AMD has many excellent processors in the Ryzen 7000 line-up, but the company still hasn't given up on last-generation chips. During an event in China, the company unveiled several new processors, including the previously unannounced Ryzen 5000XT series.
This is good news for those still using AM4 motherboards and looking to upgrade, but details are scarce right now. A leaked slide, which comes from frequent hardware leaker HXL on X and was showcased by AMD at the event, shows us a pair of new Ryzen 8000 processors alongside the Ryzen 5000XT. There is also mention of processors that are already on the market, such as the recently launched Ryzen 5 5600GT and Ryzen 5 5500GT, as well as older chips from the Ryzen 3000 series and Athlon 3000G.
Right now we know nothing other than the fact that AMD is launching Ryzen 5000XT processors, presumably in the near future, as well as two new 8000 series processors. The Ryzen 5000XT marks a mysterious new addition to the line-up and shows that AMD is still not ready to abandon its old AM4 socket - which is good news for those who use it.
This is not the first time AMD has launched an XT processor update. The same happened with the Ryzen 3000 series, which later received an XT update - but unfortunately, these processors were not that impressive. AMD's Ryzen 3000XT processors increased clock frequencies by 100MHz to 200MHz compared to the base models, meaning their performance was largely the same as their counterparts. Released a year later, the XT processors were overpriced for what they had to offer and didn't make much of a difference, and were soon followed by the (much better) Ryzen 5000 series. Will AMD make the same mistake with the Ryzen 5000XT?
It's hard to expect big performance improvements, so it all comes down to price. Coming to newer chips, the Ryzen 7 8700F and Ryzen 7 8400F are most likely selected versions of AMD's latest APUs, the Ryzen 5 8500G and Ryzen 7 8700G. But the "F" label on the new chips indicates that they won't have an integrated graphics card, unlike the G parts.
This raises the question of whether AMD kept the XDNA neural processing unit (NPU) on the Ryzen 7 8700F or disabled it along with the integrated graphics card. Either way, we're probably looking at budget chips with these two, hopefully priced below the Ryzen 8000G processors.