The launch of AMD’s Ryzen 9000-series Zen 5 processors will have to wait until around mid-August, owing to a “package product testing process” issue “that could result in a small number of products reaching the market that do not meet our quality standards,” a spokesperson tellsTom’s Hardware.
Writing separately onX, AMD senior vice president Jack Huynh says that the Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X chips will go on sale August 8, followed by the Ryzen 9 9950X and Ryzen 9 9900X on August 15. The company had been aiming for a July 31 series rollout.
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AMD has refused to identify the specific problem, other than it not requiring a redesign. We do know that while the packaging process for the Ryzen 9000 series is simpler than some chips – granting AMD high yields – it’s still potentially vulnerable to concerns like material contamination. Whatever slipped through testing, an initial round of chips reached AMD’s partners before the issue was detected, and the company is recalling those units to replace them with fresh ones. Some even reportedly reached end consumers ahead of their street date.
The 9000 series represents not just AMD’s latest generation, but a chance to cement an edge over its main rival, Intel. The 9950X in particular is claimed to be “the world’s most powerful desktop consumer processor,” sporting 16 cores and boost speeds up to 5.7GHz. Such chips are likely to make AMD more appealing tohardcore gamersand people needing high-end Windows workstations.
Tough times for the CPU industry?
Speaking of Intel, that firm has experienced its own troubles in recent years. In 2022, customers started complaining about instability problems with 13th-generation desktop chips. Reports continued with 14th-gen models, but it’s just this month that the company discovered the culprit and announced plans for a fix coming in August. Some chips may be beyond saving, and will have to be replaced by Intel.
The industry as a whole is dealing with a complicated situation. Die sizes are increasingly small, improving the overall efficiency of chips, but manufacturers – especially Intel – have sometimes struggled to keep that progress going reliably. At the same time they’ve had to split architecture into specialized tasks, such as “efficiency” cores that can reduce power consumption.
