Why Ryzen 7 8700F & Ryzen 5 8400 and why now?

Two key players in the Ryzen family have arrived.

Specifications at a glance

With the first third of the year gone and the middle of the year fast approaching, AMD’s Ryzen 7 8700F and Ryzen 5 8400 have arrived. Continuing the legacy and upgrade path of the AM5 socket, businesses and consumers who invested in the platform have new upgrade (or replacement) paths which continues to reward them for sticking with AMD.

Customers can once again look forward to the fantastic price to performance that AMD has always promised, especially in South Africa and especially with these two new devices which focus on aggressive pricing. See how these new CPUs compare to the current crop of Ryzen 7000 options below.

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The Ryzen 7 8700F and Ryzen 5 8400 are both strong showings from the new 4 nm production process offering double digit performance gains compared to similar silicon from the other big CPU manufacturer, with noticeably lower pricing.

Finally, on the wave of AI, the Ryzen 7 8700F offers access to AMD Ryzen AI when paired with an appropriate Radeon GPU

Who is in the market for an upgrade, or a new PC?

Content creators of all kinds are locked in an “arms race” to push the boundaries

Aside from the proliferation of AI (discussed in the next point), the hunger for upgrades and new PCs continues to be strong for both content creators and consumers.

Home and small business AI enthusiasts

The compute load of the current batch of large language model AIs is being compared to the cryptocurrency mining boom. Unlike cryptocurrency much of the compute load is being handheld on the cloud by companies with the infrastructure to handle it.

That doesn’t mean that variants of this AI work is being done in homes and at small businesses in South Africa and around the world. Either by chasing down opportunities in this new space, simple curiosity to experiment or the desire to keep all AI content local and under control, there is desire for powerful, local compute for AI based on the current models.

Gamers (and what they’re playing)

As always, the Ryzen family is built by and for gamers. It is worth keeping an eye out on the gaming landscape and its ever-evolving releases as opportunities for upgrades and how the Ryzen 7 8700F and Ryzen 5 8400 can factor into this.

ELDEN RING Shadow of the Erdtree

Undoubtedly the biggest expansion release of the year and maybe the biggest gaming release of the year full stop.

While Elden Ring isn’t a particularly demanding game on its own, it must be remembered that the base game has already cemented itself as the favourite game for many. Those who experienced the base game in 1080p, for example, may want to upgrade and play Shadow of the Erdtree in 1440p or even 4K.

Slated for release on 20th June 2024, the PC performance of Shadow of the Erdtree is also an unknown at this time. Should it not be entirely optimised, the need to “brute force” a better solution – while playing the expansion as soon as possible – may be another reason to upgrade.

STAR WARS Jedi: Survivor

While not a new release, certain factors will increase the popularity of this game and may lead to both newcomers and returning players.

The release of Star Wars: The Acolyte (4th June 2024), the first ever LEGO minifigure of Cal Kestis (1st August 2024) and various anniversaries of Star Wars in 2024 (The Phantom Menace and the LEGO partnership are both 25 this year) will all bring eyes to Star Wars and eventually to the Star Wars games.

STAR WARS Jedi: Survivor is the most recent AAA Star Wars title and will continue to garner player attention.

On top of this, Jedi Survivor still suffers from a lack of optimisation from developer Respawn and EA. This means a greater need for powerful hardware to enjoy this Star Wars game.

GHOST OF TSUSHIMA Director’s Cut

Originally released in 2020 for the PlayStation 4, this first party Sony title has recently been ported to PC under the Director’s Cut on 16th May 2024. Those who have never owned a PlayStation console can now enjoy the title, and those who do can now enjoy the game again at a higher resolution, higher framerate and with new PC-specific features like larger monitors (ultrawide, super ultrawide and 48:8 triple monitor), keyboard and mouse controls and various frame generation techniques.

The announcement of the samurai-focused Assassin’s Creed Shadows (due 12th November 2024) and the announcement of more seasons of the show Shōgun (release date unknown) are both drivers towards the popularity of Ghost of Tsushima as gamers want to enjoy ancient Japanese settings and swordplay right now.