It’s been nearly 3 years since AMD first launched its Ryzen processor range and one of the most cost-focused releases among these was the Ryzen 3 1200. Effectively acting as the ‘entry-level’ CPU from the series, it quickly gained popularity thanks to its relatively strong performance for a price under £100. In other words, gamers (or general PC users) on a budget!
Well, in a report via TechPowerUp, it seems that despite AMD now officially being on their 3rd-gen platform, with the fourth just on the horizon, they’re still willing to give this 1st-gen release a little love by switching it to the Zen+ architecture.
AMD Ryzen 3 1200
Now, what does this mean? Well, in all honestly, it’s rather boring and, if you know your AMD, you probably already know the answer. Essentially, this revised design has changed from the 14nm node design (seen in the original Zen platform) to the 12nm seen in the Ryzen 2nd-gen. In terms of specifications, it’s still (in so far as we can tell) more or less exactly the same otherwise.
So, maybe it’ll run a little cooler? That’s about it though. So, I suppose it begs the question as to why they’ve done this.
What Do We Think?
Despite a lot of fanfare going to the highest-performing processors in the Ryzen range, it shouldn’t be overlooked that one of the most lucrative markets has always been the budget-focused. It’s why Nvidia has only 2-3 ‘top-spec’ graphics cards while they have 5-6 that could easily fall into more wallet-friendly definitions.
As such, despite the Ryzen 3 1200 being old, it’s still more than competent and solid at its job. With AMD being firmly off the 14nm platform, however, this 12nm Zen+ switch was likely simply to accommodate them being able to make a few more.
So, I suppose if you are in the market for a cheap processor, considering that this will cost around £50, it still seems like a more than solid bargain!
What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!
