If you just cannot wait for the AMD Ryzen 5 CPUs, then an eagle-eyed forum member, zer0sum, spotted that the AMD Ryzen 5 CPUs are starting to show up on ebay for sale. The prices are slightly higher than what we expect during the official release, but the gouging is relatively minor at around 10%. The Ryzen 5 1600 is for sale at around $233 with free shipping which is about $14 over the MSRP we were given. The Ryzen 5 1400 is around $181.50 or about $12 over the MSRP we received. The particular seller has over 209,000 feedback and almost 99% positive so this appears to be legitimate. We detailed the AMD Ryzen 5 family in-depth a few weeks ago, but here is a brief summary as to where these two chips fall.
Brief Overview of the AMD Ryzen 5
The AMD Ryzen 5 CPUs at launch will comprise four SKUs with both 4 and 6 core models. You can see that these are the non-X SKUs in the Ryzen 5 lineup:
Both of these CPUs will come with AMD Wraith coolers. The Wraith Stealth is bundled in the Ryzen 5 1400 box and is a smaller unit. The AMD Wraith Spire comes with the Ryzen 1600 (and 1500X when available).
As the price segment becomes more sensitive, it makes less sense to purchase a $180 CPU and a $100 cooler. As a result, we see the bundled coolers as a solid value proposition on these chips.
STH will have more on AMD Ryzen 5 benchmarks as the embargos lift. For now, if you want to see our Ryzen coverage here:
- AMD Ryzen 7 1800X Linux Benchmarks
- AMD Ryzen 7 1700X Benchmarks
- AMD Ryzen 7 1700 Benchmarks (The one you should get)
- Getting AMD Ryzen 7 working with CentOS, FreeBSD, VMware and Ubuntu
- IOMMU and AMD B350 motherboards
- Monero Mining Performance with AMD Ryzen 7