AMD's Ryzen 3000-series processors are one of the biggest upcoming hardware launches of this year with a new range of 7nm chips that will potentially double the core counts of the 2000-series, increase instructions per clock performance, decrease power requirements, and increase clock speeds. When AMD showed off an engineering sample of the new line at CES 2019, we were shown an unnamed eight-core CPU from that generation beating Intel's monstrous Core i9-9900K in a Cinebenech multithreaded test. Better yet, it did so while consuming 47 watts less of power.
But according to a new rumor, that was entirely deliberate. AMD allegedly deliberately power limited the CPU to show that it could beat Intel's with less power. But that means that with the full power afforded to it — through AMD's own enhancements or overclockers getting to grips with it — the CPU could increase performance by a sizeable margin, handily beating the Intel counterpart.
This rumor comes from YouTuber DannyzPlay who claims that AMD cut the power to that Ryzen 3000 sample chip by 30-40 percent. While unlocking that would be unlikely to give us 30-40 percent additional performance, 10-15 percent wouldn't be totally surprising and more would likely be possible through enhanced cooling and manual overclocking.
What he suggests is that by showing the Ryzen 3000 chip as capable of beating a 9900K with reduced power, AMD offered a more dramatic margin in power than the performance difference would have been had it been fully unlocked. But that just leaves us excited to learn more in the months to come.
Ryzen 3000 for desktops is expected to debut this summer.
