There is less than a week left before the start of sales of the latest Ryzen 9000 desktop processors based on the Zen 5 architecture. While it was previously reported that some reviewers had begun receiving samples of the chips for testing, new data suggests that AMD has yet to provide Ryzen 9000 samples to many reviewers.
Image Source: Antony Leather/Forbes
Many observers report that they have not yet received any information from the manufacturer about the delivery time of processor samples for testing. For others, AMD said it would ship samples “soon.” Everything indicates that many specialized media and bloggers simply will not have time to prepare reviews for the launch of the Ryzen 9000. Or these reviews will have to be done in a very short time.
Reviewers from Europe and Asia were mainly faced with the shortage of chips. At the moment, at least eight sources around the world have confirmed that they have not yet received new chips from AMD. The lack of processor samples for testing was also reported by at least two US reviewers. In addition, some media outlets have reported that there are no Ryzen 9 9950X samples available for testing, so the first reviews will only focus on the 12-, 8-, and 6-core Ryzen 9000 models. However, this does not mean that there will be no reviews of the Ryzen 9 9950X at all. Many reviewers receive processors for tests not from AMD, but from its partners.
«As far as Zen 5 benchmarks go, there’s still nothing here. There is nothing to report about tests of mobile AMD Strix Point (Ryzen AI 300) for laptops, although retailers say that the new products will go on sale from July 28. There is no new information about the desktop Ryzen 9000. Apart from small leaks, there is nothing more to report. The absence of major leaks for all models of processors in this series hints that reviewers have a negligible number of samples of these chips on their hands, or these processors have not yet reached retailers, who otherwise would certainly organize such leaks. Despite this, AMD announced that sales of the Ryzen 9000 will begin on July 31,” writes ComputerBase.
Historically, the key issue for AMD processor reviewers has always been the availability of the latest software updates, rather than a shortage of chip samples. AMD often releases the latest BIOS versions to support new processors at the last minute, which often invalidates the results of already completed tests and requires re-testing to verify changes.
According to one reviewer, all the necessary tests of one processor model in various use cases, even taking into account the use of automated processes, take about 18 hours. Thus, tests of all processors of the new series on one platform will take at least three days.
Many were also upset by the fact that some small media still managed to somehow buy one of the processor models of the new Ryzen 9000 series even before the official announcement of its cost and even prepare a full-fledged gaming review for it.