July 31st was the original Ryzen 9000/Zen 5 launch day. Now AMD has to delay.
What was supposed to be the big launch this autumn has ended up being a mini-disaster for Intel. Not only is the damage permanent for CPUs that have already been used (an update will be released halfway through August), but now it turns out that more models than first thought are affected. This means that models without K marking, i.e. those that are locked and cannot be overclocked, are also affected by the error.
The problems started in December 2022 and have exploded since then. Consumers with Raptor Lake and Raptor Lake Refresh processors experienced crashes and BSODs during gaming and other workloads. Intel eventually recognized the cause: faulty microcode that instructed the CPU to request more voltage than was safe.
Postponed until August
The launch has been postponed to August 8 and August 15. The reason is that the company has not been able to verify that all the CPUs meet the quality requirements - so there should be no question of a fault with the products, only that AMD wants to be absolutely sure.
Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X launch on August 8, while Ryzen 9 9950X and Ryzen 9 9900X launch on August 15.
This is what AMD says:
“We appreciate the expectations surrounding the Ryzen 9000 series CPUs. During the last checks, we found that the first production units sent to our partners did not meet our full quality expectations. To be completely safe, and to maintain the highest quality experience for every Ryzen user, we are working with our channel partners to replace the first production units with new units.
As a result, there will be a short delay in retail availability. The Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X processors will now go on sale on August 8 and the Ryzen 9 9950X and Ryzen 9 9900X processors will go on sale on August 15. We are proud to offer a high-quality experience for every Ryzen user, and we look forward to our fans having a great experience with the new Ryzen 9000 series.”
Affected Intel customers must return:
In other CPU news, things aren't going as well for Intel. Although the company has announced bug fixes in August, there are chips on the market that will not be fixed with a firmware update due to permanent quality degradation. Affected customers must therefore hand in their CPUs.