As we all know, the first generation Ryzen CPUs that launched a little over two years ago made a huge splash and signaled AMD’s comeback into the mainstream as a serious contender and not the “budget brand” it had been considered for years.

It disrupted the market and pricing so much that Intel was forced to release their 8000-series processors in the same calendar year as they released their 7000-series parts, increasing core counts on the mainstream up to 6-cores with parts like the 8700K. They then of course followed that up the next year with the refreshed 9000-series, which features up to 8-cores with parts such as the Core i7 9700K and Core i9 9900K. This was a huge change for the company, who previously had remained stagnant releasing only quad-cores on the mainstream platform since 2008. It was a clear sign that Intel had taken the new threat from AMD seriously.