AMD's first Ryzen CPUs to cost $580 to $720?

A lot of computer enthusiasts are hoping that the arrival of AMD's Ryzen will shake up the x86 processor industry. For a long time, AMD has been unable to make a dent in Intel's Core but now hopes are high for a return to competitiveness.

People have become accustomed to AMD's low pricing but of course there's no guarantee that if AMD has a blockbuster chip they will sell it at low prices. Heck, I still remember the time when AMD had the fastest chips and their top model fetched more dollars that Intel's flagship.

As such, I'm not entirely surprised to read that AMD's Ryzen processors may be quite a bit more expensive than some people hoped. A couple of rumors posted at ChipHell suggest the first Ryzen processors may be priced around 3999RMB to 4999 RMB ($580-$720).

The source claims the first Ryzen processors will be the eight-core, sixteen-threaded models - these will have retail availability around mid-March 2017. Ryzen will be shown to the press at a secret press event late February. The supply of Ryzen is ready but unfortunately the launch got delayed due to motherboard BIOS bugs that had to be resolved first.

The more affordable quad-core, eight-threaded parts are rumored to follow in April. The reason for this delay is unknown.

As always, I suggest taking these rumors with a grain of salt.