Lenovo put up an updated specs sheet of its ThinkCentre M725 small form-factor desktop, with more processor options. Notable additions to these include the upcoming AMD Ryzen 3 2300X and Ryzen 5 2500X quad-core socket AM4 processors. The two chips succeed the 1300X and 1500X, respectively, and are designed to capture sub-$150 price-points, competing with Intel's Core i3 "Coffee Lake" quad-core processor series. It's rumored that the 2300X could even be priced close to the $100-mark, making it competitive with the i3-8100, while the 2500X could be priced competitively with the i3-8300.

AMD is giving these quad-core chips all its innovations it can muster to make them competitive with Intel's chips - the two feature unlocked base-clock multipliers, Precision Boost (Intel's Core i3 chips lack Turbo Boost), and XFR 2.0, which automatically overclock beyond the max boost frequencies. You also get the latest Precision Boost 2.0 algorithm that ensures each of the four cores gets varying degrees of boost clocks. Based on the 12 nm "Pinnacle Ridge" die, the two chips feature a 2+2 CCX configuration. The 2300X has 4 MB of L3 cache enabled per CCX (8 MB total), while the 2500X gives you the full 8 MB per CCX L3 cache, for a total of 16 MB. TDP of both chips are rated at 65W, and AMD could bundle the Wraith Stealth cooler with the two.

AMD's next iteration on their very positively received Zen microarchitecture is preparing for take-off in the coming months, and as we draw ever close to the release date, more details are trickling in. This time, it's the appearance of a Ryzen 7 2700X (which supersedes the original Ryzen 7 1700X) on Futuremark's 3DMark database. The Ryzen 7 2700X was paired with an ASRock X370 Taichi motherboard (still considered one of the best ever to grace AMD's new AM4 platform), and its 8 cores and 16 threads are locked into a 3.7 GHz base and 4.1 GHz turbo clocks (respectively 300 MHz higher base and turbo clocks that the 1700X's).

The usage of AMD's XFR 2.0 (eXtended Frequency Range) and Precision Boost 2.0 could mean that the CPU is able, in certain scenarios, to turbo over the specified limit of 4.1 GHz, up to 4.2 GHz, thus delivering an even bigger boost to its performance. The usage of a 12 nm process means AMD has taken the power savings and increased frequency potential that comes from shrinking their original Zen microarchitecture, and put those to increased frequencies across the board, thus increasing their CPU's single-thread performance. Being an X chip,. AMD has kept the package TDP at a still respectable 95 W, much like its 1000 series Ryzens, though we know that this 95 W figure doesn't really spell out just how energy efficient these AMD CPUs really are.