The AMD Ryzen Threadripper 9970X is a desktop processor with 32 cores, launched in July 2025, at an MSRP of $2499. It is part of the Ryzen Threadripper lineup, using the Zen 5 (Shimada Peak) architecture with Socket sTR5. Thanks to AMD Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT) the core-count is effectively doubled, to 64 threads. Ryzen Threadripper 9970X has 128 MB of L3 cache and operates at 4 GHz by default, but can boost up to 5.4 GHz, depending on the workload. AMD is making the Ryzen Threadripper 9970X on a 4 nm production node using 33,260 million transistors. The silicon die of the chip is not fabricated at AMD, but at the foundry of TSMC. You may freely adjust the unlocked multiplier on Ryzen Threadripper 9970X, which simplifies overclocking greatly, as you can easily dial in any overclocking frequency.
With a TDP of 350 W, the Ryzen Threadripper 9970X is extremely power hungry, which means you need top-notch cooling. AMD’s processor supports DDR5 memory with a quad-channel interface. The highest officially supported memory speed is 6400 MT/s, but with overclocking (and the right memory modules) you can go even higher. ECC memory is supported, too, which is an important capability for mission-critical systems, to avoid data corruption. For communication with other components in the computer, Ryzen Threadripper 9970X uses a PCI-Express Gen 5 connection. This processor does not have integrated graphics, you will need a separate graphics card.
Hardware virtualization is available on the Ryzen Threadripper 9970X, which greatly improves virtual machine performance. Additionally, IOMMU virtualization (PCI passthrough) is supported, so that guest virtual machines may directly use host hardware. Programs using Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) can run on this processor, boosting performance for calculation-heavy applications. Besides AVX, AMD has added support for the newer AVX2 and AVX-512 instructions, too.