- AMD Ryzen 9850X3D bundles have been spotted in China
- They combine the new CPU with 32 GB of DDR5 RAM and a cooler
- This could be a way to give PC builders a break on the price of memory, and it could be a plan that AMD brings to other regions with success
AMD could have a plan to deal with the pain of component price increases – particularly the skyrocketing cost of RAM – and that is to sell bundles with its impending new Ryzen X3D CPU, or at least there is some indication of this in Asia.
Tom’s Hardware highlighted a post on X from Uniko’s Hardware that shows a bundle that AMD is reportedly launching in China, consisting of a processor plus cooler and system RAM.
What buyers get in this bundle is the new Ryzen 9850X3D CPU, which was recently revealed – and is about to go on sale, and looks like a great addition to AMD’s gaming lineup – along with a Cooler Master cooler for this chip and 32GB of V-Color memory (a pair of 16GB DDR5 sticks to be exact).
We don’t have any prices yet, just a picture of this bundle which you can see in the post above. The interesting thing here, though, is that this appears to be an official collaboration between AMD and V-Color along with Cooler Master, rather than a retailer simply throwing together their own bundle, hence the logos on the box.
There is another telling difference in that the motherboard is not bundled here. Typically you would get a CPU and memory plus motherboard in a bundle box, but here the latter is replaced by said cooler.
Analysis: a hopeful hint in a deeply pessimistic market
Presumably the motherboard has been dispensed with to keep costs down, as an included cooler instead will naturally ensure an overall lower price (while still making sense as a partner to a high-end gaming CPU). And the main point of this bundle is of course to deliver DDR5 RAM at a (relatively) palatable price alongside pushing AMD’s new processor.
Of course, it’s likely that the V-Color DDR5 RAM is made up of affordable 16GB memory sticks, so there won’t be any high-end, fast RAM here (as that would defeat the point of an affordable bundle). As observed by Uniko’s, it’s probably DDR5-4800 memory (meaning it runs at 4800MT/s, which is the slowest performance for DDR5).
As Toms further notes, it is important in this regard that AMD has been quick to make it clear that the Ryzen 9850X3D does not need fast RAM. In fact, there’s hardly any difference in performance between DDR5-4800 and faster DDR5-6000 RAM with the 9850X3D, with less than a 1% difference in frame rates (across a 30-game average – see above slide courtesy of VideoCardz).
In other words, no matter what DDR5 RAM you use, it won’t make any noticeable difference with the Ryzen 9850X3D. This generally applies to X3D processors, as their stronger cache (3D V-Cache, to which the naming convention ‘X3D’ refers) means that the CPU has to tap the system’s RAM less often, so the speed of this memory is not such a factor that determines overall game performance.
That’s all well and good, but will these bundles arrive outside of Asia? That’s the key question here – this and exactly where AMD can pitch prices. On the latter point, if the bundle is not a significant saving on the separate parts, there would hardly be much point.
Whether the US, or Europe, or elsewhere will see Ryzen 9850X3D plus RAM bundles, we obviously don’t know. But the fact that this is happening in China is certainly an indication that AMD is considering strategies to keep RAM prices down for PC builders – as this is an official collaboration as mentioned – so I see no reason why this strategy might not apply to the wider global market. Well, aside from supply concerns, of course, but this is at least a hopeful hint that similar bundles could be on the way.
Meanwhile, standalone DDR5 RAM remains at ridiculous prices, even if discounted, as we saw yesterday.
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