AMD has refreshed a Ryzen 3 1200, now fabbed at 12 nm technology (was 14 nm). With a price of 50 euros for four cores, the updated Ryzen 3 1200 is an extremely attractive offer for DIY PCs with a dedicated graphics card.

The new model can be recognized by the OPNB (Ordering Part Number Boxed), which is YD1200BBAFBOX instead of YD1200BBAEBOX. By changing from 14 nm to 12 nm and from Zen to Zen+ while maintaining compatibility with the AM4 socket, the quad-core chip can be used to build cheap and fast systems. Zen+ is AMD's revised architecture based on the original Zen technology, in addition the chips are manufactured with Globalfoundries' 12LP instead of 14LPP. This means higher frequencies or the same stuff at less voltage. In the case of the new Ryzen 3 1200, this means better boost behavior: With Zen, fixed turbo levels are still set based on the number of cores used, with Zen +, on the other hand, the boost depends on the chip load, the current strength and the temperature of the cores.

If you buy such this APU and still have an old AM4 board, please do remember that the mainboard must be "Pinnacle Ridge ready" so that the system can boot. At the beginning of 2018, AMD had described in a support document that buyers of an AM4 base with a Ryzen 2000 processor have different options if the mainboard is shipped with an old BIOS without support for Pinnacle Ridge. Users could not carry out a BIOS update without a Ryzen 1000 CPU. So at the very least flash the latest firmware into your motherboard okay?

AMD sells 12-nm Ryzen 3 1200 quad-core for 49 euros