AMD Ryzen 7 2700X 8-Core 2nd Gen Ryzen Processor Leaks With 4.2GHz Turbo Clock

One of AMD's upcoming processors has been spotted in the wild, and it is looking like a worthy successor to the company's existing lineup. The chip in question is the Ryzen 7 2700X, one of AMD's second generation Ryzen CPUs codenamed 'Pinnacle Ridge' that are due out next month. This particular SKU is the one that will replace the company's existing Ryzen 7 1700X that sits near the top of the consumer desktop stack.

Before we get to the details, let's clear up any potential confusion surrounding these next generation parts. You may see these parts referred to as second generation Ryzen, Pinnacle Ridge, or Ryzen 2. They all refer to the same processor family, and are not to be confused with Zen 2, otherwise known as 'Matisse', due out next year. Pinnacle Ridge is based on the same Summit Ridge architecture as AMD's existing Ryzen processors, with additional optimizations for improved performance, faster clock speeds, and presumably better power efficiency.


You might also see these parts referred to as Zen+. What AMD has done is wedge a refined 12-nanometer processor architecture in between its existing Zen and future Zen 2 processors, the latter of which will be built on a 7nm manufacturing process. All of this is outlined in AMD's official roadmap above.

Getting back to the Ryzen 7 2700X, unofficial details have leaked to the web by way of a couple of Futuremark 3DMark benchmark runs. Where the leaked benchmarks differ is in reporting the turbo clock. Both entries show the Ryzen 7 2700X as being an 8-core/16-thread processor with a 3.7GHz clockspeed, 16MB of L3 cache, and a 95W TDP.


The core counts, cache, and TDP are all the same as the Ryzen 7 1700X. However, the base clock on the Ryzen 7 2700X is 300MHz faster, so there is an automatic speed bump without even factoring in architecture optimizations. As for the turbo clock, one of the listings indicates 4.1GHz and the other shows 4.2GHz. So, which is correct?

Potentially both of them. One possibility is that AMD set the turbo clock at 4.1GHz, with a 100MHz XFR (eXtended Frequency Range) that would bump the chip to 4.2GHz on occasion. And of course the other possibility is that one or both listings are flat out wrong—benchmarks sometimes have trouble properly identifying vitals of unreleased processors. That seems less likely here, with Ryzen 2 now only weeks away. But who knows.

In any event, it looks like Ryzen 2 will be a decent upgrade over AMD's first generation Ryzen processors. It's also worth noting that Ryzen 2 will work in existing AM4 motherboards (with a BIOS update), along with new X400 series chipset motherboards.