AMD has yet to announce a launch date for its highly anticipated Ryzen processor. Little by little and in bits and pieces, however, more information about the AMD Ryzen are coming out ahead of its official release in the first quarter of this year.
For one, as AMD announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the Ryzen will be present in 16 high-end motherboards using the AM4 socket and CPU coolers built for them, as well as 17 pre-built personal computers that are said to have extreme performance. PC World reports that big players like Asus, MSI, Biostar, Gigabyte, and ASRock will release Ryzen-powered AM4 motherboards.
The AM4 motherboards will also have longer lifespans instead of having to be upgraded every year or two. An official of AMD told PC World the motherboards were meant to last until newer technologies become available.
One of the most exciting things for tech enthusiasts is that every Ryzen chip can be overclocked. This refers to chips running at a higher speed than they were designed to. However, overclocking will only be possible with motherboards that have X370, X300, and B350 chipsets.
Many industry insiders believe the AMD Ryzen already holds a lot of promise even before it officially hits the market. From playing second fiddle to Intel in previous years, AMD is believed to have the potential to pose serious competition in 2017 through Ryzen.
Early reviews of the AMD Ryzen have shown that it beats Intel's existing processors. As reported by BGR, tests by a French magazine showed that Ryzen beats the Intel i7-6700K in computing tasks, although it trails Intel processors when it comes to games. It is not yet known, however, how it compares with Intel's upcoming Kaby Lake chips.
In terms of computer graphics, meanwhile, AMD's Vega GPUs are up against Nvidia's 10XX. The competition is expected to be tough, but according to BGR, AMD has already employed strategies such as cozying up with game developers so that their games would perform better on AMD's cards.
