AMD has published a product page which talks up the attractions of its new AMD 4700S Desktop Kit. The power plant behind this desktop kit is a Zen 2 architecture octa-core AMD processor dubbed the 'AMD 4700S' – note that this isn't called a 'Ryzen' part. AMD refers to this kit as an "all-in-one soldered design". Interestingly, we saw a system based upon the same platform being advertised at major a Chinese retailer in April, so it is pretty certain the AMD 4700S desktop kit is based upon Xbox Series X components that didn't make the grade.
The AMD Cardinal system with AMD 4700S processor, which we reported on in April, came with 16GB GDDR6 on board, and was put together with a Radeon RX 550, and 500GB SHDD, in a dinky case to make a complete system costing about £500 in a direct conversion from Chinese Yuan.
The new official AMD 4700S Desktop Kit sounds less of a bare-bones offering and more like an SBC product, with the official website listing a variety of AMD and Nvidia GPUs that are suitable / fit, and merely providing PCIe slot, recommended power supply, and storage interface specs. So you will have to get your own GPU, SATA storage (2 ports free), and PSU (300W+ recommended). This new kit doesn't even look like it comes in a case (and no OS of course)…
Elsewhere on the product pages, AMD says the system features 1Gb LAN, USB3 3x Gen2 + 1x Gen1, USB2 4x, front panel USB3 2x Gen1 and HD Audio Header – bit no M.2 port, and no on-board display connection.
The above specs table and more can be found in the downloadable manual (PDF).
On the new product page AMD shows the AMD 4700S 8-Core Processor Desktop Kit as just 'bare board' with cooler attached. There are some board diagrams in the manual. With all the parts you will require to make this into a finished system it should come in much cheaper than the Chinese market targeted 'Cardinal'. Without pricing and availability it is hard to know if this is an attractive product. If you had an old quad-core system with 4 or 8GB of RAM (or worse) it might make a nice step up, and some could simply carry over their SSD, GPU, case and PSU.
