Written by Metal Messiah
Blast from the past ! It looks like AMD has upgraded one of its 3 years old processor from the Ryzen 1000 series. The first-gen AMD Ryzen 3 1200 has been a budget CPU for quite some time, and originally it packed a 14nm ZEN design.
Now AMD has upgraded this entry-level budget CPU on a 12nm ZEN+ architecture node. One German Retailer has also listed this CPU for sale on its website for 60 USD, or €54.73.
This CPU was released in 2017. Speaking of specs, it packs 4 cores with 4 threads, and can operate within 3.1 GHz (base) to 3.4 GHz in boost frequency. It has 65W TDP value. All the specs remain the same as the older SKU, except for the slight boost in performance which comes thanks to the ZEN+ architecture improvements.
The Zen+ architecture offers slightly improved power/thermal consumption, a small IPC uplift, an updated Precision Boost 2 for better Turbo clock speeds, and also faster cache, with a memory controller capable of supporting faster DDR4 RAM. Rest of the specs and variables are same.
So if you are looking for a budget entry-level CPU for gaming or some other work, then this processor offers a pretty good value, unless of course you really want to upgrade to a newer ZEN architecture, or process node (Ryzen 2000/3000 series), which makes sense given the age of this processor.
But should you plan to purchase this CPU, then make a note of this. The new SKU model has a different part number, with the code “YD1200BBM4KAFBOX”, whereas the older 14 nm model had the part code as “YD1200BBM4KAEBOX”. Look for the AF initials.
Also if anyone is interested then they can find some gaming benchmarks, and review of this processor over here and here. These are obviously very old articles though.
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Wow ! old gen got resurrected it seems. interesting times to be a PC gamer, lol.
noice !!
Thanks for the article metal. sound kind of strange to see a low-end cpu getting an overhaul. must be some reason for this. which socket motherboard will it fit though ?
It’s Socket AM4. The design and PIN layout of the CPU is the same as before. Though, first look for compatibility with the motherboard.
The motherboard’s page should also list support for this “Summit Ridge” CPU. I’m assuming some BIOS updates would also be necessary for some motherboard models to support the new ZEN arch, though I’m not fully sure about this.
This is stupid. Applying the same name to a part of a different architecture leads to confusion and, often, fraud. See GeForce 1030 for a very recent example of a similar example of just that.
Nvidia has been releasing downgrades. AMD is releasing upgrades. What’s your problem?
What an idiot.
Nvidia upgraded GTX 1650 with GDDR6, AMD gimped RX 590 GME core clock.
AMD has 7nm but still selling 4 cores 12nm in 2020!!!!
should we really believe you judging from your user name. ? How does this sound, Stop_INTEL_propaganda, eh ??
anyways, both the red and blue teams have gimped and upgraded their products. not just AMD. You forgot how AMD is offering more CPU cores and Threads with ryzen series on a very competitive price ?
INTEL’s current offerings pack less cores/threads, and some are even overpriced. They are still stuck on the same old process node, 14/12nm.
How is this fraud though ? Even Nvidia has been releasing different variants of some of their old gaming GPUs, with a different bus width and memory type, and also don’t forget the confusing nomenclature of the new Turing GPUs.
But I know doing all this creates some confusion, and those gamers who aren’t much tech savvy might get fooled by this move.
AMD should give this proc a different model number.
As long as the SKU is different, it technically isn’t faud.
Just throwing that out there.
It’s still odd, shady if the product is worse, but as long as it is faster I see no problem with it.
Sony didn’t rename the PS3 every time they changed it. It still worked. It was a dramatically different product inside, but it was still a PS3. Just a different SKU.
AMD has all angles covered and here to rule for atleast the near future!