While AM5 adoption is still slow, it looks like AMD may be preparing chips without an X in its suffix, like the Ryzen 7700 CPUs, to bring back some market attention. For those who follow the tech, the tweet says, “7700 8 65”. This unusual tweet from 188 refers to AMD’s Ryzen 7700 SKU, which will feature a constrained TDP design and possibly a lower price point. Non-X CPUs have long been considered more budget-friendly options, although it remains to be seen how things play out.
Unfortunately, no further details were provided by No. 188 or anyone else. Compared to AMD’s latest Zen 4 CPUs, Intel’s new Raptor Lake processors cost $100 to $150 less (on average). The lower cost will allow more consumers to choose Intel over AMD when shopping for a brand-new CPU. In turn, if AMD designs a 65W TDP CPU to compete with Intel with better performance per watt and performance per value, it would be good for the company in the current market.
AMD, for example, has shown that it can deliver the same performance with limited power. A 65W CPU should perform within 90-95% of a Ryzen 7 7700X. It seems odd that AMD would lower the price of its latest line of processors, mainly the Ryzen 7 700X closing the gap between Intel’s Raptor Lake Core i7-13700K and i5-13600K processors in recent gaming benchmarks.
Regarding performance per watt, AMD is still the better performer. Still, with Intel primarily its only real competitor in the consumer market, AMD will likely do it with more entry-level CPUs rather than changing existing pricing for the rest of its lineup. It could also be due to pressure on margins and AMD’s rush to create a product that can perform as well as its previous classic processor models but also go head-to-head with Intel on pricing to steer consumers toward AMD.
