A Closer Look

The Ryzen 5 1500X retail package includes AMD's new Wraith Spire cooling solution. The cooler features a large cylindrical heatsink with radially projecting fins, which is ventilated by a large fan. AMD has optimized the fan for low noise.


Topside, the Ryzen chip looks quite similar to every AMD desktop processor since Athlon64. A large, thick integrated heatspreader tops off the chip. Underneath, you see the chip's PGA (pin grid array). AM4 consists of 1,331 pins (missed opportunity to add 6 more ground pins), and these pins are a lot finer those you find on AM3+ FX-series processors, so handle these chips with extreme care.


AM4 still has a rectangular cooler mount-hole layout (as opposed to square ones on Intel LGA platforms). AMD should have switched to a square layout to make it easier to orient tower-type coolers to blow hot air out the rear of the case. Current AM4-ready tower-type coolers have elaborate retention module kits that let you do that. Most popular cooler vendors are either selling or giving away AM4 retention modules for free. You often also have to remove the plastic retention module motherboards ship with to install certain kinds of coolers.