AMD Ryzen Family Estimated Pricing Shows Potential To Undercut Intel Kaby Lake Status Quo

With a little bit of luck, AMD will launch its Ryzen processor lineup on February 28 during its Capsaicin event at the 2017 Game Developers Conference (GDC) and put to rest all the rumors and speculation. Barring that, we'll have to wait until sometime early next month, as AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su previously indicated. Either way, the leaks will continue to flow in the meantime. Using information that has already been leaked, a reddit forum member who goes by "Nestledrink" put together a handy chart showing how AMD could disrupt the market by undercutting Intel at nearly every turn.

There is a lot of information about Ryzen that is out in the wild, including model names of 17 SKUs, core counts, clockspeeds, and TDP ratings. Pricing data is a little tougher to come by, though it's out there, including a full breakdown in a Chinese forum. Nestledrink took that data and did some conversions to see how Ryzen and Kaby Lake might stack up in the marketplace. Here is a look at that chart:


Nestledrink explains that the first thing he did was convert the Chinese prices for Ryzen to U.S. currency. He then looked up equivalent Newegg prices for Intel processors.

"When we look at the Intel prices on Newegg, on average it's around 85 percent versus the converted Chinese price. Using this logic, I multiplied the converted Chinese Ryzen prices by 85 percent to get the expected price for Ryzen product lines," Nestledrink said.

There are things to note here. For one, Ryzen pricing has not yet been confirmed. Heck, even the 17 SKUs along with core counts and clockspeeds is all based on leaks and rumors. On top of that, pricing often varies by region—a straight up conversion isn't typically how it works.

Those issues aside, if the leaked information to date is mostly accurate, the chart serves as a ballpark breakdown of where Ryzen stands in relation to Kaby Lake. That is where things get interesting. Take for example Intel's Core i7-6850K processor priced at $610. It has 6-cores, 12 threads, and is clocked at 3.6GHz to 3.8GHz. Compare that to AMD's Ryzen R5-1600X priced at $247. It also has 6 cores and 12 threads, and is clocked slightly lower at 3.3GHz to 3.7GHz.

Here's another interesting comparison:

• Intel Core i7-6900K: 8 cores, 16 threads, 3.2GHz to 3.7GHz, $1,050
• AMD Ryzen R7-1700X: 8 cores, 16 threads, 3.4GHz to 3.8GHz, $397
• AMD Ryzen R7-1700: 8 cores, 16 threads, 3GHz to 3.7GHz, $322

AMD's aggressive pricing, if it turns out that way, could force Intel to either lower its prices or hope that its customers are willing to spend considerably more out of brand loyalty. As it stands, rumor has it Intel is readying new Kaby Lake Core i7 and i5 chips to fend off Ryzen. The question is, will it be enough? Stay tuned.