzen in a favorable light, has led some to speculate that Intel's sudden touting of its next-generation Core i7-8700 series means that AMD does in fact have something unbelievably HOT on its hands.

Throughout all of the testing done, AMD's Ryzen chip comes out ahead more often than not. There are some cases where the beefiest Intel chips do strike back hard, though, especially with the physics and prime numbers tests. However, one more interesting result is in the encryption test, where AMD's Ryzen 7 1700X beats out the 8-core i7-6900K as well. Encryption has traditionally been an area where Intel's processors have been exceptionally strong.

Excited for Ryzen? Let us know in the comments.  And stay tuned to HotHardware for more Ryzen info as it becomes available.