AMD Ryzen 7 8700F and Ryzen 5 8400F: The cheapest Ryzen 8000 series processors yet

Back in January, AMD announced the Ryzen 8000G series of desktop processors which were Zen 4-based APUs mated to some of the best integrated graphics you could get. If however you simply wanted the CPU without the iGPU at all, then AMD’s latest products may be of interest to you: the Ryzen 8000 F series of processors.

The -F suffix essentially indicates that they’re desktop processors with no integrated graphics onboard and will instead require you to have your own discrete graphics card. According to AMD, the Ryzen 8000 F series is positioned as ideal options for entry level gaming and productivity systems, as they are the most affordable Ryzen 8000 series processors available giving you a bigger budget for your graphics card. They also use the same AM5 socket platform as the Ryzen 8000G and Ryzen 7000 series, and use Zen-4 based cores built on TSMC’s 4nm process, likely made using recovered processors meant for the 8000G series that failed to meet quality control due to a defective iGPU.

There are two SKUs so far in the Ryzen 8000 F series, with the higher tier one being the Ryzen 7 8700F. It’s an eight-core, 16-thread CPU with 4.1GHz base speeds and boosts of up to 5.0GHz, with 24MB of total cache and a 65W TDP. It’s also ‘Ryzen AI Ready’, which is to say it does have a dedicated NPU onboard, but you can only unlock full Ryzen AI capability when you pair it with an AMD Radeon 7000 series GPU. AMD claims an up to 24% performance gain over the Intel Core i5-14400F in tested games, and up to 22% improvements in certain workloads.

Below that meanwhile is the Ryzen 5 8400F, a much more traditional, entry-to-midrange CPU targeting gamers. It has six cores, 12 threads all running at a base clock of 4.2GHz with boosts of up to 4.7GHz, along with 22MB of total cache and a 65W TDP; no Ryzen AI ready capabilities here. AMD claims performance gains of up to 14% in games compared to the Intel Core i5-13400F. It’s also perhaps worth noting that both the Ryzen 7 8700F and the Ryzen 5 8400F will come with an AMD Wraith Stealth cooler in the box.

These two new processors from AMD are already available for purchase from all major retail partners and system integrators nationwide. No local pricing was given however AMD did give a recommended retail price of USD269 (~RM1,260.26) for the Ryzen 7 8700F and USD169 (~RM791.76) for the Ryzen 5 8400F. You can learn more about these new desktop processors over on the AMD website.