AMD Launches Ryzen PRO CPUs For Corporate Desktops

With a well received consumer launch of AMD’s Zen architecture in the form of the Ryzen desktop CPUs, and Threadripper on the way for HEDT, AMD has its eyes set on corporate and enterprise markets. With EPYC for enterprise already on the way, it’s time for corporate; enter Ryzen PRO.

Ryzen PRO is not too dissimilar to the consumer processors. They use the same AM4 socket, the same CCX-based processors coming in blocks of 4-cores, but there is more emphasis on security, product availability, and stability in the long-term. This is also the first time we get to see a Ryzen 3 CPU, which is effectively a Ryzen 5 without SMT enabled. The Ryzen RPO lineup does make one omission in the form of the 1800X, which, if we’re honest, has little value in the consumer market, let alone the corporate world.

So what makes these chips different from the standard consumer products? AMD is battling Intel as usual, so it needs to come up with an alternative to Intel’s vPro offerings. This comes down to security with TPM, secure-boot, and hardware-based memory encryption (TSME). This all makes up AMD’s Secure Processor (SP) platform, which is enabled by a dedicated chip on the CPU, using an ARM Cortex-A5 processor.

Model	Cores/ threads	Base/boost clocks (GHz)	Cache (L2 + L3)	TDP
Ryzen 7 Pro 1700X	8/16	3.5/3.7	4+16MB	95W
Ryzen 7 Pro 1700		3.0/3.7		65W
Ryzen 5 Pro 1600	6/12	3.2/3.6	3+16MB
Ryzen 5 Pro 1500	4/8	3.5/3.7	2+16MB
Ryzen 3 Pro 1300	4/4	3.5/3.7	2+8MB
Ryzen 3 Pro 1200		3.1/3.4

On the remote management side, AMD can’t use vPro, so instead it uses the open standard DASH platform. This allows support for out-of-band management for sys admins, including KVM, console, and media redirection, plus software and firmware updates being pushed through as needed.

From a pure CPU performance perspective, AMD does hold a major advantage over Intel when it comes to core counts, which makes up for the slightly lower IPC of each core. The difference here though, is AMD is making all the security features available across the entire PRO lineup, that includes the Ryzen 3 PRO. For clarification, Intel excludes vPro support from its i3 CPUs.

There is one catch, or thorn if you will, when it comes to the PRO range; there is no integrated graphics on the chips. While Intel gets a lot of flak for its rather poor performing IGPs, for businesses, it doesn’t matter, since they don’t need to budget for discrete GPUs just to drive a display. Currently, Ryzen CPUs do not have IGPs, and the mobile focused APUs with Vega GPUs integrated, haven’t had much more than a mention at Computex. This means that Ryzen PRO systems will need to either have motherboards integrate a display adapter of some kind, or require the installation of a discrete GPU. When dealing with hundreds of systems, it’s not so much the cost of the GPUs, as the complexity of the builds (it adds another component to manage).

With the main features aside, the last piece of the puzzle is the support. Ryzen PRO CPUs will come with longer, 36 month warranties, which is to be expected, but also guaranteed product availability and stability. On availability, the CPUs have a 24 month production window, meaning they will be actively produced for at least 2 years. For stability, the CPUs can be locked down to an 18 month window without software changes.

Availability is set for August 29th, but that doesn’t mean you’ll see systems with these CPUs around that time. System integrators like Dell, HP and Lenovo, won’t start shipping actual desktops until a couple of months after launch. There is no word on price either, but these are corporate parts, rather than off-the-shelf retail parts, so this is to be expected.

With EPYC already on its way, and Ryzen PRO coming out as well, AMD is set to expand beyond the consumer desktop market, and start earning back some of that lost market share in the enterprise world.