AMD may have a plan to deal with the problems caused by rising component prices, particularly the skyrocketing cost of RAM, and that would include selling bundles with its upcoming new Ryzen X3D processor, or at least there’s evidence of that in Asia.
Featured Tom Hardware a publication Uniko Hardware It shows a package that AMD is supposedly launching in China, consisting of a processor, cooler, and system RAM.
What buyers get in this package is the new Ryzen 9850X3D processor, which was recently unveiled and about to go on sale and looks to be a great addition to AMD’s gaming lineup, as well as a Cooler Master cooler for that chip and 32GB of V-Color memory (a pair of 16GB DDR5 memory, to be exact).
We don’t have a price yet, just a photo of this package as you can see in the previous article. What’s interesting here, however, is that it appears to be an official collaboration between AMD and V-Color along with Cooler Master and not a retailer simply creating its own packaging, hence the logos on the packaging.
Another key difference is that the motherboard is not included here. Normally you get a CPU, memory and motherboard in one package, but here the latter is replaced by said cooler.
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Presumably the motherboard was removed to keep costs down, as an included cooler in its place obviously results in a lower price overall (although it still makes sense as a partner to a high-end gaming CPU). And of course, the main goal of this package is to provide DDR5 RAM at a (relatively) acceptable price while also powering AMD’s new processor.
Of course, the V-Color DDR5 RAM is likely to include affordable 16GB USB sticks, so there won’t be any high-end fast RAM here (as that would defeat the purpose of an affordable set). As Uniko pointed out, it’s likely DDR5-4800 memory (meaning it runs at a speed of 4800 MT/s, which is the slowest performance for DDR5).
As Tom points out, it’s important in this context that AMD has gone to great lengths to make it clear that the Ryzen 9850X3D doesn’t need fast RAM. In fact, there’s virtually no performance difference between the DDR5-4800 RAM and the faster DDR5-6000 RAM on the 9850X3D, with a frame rate difference of less than 1% (averaged over 30 games; see slide above, courtesy of VideoCardz).
In other words, no matter what DDR5 RAM you use, it won’t make a noticeable difference over the Ryzen 9850X3D. This applies to
That’s all well and good, but will these batches arrive outside of Asia? This is the crucial question here: this and where exactly AMD could offer its prices. As for that last point, unless the package represents a significant savings in parts, I would have little interest.
Of course, we don’t know if the Ryzen 9850X3D plus RAM packages will be available in the US, Europe, or elsewhere. But the fact that this is happening in China is certainly an indication that AMD is thinking about strategies to keep RAM prices low for PC manufacturers, since, as mentioned, this is an official collaboration, so I see no reason why this strategy should not be applicable to the global market in general. Supply shortages aside, of course, it’s at least an optimistic sign that similar deals could be in the works.
Meanwhile, standalone DDR5 RAM is still ridiculously expensive, although, as we saw yesterday, it’s on sale.
