AMD inadvertently leaked the existence of another Ryzen 3000 mainstream processor near the top of its product stack in the latest release of its Product Master Guide, which has since been deleted. The 3750X, first spotted by Twitter user @Komachi, is expected to slot somewhere between AMD’s existing Ryzen 3700X and 3800X, eight-core CPUs, so it is unlikely to be much of a challenge for Intel’s upcoming 9900KS CPU. What it’s most likely to be is a 3700X with a slightly higher price tag.
The third-generation Ryzen line of processors has been AMD’s most successful release in many years. It’s proved capable at both games and productivity tasks, and that’s led to a surge in new system builders opting for AMD over Intel. On the gaming front, that’s an amazing turnaround from just a few years ago, where AMD wasn’t really talked about outside of the budget sector. Today it has a full lineup of powerful chips throughout the pricing spectrum, but the 3750X suggests AMD is looking to spread itself just a little thinner to maximize profits.
Since its debut, the 3700X has been one of the most popular chips in AMD’s new range. With eight cores, 16 threads, and a boost clock of 4.4GHz, it’s an excellent buy at around $330. The 3800X, with the same core and thread counts and only minor bumps to base and boost clock, make it questionable whether it was really worth the $50+ premium. From AMD’s perspective, though, it had eight-core chips which could hit higher frequencies, so why not sell them at a markup?
That’s most likely what we’ll see with the 3750X. A CPU that can’t quite hit the frequencies of the 3800X, but clocks higher, or retains higher clock speeds for longer, than the 3700X. This is speculation on our part, but when the 3750X is said to have the same core and thread count as its brethren on either side but the same 105W TDP as the 3800X, we’d bet that its base frequency is more like that of the 3800X while retaining the 4.4GHz boost clock of the 3700X.
That’s not the only possibility for the 3750X, though. TomsHardware suggests that it could be a chip that’s set to be sold in a specific region, or a variant with two chiplets instead of one, each having four cores apiece. That would mean double the L3 cache and a unique performance profile. It’s also possible that this is a custom chip, designed with a partner company in mind, like the Ryzen 3780U and 3580U we saw in Microsoft’s new Surface Laptop 3.
In any case, we would expect the CPU to cost somewhere between the 3700X and 3800X, or around $350 if it does go on sale to the general public.
