Although AMD delayed launch of its Ryzen 9000-series processors based on the Zen 5 microarchitecture from July 31, to early and mid-August, the company's partner (and major US retailer) Best Buy briefly began listing the new CPUs today, revealing a very plausible set of launch prices. As per the retailer's product catalog, the most affordable unlocked Zen 5-based processor will cost $279, whereas the highest-performing Zen 5-powered CPU will cost $599 at launch.

AMD will start its Ryzen 9000 series rollout from relatively inexpensive six-core Ryzen 5 9600X and eight-core Ryzen 7 9700X on August 8. Per the Best Buy listing, the Ryzen 5 9600X will cost $279, whereas the Ryzen 7 9700X will carry a recommended price tag of $359.  Meanwhile, The more advanced 12-core Ryzen 9 9900X and 16-core Ryzen 9 9950X will hit the market on August 15 at MSRPs of $449 and $599, respectively, based on the Best Buy listing.

It is noteworthy that when compared to the launch prices of the Zen 4-based Ryzen 7000 processors, the new Zen 5-powered Ryzen 9000 CPUs come in cheaper. The range topping Ryzen 9 5950X started at $799 in 2020, while the Ryzen 9 7950X had a recommended $699 price tag in 2022. By contrast, the top-end Ryzen 9 9950X is listed at $599. Both Ryzen 7 5600X and Ryzen 7 7600X cost $299 at launch, while the upcoming Ryzen 5 9600X will apparently be priced at $279 at launch.

As always with accidental retailer listings, it should be emphasized that AMD has not yet announced official pricing for their Ryzen 9000 CPUs. Given Best Buy's status as one of the largest US electronics retailers, these prices carry a very high probability of being accurate; but none the less, they should be taken with a grain of salt – if only because last-minute price changes are not unheard of with new CPU launches.

Source: Best Buy (via @momomo_us)

Intel’s next-generation Core Ultra laptop chips finally have a launch date: September 3^rd.

Codenamed Lunar Lake, Intel has been touting the chips for nearly a year now. Most recently, Intel offered the press a deep dive briefing on the chips and their underlying architectures at Computex back in June, along with a public preview during the company’s Computex keynote. At the time Intel was preparing for Q3’2024 launch, and that window has finally been narrowed down to a single date – September 3^rd – when Intel will be hosting their Lunar Lake launch event ahead of IFA.

Intel’s second stab at a high volume chiplet-based processor for laptop users, Lunar Lake is aimed particularly at ultrabooks and other low-power mobile devices, with Intel looking to wrestle back the title of the most efficient PC laptop SoC. Lunar Lake is significant in this respect as Intel has never previously developed a whole chip architecture specifically for low power mobile devices before – it’s always been a scaled-down version of a wider-range architecture, such as the current Meteor Lake (Core Ultra 100 series). Consequently, Intel has been touting that they’ve made some serious efficiency advancements with their highly targeted chip, which they believe will vault them over the competition.

All told, Lunar Lake is slated to bring a significant series of updates to Intel’s chip architectures and chip design strategies. Of particular interest is the switch to on-package LPDDR5X memory, which is a first for a high-volume Core chip. As well, Lunar Lake incorporates updated versions of virtually every one of Intel’s architecture, from the CPU P and E cores – Lion Cove and Skymont respectively – to the Xe2 GPU and 4^th generation NPU (aptly named NPU 4). And, in a scandalous twist, both of the chiplets/tiles on the CPU are being made by TSMC. Intel isn’t providing any of the active silicon for the chip – though they are providing the Foveros packaging needed to put it together.

Suffice it to say, no matter what happens, Lunar Lake and the Core Ultra 200 series should prove to be an interesting launch.

It’s worth noting, however, that while Intel’s announcement of their livestreamed event is being labeled a “launch event” by the company, the brief reveal doesn’t make any claims about on-the-shelves availability. September 3^rd is a Tuesday (and the day after a US holiday), which isn’t a typical launch date for new laptops (for reference, the lightly stocked Meteor Lake launch was a Thursday). So Intel’s launch event may prove to be more of a soft launch for Lunar Lake; we’ll have to see how things pan out in the coming weeks.