Why it matters to you
This achievement only goes to show how AMD’s new Zen processor design can offer a huge performance gain for less cost and power usage.
Earlier this week, AMD officially revealed the first three desktop processors from its new Ryzen family: the Ryzen 7 1800X, the Ryzen 7 1700X, and the Ryzen 7 1700. The CPUs were introduced during a special event for the press, but AMD also invited professional overclockers to come in and push the new Ryzen processors to their limits. The result was one team overclocking the 1800X to a hefty 5.2GHz with all eight cores active.
However, the team didn’t overclock the chip using mere CPU coolers. According to team member Rodrigo Avelino, they used liquid nitrogen (LN2) and lots of voltage. Thus, thanks to the pushed speed and the -200 Celsius temperature, the Ryzen 7 1800X managed to score a 2,449cb in Cinebench R15, breaking the previous world record of 2,410cb. The core voltage reached 1.875 volts while the core speed hit an exact 5,201.07MHz.
As a refresher, here are the out-of-the-box specs for the Ryzen 7 1800X and its two siblings:
1800X
1700X
1700
Code name:
Summit Ridge
Summit Ridge
Summit Ridge
Architecture:
Zen
Zen
Zen
Socket type:
AM4
AM4
AM4
Core count:
8
8
8
Thread count:
16
16
16
Base speed:
3.6GHz
3.4GHz
3.0GHz
Boost speed:
4.0GHz
3.8GHz
3.7GHz
L2 Cache:
4MB
4MB
4MB
L3 Cache:
16MB
16MB
16MB
Max power draw:
95 watts
95 watts
65 watts
Price:
$500 (no cooler)
$400 (no cooler)
$330 (with cooler)
Availability:
March 2
March 2
March 2
As the specs show, the 1800X has a base speed of 3.6GHz and a boost speed of 4.0GHz, thus the overclocking team pushed the chip way past its normal overclocking boundaries. All three processors are unlocked, enabling customers to crank the speeds beyond their limits, and could see even faster speeds than this week’s new Cinebench R15 world record using lots more liquid nitrogen and even liquid helium.
More: AMD’s new Ryzen chips are available for pre-order today, but you might want to hurry
The big deal here is that right out of the box, AMD’s Ryzen 7 1800X processor provides the same if not better performance than competing eight-core CPUs sold by Intel costing $1,000 or more. The company demonstrated during its Ryzen coming-out party that the $400 Ryzen 7 1700X matched Intel’s Core i7-6900K chip, which currently still costs $1,089 despite the Ryzen reveal.
Here’s a chart to show the difference between the AMD chips and their closest Intel competitors:
Ryzen 7 1800X
Core i7-6900K
Ryzen 7 1700X
Core i7-6800K
Ryzen 7 1700
Core i7-7700K
Core count:
8
8
8
6
8
4
Thread count:
16
16
16
12
16
8
Base speed:
3.6GHz
3.2GHz
3.4GHz
3.4GHz
3.0GHz
4.2GHz
Boost speed:
4.0GHz
3.7GHz
3.8GHz
3.6GHz
3.7GHz
4.5GHz
Cache:
20MB
20MB
20MB
15MB
20MB
8MB
Max power draw:
95 watts
140 watts
95 watts
140 watts
65 watts
91 watts
Price:
$500
$1,089
$400
$441
$330
$350
Not only is AMD going after Intel with a doubled-performance-per-price-point offer, the company is also packing more performance per watt. As seen above, the 1800X achieves higher clock speeds but consumes less power than Intel’s chip at half the cost. That said, Ryzen has seemingly raised the bar for benchmarking CPUs in Cinebench R15.