Seemingly always with AMD’s product portfolio, there is a persistent drip of new products being inserted into the product stack throughout the lifetime of a given generation of hardware. Aside from the five Ryzen 3000 series processors launched back in July, we are expecting a new 16-core flagship on top of that list come in November. Until then, AMD has inserted two new processors: one for worldwide consumption, and another for the Chinese OEM market only.

AMD’s Zen 2 platform has been a source of major success for the company, both in its consumer form as Ryzen 3000 ‘Matisse’ parts, and its server based EPYC 7002 series ‘Rome’ hardware. Being the first x86 platform on 7nm, affording significant reductions in power, as well as going above and beyond the mainstream raw performance-per-clock from Intel, has accelerated the fortunes of AMD and pushed the company into being major players in consumer and enterprise, despite being a fraction of the size.

As with any product portfolio, the diversity of offerings is key to attaching to the various markets. Making that also align with manufacturing strategies for performance and stock levels becomes a tricky business, and throughout the life cycle of a platform, companies often launch new parts to satisfy demand. To this end, AMD is launching a lower power 12-core Ryzen 9 3900 into the world-wide market for system integrators, and a Chinese market OEM-only Ryzen 5 3500X for lower cost implementations.

The Ryzen 9 3900, in order to match its lower 65W TDP, has a lower base clock than the 3900X and a slightly lower single-core turbo frequency. There will also be a corresponding Ryzen 9 Pro 3900 CPU for business use.

For the Ryzen 5 3500X, despite sending us an email telling us about its launch, AMD hasn’t actually given any specifications on it. (Edit: AMD does have specifications on the 3500X - on the Chinese website). Other PC manufacturers have listed the Ryzen 5 3500 (non-X), so it will be interesting to see if AMD acknowledges its existence.

Having OEM-only processors isn’t new for AMD. In the last generation AMD launched the Ryzen 5 2500X and the Ryzen 3 2300X into the pre-built and system integrator market, with no retail packaging or focus. Personally I’d love to see these for sale somewhere at retail as chip-only, even if it was through AMD itself.

As these new CPUs are OEM parts, as with previous OEM hardware, AMD doesn’t give official pricing on them. The Ryzen 5 3500X is China-only at this point, but we would expect it to be cheaper than the 3600. Similarly with the Ryzen 9 3900, one would expect it to sit between the 3900X and 3800X in pricing. Given reports about the lack of Ryzen 9 3900X on shelves at this point, or inflated pricing where available, it would be interesting to hear how many of these parts are actually available to OEMs and system integrator partners.

Related Reading

• AMD Announces Ryzen Pro 3000 Series CPUs For Q4
• AMD Ryzen 9 3900: A 12-Core 65W CPU Listed
• AMD Ryzen 5 3500 & 3500X Support Spotted
• AMD: Next Gen Threadripper and Ryzen 9 3950X, Coming November
• The AMD 3rd Gen Ryzen Deep Dive Review: 3700X and 3900X Raising The Bar
• All Ryzen: Q&A with AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su
• Fireside Chat with Ian and Wendell: Ryzen 3000, Zen 2, Navi, Xeon W
• AMD Zen 2 Microarchitecture Analysis: Ryzen 3000 and EPYC Rome