AMD’s Pro-only Threadripper shift leaves HEDT enthusiasts in the cold

The cheapest Threadripper Pro 5000 chip is $1,000 more expensive than the last-gen version.

- MICHAEL CRIDER

Since the introduction of the AM4 socket, AMD’s Threadripper ultra-high-end CPUs have been coveted as the very top of the consumer chip market. But AMD skipped Threadripper releases beyond the Ryzen 3000-based series released in early 2020, and as Ryzen 5000 bows out of the marketplace, the company is only releasing Pro variants of Threadripper 59XX chips (fave. co/3ID9JY5). With pricing announced for these industrial-grade chips, and with AMD confirming that non-Pro Threadripper chips are going the way of the dodo, that leaves consumers wanting to build high-powered machines in a lurch.