Ryzen 7 2700X: AMD’s 2nd-gen CPUs nail the sequel
Just over a year ago, AMD flipped the PC industry on its proverbial head with revolutionary Ryzen 7 processors that democratized CPU core counts in a way never seen before.
While the recently unveiled 2nd-gen Ryzen 7 2700X (don’t call it Ryzen 2—that’s coming later) doesn’t quite shake things up the way the original Ryzen chips did last year, it’s a solidly good sequel that, in many ways, is far better than what it replaces. And it puts the squeeze back on Intel’s 8th-gen Coffee Lake processors, which upped their own core count to counter Ryzen’s threat.
This review focuses on the 2700X, but a total of four new chips make up the 2nd-gen introduction: two 8-core CPUs and two 6-core chips.
• The 8-core Ryzen 7 2700X costs $329 on Amazon.
• The 8-core Ryzen 7 2700 costs $299 on Amazon.
• The 6-core Ryzen 5 2600X costs $229 on Amazon.
• The 6-core Ryzen 5 2600 costs $199 on Amazon.
The actual CPU microarchitecture hasn’t changed, but AMD said it has optimized the underlying circuits to decease latency.
INSIDE RYZEN 2ND-GEN CPUS
The new 2nd-gen Ryzen chips are based on refined CPU cores that AMD calls “Zen+.” While the first-gen Ryzen chips were built on a 14nm process, 2nd-gen Ryzen uses GlobalFoundries’s new 12nm process, which helped AMD increase the clock-speed range over the original version.
The actual CPU micro-architecture hasn’t changed, but AMD said it has optimized the underlying circuits to decease latency. The L1 cache sees a 13 percent reduction and L3 shaves off 16 percent, while the L2 achieves a whopping 34 percent latency drop. AMD says it all adds up to about an 11 percent decrease in latency for main system RAM, too.
Internally, the chip arrangements are the same. The 8-core parts use dual CCX designs joined by AMD’s Infinity Fabric technology. The 2nd-gen Ryzen 5 chips do the same, but with one core per CCX disabled.
HIGHER CLOCK SPEEDS WITH PRECISION BOOST 2 AND XFR2
Although the various latency improvements offer performance benefits, much of 2nd-gen Ryzen’s performance gains come directly from higher clock speeds. The original Ryzen 7 1800X topped out at 4GHz under boost conditions, and the 1700X maxed out at 3.8GHz. The Ryzen 7 2700X
