THE X399 RUMOR MILL

Even though AMD has only just dropped Ryzen into our laps, the rumor mill is still churning away, suggesting that the redheaded company is planning to launch an HEDT variant of both its processors and chipsets later this year, around about the time Computex occurs in Taiwan. The theory is that these are going to be cut-back variants of AMD’s latest Naples server architecture. Coming in 16, 12, and 10-core variants, the processors should absolutely demolish video rendering and more CPU-intensive computational tasks.

If the chips are anything like their Naples counterparts, you can expect AMD to take advantage of that server-based infrastructure, forsaking the chipset, and instead opting for anywhere between 48 and 64 PCIe 3.0 lanes directly on chip. We’re still not absolutely sure whether this is going to be an LGA socket, like Naples, or operate on Ryzen’s more commonplace AM4 PGA socket solution…. But, why would we even need this new HEDT variant of Ryzen? Especially when the cores already compete so well with their ridiculously more expensive Intel competition? Well, in short, X399 would act as a bridge between the nonsensical server prowess of AMD’s Naples SoC platform and Ryzen’s X370 gaming/rendering aspirations. For those not interested in smashing out the frame rates, but rather rendering at a professional level, X399 should provide the key. In contrast to the Ryzen 7 1800X, these chips should offer quad-channel memory, better PCIe support, and far lower clocks, leading to increased power efficiencies in the process.

For the time being, this is still all speculation, but consider our interest piqued if this does come to fruition. And to be quite frank, a 16-core Ryzen chip coming in at the same price as an Intel Core i7-6900K should demolish the competition when it comes to those highly demanding applications.