When AMD’s glorious Ryzen 3000-series processors launched final summer time, snatching the desktop computing crown from Intel, certainly one of their key options was help for the blazing-fast PCIe 4.Zero interface—however provided that you bought an expensive X570 motherboard, too. No extra. After months of fixed leaks (and fixed pining by fans) AMD confirmed Tuesday that it’s bringing PCIe 4.Zero to the lots with the announcement of B550 motherboards, revealed alongside two extraordinarily inexpensive new Ryzen 3-series processors.
The twist? Motherboards with the B550 chipset aren’t launching till June 16. But if you happen to’ve already waited this lengthy with out splurging on an X570 improve, what’s one other couple of months?
B550 motherboards are precisely what you anticipate: They’re like the present B450 mainstream Ryzen motherboards, constructed across the backward-compatible AM4 socket, however with help for PCIe 4.Zero included. The cutting-edge interface guarantees sooner speeds for any gadget that faucets into it, but it surely’s particularly helpful for storage. PCIe 4.Zero SSDs hit ludicrous speeds—and this primary wave doesn’t even come near maxing out the know-how’s potential. Check out our PCI 4.Zero primer if you wish to know extra.
You have to pair PCIe 4.Zero motherboards with a Ryzen 3000-series processor to unlock their incredible speeds, and to that finish, AMD additionally introduced a pair of cheap 7nm Third-gen Ryzen Three processors at this time. The $99 Ryzen 3 3100 and $120 Ryzen 3 3300X are each four-core, eight-thread chips, rated for 65 watts and with full PCIe 4.Zero help in tow. The cheaper Ryzen 3 3100 sports activities a 3.6GHz base clock and three.9GHz increase clock, whereas the Ryzen 3 3300X ups speeds to three.8GHz base and 4.3GHz increase for $20 extra. Look for each to land in May, nicely forward of B550, oddly sufficient.
Unlike Intel’s Core i3 processors, Ryzen Three chips lack built-in graphics, so that you’ll have to pair the brand new chips with a discrete graphics card.
The burning query: How will AMD’s quad-core, Third-gen Ryzen Three chips stack up towards the $85 Ryzen 3 1600AF, a still-available funds barnstormer that packs six cores and twelve threads, however at decrease frequencies (and with out PCIe 4.0)? The look ahead to benchmarks shouldn’t final lengthy.
