Advanced Micro Devices announced today that it will launch three Ryzen 7-branded processors March 2, with preorders opening today from 180 global online sites and manufacturers for the chip’s worldwide debut.

The new chips represent more than four years of work and are AMD’s attempt to retake the speed crown from archrival Intel, the world’s largest chip maker. AMD calls the Ryzen chips the “fastest in the world.”

During today’s event for global press, industry analysts, and partners, AMD outlined the Ryzen 7 desktop processor lineup, including 8-cores, 16-threads, and the new AM4 desktop platform.

AMD will launch the 8-core, 16-thread Ryzen 7 1800X, Ryzen 7 1700X, and Ryzen 7 1700 for the enthusiast PC market. They could go into gamer PCs, video editing machines, and any other computers that need powerful chips.

In live demos and testing, AMD said these processors demonstrated their superiority: the flagship Ryzen 7 1800X ($500) as the world’s highest-performing 8-core desktop processor, and Ryzen 7 1700 ($329) as the world’s lowest-power 8-core desktop processor.

Product demonstrations featured Ryzen 7 1800X ($500) outperforming a similarly configured 8-core, 16-thread Intel Core i7-6900K in Cinebench R15 multi-threaded and Handbrake-based video transcoding, as well as showing comparable 4K gaming performance.

AMD put more than two million engineering hours of development into Ryzen, which uses the new Zen computer architecture. The Ryzen chips can do 40 percent more processing per clock cycle than AMD’s previous chips.

Image Credit: SI Systems

“Four years ago we began development of our ‘Zen’ processor core with the goal to deliver unprecedented generational performance gains and return choice and innovation to the high-performance computing market,” said Lisa Su, president and CEO of AMD, in a statement. “On March 2, enthusiasts and gamers around the world will experience ‘Zen’ in action, as we launch our Ryzen 7 family of processors and reinvigorate the desktop computing market.”

For Ryzen, AMD offers new thermal solutions based on the original Wraith coolers, launched in 2016. The next generation of Wraith includes Wraith Spire and Wraith Stealth, offering reliable, near-silent performance. Packaged with the Ryzen 7 1700 sold in retail boxes as well as in many manufacturer systems, Wraith Spire offers superb cooling at an incredibly quiet 32 decibels.

“We deeply appreciate the ways in which our partners and customers came together to build a high-performance ecosystem for Ryzen,” said Jim Anderson, senior vice president and general manager of the computing and graphics group at AMD, in a statement. “With an anticipated 82 new motherboards from ODMs worldwide, Ryzen-based designs from top global PC OEMs expected soon, and boutique SIs and OEMs showing extreme-performance PC designs, this will be a launch like no other. Unprecedented pre-order support from etailers globally shows that our ecosystem and partners are fully behind AMD and our commitment to return innovation and competition to high-performance PCs.”

Among the 82 anticipated new motherboards are designs from ASRock, Asus, Biostar, Gigabyte, and MSI, all built on two desktop chipsets for AMD Ryzen processors — the X370 and B350 — and expected to be widely available on March 2.