AMD hasn’t ruled out releasing a Ryzen 7 2800X, but probably won’t

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The Ryzen 7 2700X already has that performance tier covered.

Will AMD ever release a Ryzen 7 2800X? Well, never say never, but don't hold your breath, either. AMD senior vice president Jim Anderson explained why AMD chose not to include a Ryzen 7 2800X in its second generation Ryzen launch, even though the first generation of Ryzen chips include a Ryzen 7 1800X.

"We felt like, with the 2700X and 2700 at the performance and price points, we had that space covered," Anderson said, according to DSOGaming. "We just felt that with those two SKUs we had it sufficiently covered where we wanted to position the product."

It's hard to argue with that assessment. In our own evaluation of the Ryzen 7 2700X, we saw it perform better than the Ryzen 7 1800X across the board. That isn't surprising, either—putting aside the model name, the Ryzen 7 2700X is a faster-clocked chip. Both are 8-core/16-thread processors, but the Ryzen 7 2700X has a 3.7GHz base clock and 4.3GHz boost clock, whereas the Ryzen 7 1800X has a 3.6GHz base clock and 4GHz boost clock. AMD could just have easily called it a Ryzen 7 2800X and nobody would have batted an eye.

Still, AMD is leaving the door ever-so-slightly open to releasing a Ryzen 7 2800X, should it feel the need. "That doesn't preclude a 2800X someday, right, maybe. But for now we believe those two SKUs cover the space well," Anderson added.

In other words, sure, it could happen, but probably won't. That will depend in part on what Intel cooks up in the coming months. It might also depend on whether AMD is able to bin select chips for even higher clockspeeds, which would likely be limited in quantity considering the 2700X is pretty firmly tapped out on clockspeed headroom. Maybe a 115W 2800X, though?

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Paul Lilly
Paul Lilly

Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).