While it may not have been mentioned much in the CES keynote, AMD announced two new Zen 3 desktop processors, the Ryzen 9 5900 and Ryzen 7 5800, similar to their X-suffixed predecessors, but with lower TDPs. Only 65W.

However, these are for OEMs and cannot be purchased separately.

Low thermal designs have the potential to make interesting machines, and here we are thinking primarily of thin, small desktop gaming PCs. Of course, such a fancy would require a lower-power graphics card, but at least this way the designer could focus primarily on cooling the GPU. [Thus, if you are enthralled by the full power of the Zen 3, it is worth keeping an eye on the actual product you are buying.

As you can see, the stock frequencies of these new non-X chips are quite low, and while the boost clocks are not far off, how close they get to that clock and how long they last will depend entirely on the cooling provided. Essentially, the lower TDP means it won't be as fast, but AMD claims it will be 24% faster than the previous generation for 1080p gaming.

A comparison of the new OEM chips versus chips you can buy yourself follows:

These new chips may not be very exciting for those looking to build their own gaming rigs, but if you are buying an off-the-shelf gaming machine, It will be worth paying attention to. It is also an important release for AMD and should help bring Zen 3 to more gaming PCs.

If all of this tickles your fancy, AMD is supporting a feature called Eco Mode on its CPUs. This was a great feature on the Ryzen 3000 processors, but was marked down as something that would come later when the Ryzen 5000 models were launched.

We tried it again on a test-rigged Ryzen 5 5600X and found that Eco mode was properly enabled in Ryzen Master (there is a switch in the BIOS), but it still showed too much power consumption. Temperatures are dropping, though, so it may be working. From the looks of it, it's still a work in progress; I contacted AMD to see what's going on.