Ryzen returns AMD to the high-end desktop contest

AMD's Ryzen 7 processors went on sale worldwide today, beginning the company's long-awaited return to high-performance desktop CPUs. The initial family offers eight cores and sixteen processing threads, with prices ranging from $329 to $499.

Ryzen introduces AMD's new Zen architecture and uses the AM4 platform. All three launch chips are unlocked for overclocking, while AMD is pairing them with new motherboard chipsets and its SenseMI collection of power, clock and prediction technologies.

For years, desktop builders seeking top-end performance have had little meaningful choice. Ryzen's combination of core count and price puts pressure on that settled market, particularly for rendering, encoding and other parallel workloads. Gaming results and motherboard maturity will need close examination, and less expensive Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 3 parts are still ahead, but competition has returned to the processor aisle.