MAD NEWS: AMD's Ryzen Threadripper chips arrive next month starting at 799$

Following the initial reveal of its top-end Ryzen Threadripper CPUs in May, AMD has finally revealed prices and a release window for the chips. Threadripper will land in "early August" in two varieties, with prices starting at $799 and topping out at $999.

The $799 Threadripper 1920X will include 12 cores and 24 threads, a 3.5 GHz base clock and a 4.0 GHz boost. At the top-end, the $999 Threadripper 1950X steps things up a notch with 16 cores and 32 threads, with a 3.4 GHz base clock and a 4.0 GHz boost. Both chips are also unlocked, allowing you to overclock to boost performance even further.

If you're a fan of Team Red, that's sure to be good news when compared to Intel's latest Core i9 chips. While Intel's top-end i9-7980XE chips does have AMD beat in terms of core and thread count with 18 cores and 36 threads, it also costs twice as much at $1,999.

In addition to new details on Threadripper, AMD also revealed more about its lower-end Ryzen 3 series of chips. Ryzen 3 chips will come in two flavors, the Ryzen 3 1300X and Ryzen 3 1200, and both pack 4 cores and 4 threads. As far as clock speeds go, the 1300X comes with a base clock of 3.5 GHZ and boost of 3.7 GHz, while the 1200 carries a base clock of 3.1 GHZ and boost of 3.4 GHz. Ryzen 3 will go on sale on July 27, AMD says, but pricing has yet to be revealed.

Do we really need that many cores?

With Intel and AMD waging a fierce a core war this summer, you’d assume that more cores means better performance. The truth is more nuanced.

How many cores you need really depends on what you do. If you primarily play games, a mega-core PC isn’t likely to yield the performance you’d expect. If, however, you edit video, render 3D, and run other intensive workstation-like tasks, more cores generally means less waiting. Having an embarrassing number of cores can also aid in heavy-duty multitasking. You know, like simultaneously rendering 3D, video, audio, and playing games.