AMD is about to reach the big 5-0 and to mark the occasion it’s rolling out a commemorative Ryzen 7 2700X 50th Anniversary Edition CPU. The chip hasn’t officially been announced by the red team, but various leaks and illicit snaps have confirmed what we can expect from the semicentennial processor… and it’s not a clockspeed bump.
AMD was incorporated way back on May 1, 1969, and it’s suspected that the Ryzen 7 2700X 50th Anniversary Edition will be announced on April 29 – just a few days prior to its true anniversary.
One retailer has reportedly listed the CPU a little early, however. In a listing spotted by Videocardz, the CPU is expected to don black and gold packaging for the day, come bearing the signature of one Dr. Lisa Su, and… that’s it. Sorry, it looks like the rumours of a clock speed bump or a binned chip may have been just that, rumours. The processor will be packaged alongside the usual gubbins, including a capable Wraith Prism cooler. However, it looks like the same eight-core silicon running at 3.7GHz base and 4.3GHz boost underneath that insignia heat spreader.
The commemorative chip idea has proven popular amongst chipmakers, with Intel similarly remixing the Core i7 8700K into the i7 8086K last year to mark the 40th anniversary of the 8086, one of the most important processors in the modern computing history. The i7 8086K was a binned die, touted with greater overclocking ability and a 5GHz single core boost clock.
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Hence why it was suspected AMD might attempt the same thing with its own anniversary processor. There’s still a chance there’s more to this processor that meets the eye, retailers have been known to list products on rumour alone after all. But with AMD Ryzen 3000 CPUs just around the corner – we’re hoping to hear more at Computex at the end of May – it looks like this chip will launch for commemorative reasons alone, and likely won’t sway many holding out for Zen 2. It’s essentially the CPU equivalent of a royal wedding china plate.
It is suspected the Ryzen 7 2700X 50th Anniversary Edition launch will coincide with that of the anniversary edition of the Radeon VII graphics card. This is likely to ditch its usual silver fare in favour of a glitzy red shroud.
Third-party manufacturers are also prepping 50th anniversary products, including Gigabyte and Sapphire. You can check out all the announced special editions right here. We suspect further products will be announced on the day.