Not to be outdone by Intel’s recent 10th gen “Comet Lake” launch, AMD has finally confirmed the long-rumored refresh to their Zen 2 processors. Referred to as the “Matisse Refresh,” the 3600XT, 3800XT, and 3900XT will feature slightly increased boost clock speeds and are meant to be updates to the 3600X, 3800X, and 3900X, respectively.
The refreshed line, arriving on July 7, obviously won’t require new motherboards, as they will utilize the same existing chipsets and AM4 socket. AMD claims the refreshed CPUs will grant a 4% increase in single-threaded performance over the current line of Ryzen 3000 chips. The 3600XT and the 3900XT will feature a 100MHz increase in boost clock speed over their older counterparts, while the 3800XT’s boost clock speed will see a 200MHz increase.
Even though clock speed trumps core count when it comes to gaming performance, this modest increase in boost clock speed probably won’t make too much of a difference in most games. This is of course why Intel still has a place in the market, as their higher clock speeds often yield better gaming performance, especially at lower resolutions.
In terms of pricing, the 3600XT will be $249, the 3800XT will come in at $399, and the 3900XT will be priced at $499. The introduction of the 3000XT SKUs at these prices will perhaps burden consumers with a tougher choice to make. The 3600X, 3800X, and 3900X are all significantly cheaper at this point and don’t really offer much of a performance loss compared to their refreshed XT siblings.
AMD stated that they’re always aiming to bring “faster performance to market as soon as we possibly can,” and that they “jumped at the opportunity to provide more frequency and more performance to you in the AMD Ryzen 3000XT processor.” AMD also explained that these new CPUs are designed to “give you more performance and more choice.”
Despite rumors of a delay, AMD is still expected to announce their next-gen Zen 3 Ryzen 4000 chips later this year.
