AMD Releases Ryzen 5 2500X & Ryzen 3 2300X CPUs For OEM & SI Partners

In an announcement that came out of nowhere, AMD is announcing the availability of two new CPUs in its second generation Ryzen processors, with the Ryzen 5 2500X and Ryzen 3 2300X. What’s somewhat surprising is that these two chips will be limited to OEM and System Integrators only.

The chips in question are 4-core CPUs, with and without SMT, but unlike the previous generation, do not consist of two CCX modules with two cores disabled, but instead work on a single CCX. This will help with overall system latency as there is no need to transfer between modules, but it does mean that the cache will be smaller. The Ryzen 5 1500X had 18MB of cache, and the 1300X had 10MB, both the 2500X and 2300X will now have 10MB.

Both chips will be able to boost clock to 4GHz, and come equipped with Precision Boost 2 and XFR 2, of which similar features were absent from the previous generation on the low-end. This also hints at the possibility of user overclocking, or allow OEM and SI partners to pre-overclock the systems to better differentiate from each other. Other features follow through as well, such as the switch to 12nm manufacture process, and overall performance improvements from latency reductions and other tweaks.

For consumers, these chips are not essential, as the market for low-end CPUs without IGPs is very niche, and AMD already offers the 2400GE and 2200GE CPUs which have very similar specs to the 2500X and 2300X, albeit with an IGP. These new OEM only Ryzen CPUs will allow the building of gaming rigs with more weight on the GPU, while opting for a cheaper AMD quad-core chip. ACER has one such system listed already, and no doubt others will soon follow.