First AMD Ryzen CPUs pictured

The first images of AMD’s new Ryzen CPUs have surfaced, courtesy of VideoCardz. The photos of the processors – displayed in the form of 12-unit trays, likely from an OEM PC builder – show the Ryzen branding on the chip’s integrated heatspreader (pictured below), plus the legend “diffused in USA, made in China,” which points to the dies being created as wafers in the recently opened GlobalFoundries’ New York Fab which are then shipped to GloFo in China and formed into the processors we see here.

A close-up of the back of one of the Ryzen CPUs (below) shows the (theoretical) 1331 pins on its rear, made to fit a 1331 PGA socket. PGA is considered more durable than the LGA equivalent, and thus less prone to accidental damage when mounting and unmounting. AMD’s AM4 CPUs boast a 40%+ growth in pin contacts compared to AM3+ in order to support even more PCIe lanes and USB devices, though this has necessitated a redesign of its heatsink mounting holes, which breaks compatibility with previous generations’ sockets.

The AMD Ryzen processor range is expected for release at the end of February, with prices ranging between $489 for the top-end AMD Ryzen 7 1800X and $129 for the budget quad-core AMD Ryzen 3 1100. A full range of AM4 socket motherboards was recently revealed, featuring 17 boards from ASRock, Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI.