AMD Ryzen 3950X, 3960X and 3970X: Australian Price And Release Date

Maybe you’re in the market for a new CPU. And maybe you need something a little more beefy than the average four-core chip. So how about a gaming CPU with 16 cores?

AMD has had some new hardware out in the wild for a little bit. The 3700X and 3900X got plenty of attention earlier this year, much like the first gen launch of the Ryzen CPUs. But at the top of the Ryzen stack, just below the company’s Threadripper line of workstation-oriented CPUs, is the beefy 3950X.

The main takeaways is that it’s a 16 core, 32 thread gaming CPU that clocks up to 4.7GHz, with early reviews finding that it’s more power efficient than the already quite good 3900X, despite coming in at the same TDP and having four more cores and eight more threads.

When news about the 3950X was announced, I asked AMD’s local team if Australian pricing was available. They’ve gotten back to me with that info this morning, as well as pricing on the next generation of their 24 core/32 core Threadripper workstation CPUs. You’ll see the basic specs below and price for each, going from most expensive to least.

Ryzen 3000 Series Specs Cores/Threads Cores/Threads Base/Boost L3 Cache TDP Price 3970X (TR) 32/64 3.7GHz/4.5GHz 128MB 280W $3199 3960X (TR) 24/48 3.8GHz/4.5GHz 128MB 280W $2249 3950X (Ryzen) 16/32 3.5GHz/4.7GHz 64MB 105W $1219 3900X 12/24 3.8GHz/4.6GHz 64MB 105W $780 3800X 8/16 3.9GHz/4.5GHz 36MB 105W $629 3700X 8/16 3.6GHz/4.4GHz 36MB 65W $519 3600X 6/12 3.8GHz/4.4GHz 35MB 95W $389 3600 6/12 3.6GHz/4.4GHz 35MB 65W $315

AMD says that the Ryzen 3950X and Threadripper 3960X and 3970X will all be available in Australia from November 26. They also flicked over details for local pricing on the very bottom of the AMD third generation chips, the Athlon 3000G, which is retailing in Australia for $79 if you’re looking to build the lowest-possible cost PC. The 3000G is available in Australia right now, although supply quirks mean some retailers might not have started shipping yet.

The 3950X is a pretty fascinating CPU. Having more cores at that price point with a decent boost speed is a obvious plus, and it’s a vastly better value proposition than the i9-9980XE: it might have a few less cores, but it runs at higher frequencies, is on a newer platform that has better features, more efficient architecture and it’s a few hundred dollars cheaper. That’s not to mention the i9-10980XE which is coming out, which didn’t fare that well against the 3900X in the first early review. And there’s the cheaper motherboards to consider as well.

Still, for most gamers, all three of these CPUs are largely unnecessary. The 3950X has a ton of appeal for developers and full-time streamers/content creators who want a workstation-lite machine that can handle gaming, but the 3700X seems a better choice for most gamers who dabble in a bit of content creation.

I’ll have some more thoughts and figures on the 3700X and 3900X specifically in the coming weeks, as AMD has sent over a kit that I’m waiting to test (there’s a major AGESA update that will fix some of the early issues with the third-gen platform). But if you’re looking to build a new rig before the end of the year, now’s not a bad time at all to do it.