This past September, AMD released its first set of processors for the new AM5 platform: the 7600X, 7700X, 7900X, and 7950X. The products received good reviews overall, but some buyers felt the chips left a bit on the table. This resulted in a number of fans deciding to wait for the eventual release of Ryzen 7000 X3D processors. Notable leaker ECSM_Official recently reported on information regarding upcoming releases for AMD, including these X3D processors. Sadly, the dream of having a 7950X3D will likely not come to fruition, as AMD reportedly only plans to offer a Ryzen 5 7600X3D and Ryzen 7 7700X3D. These two new processors are expected to launch sometime around March or April 2023. The chips will be accompanied by a third AM5 motherboard chipset, the entry-level A620. The motherboard will not feature overclocking, PCIe lanes will be limited to Gen 4, and RAM speeds are capped at DDR5-4800.
Intel, meanwhile, is currently planning on refreshing its 13th-gen Raptor Lake processors in Q3 2023, retaining the same LGA 1700 socket. The “Raptor Lake Refresh,” as it will likely be known, will feature similar SKUs of processors with very small 100-200 MHz clock speed increases. Due to this, Meteor Lake and its LGA 1851 socket upgrade will be pushed back to 2024. ECSM also reports that not only will Meteor Lake launch in 2024, we may see Intel’s 15th-gen Arrow Lake processors reach consumers at some point during the year as well. Intel expects to have Meteor Lake dominate its “mobile processor” line for laptops, while Arrow Lake will be more tailored towards desktops. Meteor Lake processors will be capped at six performance cores and 16 efficiency cores, but there is no 14th-gen Core i9. On the other hand, Arrow Lake boosts performance core counts up to eight performance cores while retaining the same 16 efficiency cores. Arrow Lake does feature a Core i9 SKU. Overall, 2023 is looking somewhat lackluster compared to initial expectations. Some experts believe this could be due to a decrease in demand in the PC industry over the last couple of years. We can remain hopeful that both AMD and Intel are able to pack loads of value into their respective X3D and Raptor Lake Refresh processors next year.
