Potential 16-core AMD Ryzen 9 7950X with 170 W TDP to lead Raphael charge in impending Zen 4 vs Raptor Lake showdown

There has been news from a reliable leaker that has so far been taken with mixed reactions from AMD fans while Intel supporters have already been claiming a “victory” for Raptor Lake in the impending showdown with Zen 4. According to Greymon55, three Ryzen 9 SKUs (potentially Ryzen 9 7900, Ryzen 9 7900X, and Ryzen 9 7950X if AMD sticks to its familiar naming scheme) will have TDPs of 65 W, 105 W, and 170 W, respectively. This differs from the top chips from the Zen 3 Vermeer lineup that relied on 65 W (Ryzen 9 5900) and 105 W (Ryzen 9 5900X, Ryzen 9 5950X).

The same source has also added core and thread counts for the two most-powerful SKUs, stating a 12-core, 24-thread configuration for the 105 W part and 16-core, 32-thread configuration for the 170 W chip. Fans of “moar cores” have bemoaned the fact that AMD is seemingly not upping the core count for Zen 4, allowing some supporters of Team Blue to cheer the 24 cores that are coming to Raptor Lake’s top-end parts (although split as 8x performance and 16x efficient). Ryzen 9 has been “stuck” on 16 cores since the Ryzen 9 3950X, which was released in 2019.

However, the more pragmatic Team Red followers have voiced excitement about the higher power level, with the flagship Ryzen 7000 chip already revealed to be an all-core @+5 GHz performance beast. It could be opined that rather than fall back on the tried and tested multi-core superiority it has enjoyed over recent years, AMD wants to take the fight to Intel’s doorstep by challenging for single-core supremacy – something Team Blue has been dominant in over the last few years. More-core fans will at least be pleased to learn that a 24-core part is apparently coming to the Zen 5 family.

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