AMD has officially announced the launch prices for its latest Ryzen 9000 desktop CPUs, and they come at a lower cost than the previous Ryzen 7000 series. The flagship Ryzen 9 9950X, featuring 16 cores, is priced at $649, which is $50 less than the Ryzen 9 7950X's original launch price of $699. Other models in the new lineup are also priced $20 to $50 less than their Ryzen 7000 counterparts.

After delaying the launch of the Ryzen 9000 CPUs for cautionary reasons, AMD is set to release the Ryzen 7 9700X ($359) and Ryzen 5 9600X ($279) on August 8th, followed by the Ryzen 9 9950X ($649) and Ryzen 9 9900X ($499) on August 15th.

AMD is touting a significant performance boost with the Ryzen 9000 series, promising around a 16 percent improvement in instructions per cycle (IPC) compared to the previous generation. This enhancement is expected to deliver noticeable gains in both productivity and gaming.

Additionally, AMD is introducing new X870 and X870E motherboard chipsets to complement the Ryzen 9000 series. However, these new motherboards won't be available at the time of the CPU launch. Fortunately, the new Ryzen 9000 CPUs are compatible with existing AM5 motherboards, a socket AMD has committed to support until at least 2027.

The release of these new CPUs comes as Intel, AMD’s main competitor, faces issues with stability and crashes in its 13th and 14th Gen desktop CPUs. Intel has identified the cause of these problems and plans to roll out a microcode fix soon, but CPUs already damaged due to high voltages will need replacements.