We’re less than a week away from the launch of the latest Zen 5-based Ryzen 9000 desktop processors. While it was previously reported that some reviewers had begun receiving samples for testing, new information suggests that AMD has yet to provide Ryzen 9000 samples to many reviewers.
Image source: Antony Leather / Forbes
Many reviewers report that they have not yet received any information from the manufacturer about the timing of the delivery of processor samples for testing. Others were told by AMD that it would send samples “soon”. Everything indicates that many specialized media and bloggers simply will not have time to prepare reviews for the launch of Ryzen 9000. Or these reviews will have to be done in a very short time.
The chip shortage was mostly experienced by reviewers from Europe and Asia. At least eight sources around the world have confirmed so far that they have not yet received new chips from AMD. At least two reviewers from the US have also reported a lack of processor samples for testing. In addition, some media outlets reported that there are no Ryzen 9 9950X samples available for testing, so the first reviews will be devoted only to the 12-, 8-, and 6-core Ryzen 9000 models. However, this does not mean that there will be no Ryzen 9 9950X reviews at all. Many reviewers receive processors for testing not from AMD, but from its partners.
“As for Zen 5 benchmarks, there’s still nothing to report. There’s nothing to report on AMD Strix Point (Ryzen AI 300) mobile benchmarks for laptops, although retailers say the new products will go on sale on July 28. There’s no new information on the desktop Ryzen 9000 either. Apart from minor leaks, there’s nothing else to report. The lack of major leaks for all models of this series of processors suggests that reviewers have very few samples of these chips on hand, or these processors have not yet arrived at retailers, who would otherwise certainly have organized such leaks. Despite this, AMD said that sales of Ryzen 9000 will begin on July 31,” writes ComputerBase.
Historically, the key issue for AMD processor reviewers has been the availability of the latest software updates, not the lack of sample chips. AMD often provides the latest BIOS versions with support for new processors at the last minute, which often invalidates the results of already completed tests and requires retesting to verify the changes.
According to one reviewer, all the necessary tests for one processor model in various usage scenarios, even taking into account the use of automated processes, take about 18 hours. Thus, testing 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 outlets somehow managed to buy one of the models of the new Ryzen 9000 series processor even before its official price was announced and even prepared a full-fledged gaming review for it.
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