A Ryzen 5 3500 processor was first spotted in an Alienware desktop, which confused PC users and tech sites.
After all, the chipset was never announced before it was unveiled in the Alienware tech, so what is happening?
But it didn’t take long for AMD to make a clarification to Tom’s Hardware regarding the 3500 processor. The bottom line? Yes, the company indeed is offering the Ryzen 5 3500 chip, and it is now available to their OEM partners. However, the chip is not going to be available in all regions, so check with your distributor first.
AMD said in a statement that the processor would help their OEM partners exploit AMD’s solutions for the enhanced gaming experience. They can also use the PCIe 4.0, the Ryzen Master Utility, Precision Boost Overdrive technologies to produce powerful builds.
This is eerily similar to what happened with the 5300M graphics card that was first seen on the MacBook Pro. Prior to the announcement, AMD has not said anything about rolling out the GPU. Then everybody is caught by surprise when the MacBook Pro was launched.
It was only after the fact that AMD announced that they are making the 5300M available for PC users. The GPU offered to Windows users even has 22 compute units (CUs) compared to the 20 for the MacBook. The problem is that the 5500M at 4GB of GDDR6 memory is capable of 24 CUs. At this point, there is no indication that any such GPU is available for Windows users.
The Ryzen 5 3500 processor has six cores with a base clock of 3.6GHz. However, you can boost this up to 4.1GHz. It is built using the 7nm process and the Zen 2 microarchitecture. The processor is powering up the Alienware Aurora R10, which is being billed as the Ryzer Edition.
Back in October, rumors about its release already made the rounds on the Internet. AMD never denied nor confirmed those speculations. And the month ended without the company rolling out the processor. It showed up on an Indian website and was being offered for 11,199 rupees or about 154 USD.
Everybody moved on to other rumors and forgot about the 3500. At least, until it was spotted on the Alienware desktop.
For now, the Ryzen 5 3500 chip is only available for AMD’s OEM partners. AMD has not revealed whether It is available for the end-users.