In an unforeseen turn of events, AMD has delayed the launch of the Ryzen 9000 processors by a week due to initial production units failing certain quality checks. The chipmaker hasn’t shared the exact nature of the issue, but going by the short week-long delay, it’s likely something minor fixable by a microcode update. We’re now looking at a staggered launch, with the Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X landing on the 8th, and the Ryzen 9 9900X and 9950X on the 15th of August.
We appreciate the excitement around Ryzen 9000 series processors. During final checks, we found the initial production units that were shipped to our channel partners did not meet our full quality expectations. Out of an abundance of caution and to maintain the highest quality experiences for every Ryzen user, we are working with our channel partners to replace the initial production units with fresh units.
As a result, there will be a short delay in retail availability. The Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X processors will now go on sale on August 8th and the Ryzen 9 9950X and Ryzen 9 9900X processors will go on-sale on August 15th. We pride ourselves in providing a high-quality experience for every Ryzen user, and we look forward to our fans having a great experience with the new Ryzen 9000 series.
Understandably, reviews and performance comparisons will also be affected, with different embargo dates for the midrange Ryzen 5/Ryzen 7 and the high-end Ryzen 9 SKUs. The fact that the single CCD CPUs (9600X/9700X) are releasing a week ahead of the dual-CCD parts (9900X/9950X) implies that this may have something to do with the memory or fabric interconnect [pure speculation].
The Ryzen 9000 CPUs will have the same memory sweet spot as the 7000 series, at 6000 MT/s in a 1:1 DRAM: controller ratio, but the upper limit will be raised to 6400 MT/s. The fabric clock is usually set to 2000 MHz (4000 MT/s). When using faster memory modules, the DRAM: controller ratio switches to 2:1 mode, accompanied by a latency increase.
