In event theleaksandlofty presentationsthat throw away over the summertime did not make it clear enough , AMD ’s newly release Zen 4 political platform is aiming to vie with Intel for the title of World ’s Fastest Gaming CPU . With claim of high mightiness delivery per watt , an improved architecture , galactic increases in single heart performance , and continued dominance in the multicore arena , the Ryzen 7000 series has a myriad of legendary promises to live up to .
Do the Saratoga chip live up to the hoopla ?
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X and Ryzen 9 7900X
Photo: Damien Gula / Gizmodo
AMD ’s eye of the push-down stack processors for the Zen 4 CPU serial outgo even Intel ’s most muscular 12th Gen chips .
What is it ?
AMD ’s middle of the heap processors for the Zen 4 CPU serial
Photo: Damien Gula / Gizmodo
Price
$ 399 ( 7700X ) , $ 549 ( 7900X )
the like
Graphic: Damien Gula / Gizmodo
unbelievable carrying into action uplift over the late generation , Competitive pricing , New AM5 platform offers access to current and next gen technology ( i.e. PCIe 5.0 , DDR5 ) , EXPO ’s AMD - specific computer storage tuning
Dislikes
Memory training makes initial flush sorely long with timing based on instal RAM size , Sluggish to get to POST compare to previous generations
Graphic: Damien Gula / Gizmodo
We can answer one-half of that question for you – the half that live in the center of the product wad . Over the past two weeks , we ’ve been play with and gather information from the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X and Ryzen 9 7900X CPUs . We ’ll get the rest of the intersection stack in later , but for now , we ’ve examine the pros and cons of the new political program , and have walked aside with some matter to think about if you are deal an upgrade for an existing arrangement or building a novel PC .
We are going to be wading through a gang of selective information to reach our last , but I will tell you this up front : these center of the stack CPUs offer far more than middle of the route performance .
New Platform, New Processor Design, and Some Familiar Features
The progression that AMD has been making in both GPU and CPU engineering science over the retiring half decennary are nothing short of singular . Five scant years after the release of the original Ryzen CPUs , AMD takes a pregnant stride onwards with its 5th generation processors . With this pace come a major passage in program and the adoption of newer technologies .
Beginning with the socket , the Ryzen 7000 series ( codenamed Raphael ) motivate forth from AM4 ’s micro pin grid array ( uPGA ) to a kingdom grid raiment ( LGA ) format standardized to the sockets Intel has been using for several years . For AMD , design the AM5 socket to the LGA1718 format was motivated by a desire to amend power direction and delivery to the central processing unit as well as to provide optimal vigour efficiency and voltage governor health monitoring .
mogul delivery was n’t the only opportunity offer by the socket redesign . This raw platform create an opportunity for AMD to integrate current technologies , plus pose the fundament for next generation innovations . This is n’t a half - hearted coming , either ; AMD has submit that it think to stomach the AM5 platform through 2025 and beyond . To ensure this pathway fore , the new program will keep going DDR5 RAM and PCI Express Gen 5.0 .
Graphic: Damien Gula / Gizmodo
To maximise operation with DDR5 , AMD precede a feature it ’s hollo AMD EXPO . Not to be bedevil with a assemblage of AMD enthusiasts , AMD EXPO ( or Extended Profile for Overclocking ) is a one - tick retention tuning feature similar to Intel XMP ( Extreme Memory Profile ) . EXPO provides users with a simple and stable solution to optimize memory board hurrying and timing for AMD . For Zen 4 , this optimal pep pill is 6000 Mc – a far jumping from Zen 3 ’s 3600 MHz sweet pip .
Now , in all of this talk about memory , some of you might be wondering about DDR4 support . Unlike Intel’sAlder Lake , AMD ’s Zen 4 stinger ties with DDR4 completely . We will spill about that point later on , but it is authoritative to observe as we talk about the technologies AMD is and is n’t integrating into the Ryzen 7000 Series .
Speaking of integrating , AMD is finally including an integrated GPU with its main serial desktop CPUs . While we have picture Ryzen APUs released after the core series of CPUs andmobile chipsthat paired with Radeon graphics , the Ryzen 7000 serial is the first to ship with RDNA 2 cores on the I / O die .
Graphic: Damien Gula / Gizmodo
Now , this is no replacement for a discrete GPU ; the iGPU assists with tasks such as video encryption and decode , freeing a consecrate GPU to do its heavy lifting elsewhere . The RDNA 2 iGPU also supports either HDMI or DisplayPort connections ( depending on which the motherboard manufacturer chooses to admit ) which can come in ready to hand for those unfortunate minute when your GPU decides it is done with the heavy lifting and you need an alternating display connection to trouble-shoot your problems .
The final detail we need to discuss before getting into the chip themselves is motherboards … more specifically , we need to talk about chipsets . The new AM5 motherboards come in four smack : X670E , X670 , B650E , and B650 . Both the X670E and X670 motherboards have been unfreeze with the announced Ryzen 7000 serial C.P.U. , while the B650E and B650 board are slated for release some time in October . Let ’s separate down what all those numbers and letters actually intend .
The X - serial publication of motherboards are destine for users who are looking for maximum exponent manner of speaking and overclocking headroom , while the B - series put up access to most of the welfare of the new platform while remaining budget - witting . The E ( or Extreme ) variants of the X670 and B650 motherboards will tender PCIe 5.0 supporting for both repositing and nontextual matter , whereas the non - E motherboards will offer PCIe 5.0 lanes purely for depot .
Graphic: Damien Gula / Gizmodo
In suit you are worried about the non - E motherboards going disused any clip soon , do n’t be touch on just yet . At the metre of writing this review , there are no GPUs on the consumer market that utilize PCIe 5.0 , and that ’s including the recentlyannounced NVIDIA RTX 4090 . With the inclusion of accompaniment for the feature on the due east variant motherboards , AMD could be teasing a PCIe 5.0 connection for its upcoming RDNA 3 Radeon GPUs , but that is pure speculation at this point .
Ryzen 7 7700X and Ryzen 9 7900X Specs
The AMD Ryzen 7 7700X is an eight - core , sixteen yarn ( 8C/16 T ) CPU with a base clock speed of 4.5 gigacycle and max boost speed of 5.4 GHz . Comparatively , the Ryzen 7 5700X is also a 8C/16 T with a max boost speed of 4.6 gigahertz . You translate that right wing : that hike up swiftness is only 100 MHz higher than the 7700X ’s fundament clock speed . When it comes to max boost clock , the 7700X is a whole 2 GHz faster than the 5700X ’s root clock speed . All of this does come with a slim trade - off : the 7700X has a high thermic conception power ( TDP ) – 65W versus 105W. It is deserving note because it means that thermal direction is going to be a bit more important on the 7700X.
The AMD Ryzen 7900X , like its forerunner , has a 12C/24 T design , but it , like the 7700X , takes a huge bounce forwards in speed as well . descend in at a base clock speed of 4.7 GHz and boost clock speed of 5.6 gigahertz , the 7900X supersedes its predecessor by 1 GHz at base speeds and ~900 MHz at rise . The 7900X also see a generational TDP increase from 105W to 170W.
The Zen 4 series as a whole sees this power increase as well as an increment in L2 stash size . On each central processing unit in the AMD Ryzen 7000 Series , we see those numbers doubled over the late generation .
Graphic: Damien Gula / Gizmodo
AMD 7000 Series Performance, Power and… Where Are These Numbers Coming From!?
Before we get into the numbers , here are some details about our test work bench and how we gathered our data . We tried to keep our methodology simple in decree to give the clear picture of the performance that the average user can gestate to get out of the Ryzen 7 7700X and the Ryzen 9 7900X. With that in creative thinker , these number are for out - of - the - box execution – no overclocking or no configurations tweaks . The only vantage we gave them is that we enabled an AMD EXPO visibility for grim computer memory latent period and stop number .
Here is the ironware we used to collect our data from the Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs : ASRock X670E Tachi motherboard , NVIDIA RTX 3090 Founders Edition GPU , 32 GB G.Skill Trident Z5 NEO DDR5 - 6000 RAM , 1 TB WD_Black SN770 M.2 NVMe SSD , NZXT C1000 Gold 1000W PSU , NZXT Kraken Z73 360 mm all - in - one liquid cooler with three 120 millimeter rooter , and an NZXT H7 Elite mid - tower personal computer case with four 140 millimeter fans .
You will also notice that we are including trial data collected from theCore i9 - 12900 K and Core i5 - 12600Kas well asAMD ’s Ryzen 9 5950X. This data was collect by Sarah Jacobsson Purewal and Joanna Nelius for Gizmodo ’s critique of Intel ’s 12th Generation CPUs and AMD ’s flagship from AMD ’s Ryzen 5000 Series . While I will be drawing a bit of comparability between their data and mine , our testing environments were unlike and your mileage may vary .
Graphic: Damien Gula / Gizmodo
Now , on to the numbers !
Benchmark Breakdown: Productivity
In our productiveness test , we operate a suite of software benchmarks to foreground single and multi thread execution in scenarios design to test how each CPU performed under various computational loads .
In Geekbench 5 , we see that in single train of thought tasks – such as mental image and text compression , WWW navigation , .PDF interpretation , and machine learning – the Ryzen 7 7700X take a 28 % saltation in performance forrader of the Ryzen 9 5950X while overtaking the Core i9 - 12900 K by just under 13 % ! The Ryzen 9 7900X baffle the 13 % threshold in comparison to the 12900 kB while direct the 5950X by 29 % . think of : Intel has been the king of single ribbon functioning while AMD has antecedently led in multi core , multi ribbon scenario . So , what does that picture depend like in Geekbench 5 ?
just put : hail to the king .
Graphic: Damien Gula / Gizmodo
While the 7700X nearly matches the carrying out of the Ryzen 9 5950X with less threads to play with , the 7900X supersedes the 12900 kB by 7.69 % . Compared to AMD ’s late generation , the 7900X receives a massive 39.95 % upthrust in multi core , multi ribbon performance over the 5950X. This is a substantial generational gain and we have n’t even see numbers from the 7950X yet !
Before we get too carry away , our consequence were not a ended laugher for Team Red . The performance delta closes when we start to calculate at tasks like TV and 3D image try . In Handbrake , we converted a 4 KB television file to a 1080p30 format , and the narrative change . In this run , the Core i9 - 12900 K maintained its conduct position with an 8 second lead story over the 7900X , while the 7700X lagged behind by 49 seconds . That being said , a four minute interpretation clock time for a file that sizing is nothing to scoff at !
Speaking of rendering , in Blender , we check AMD fight back . Rendering an image of a shiny , red BMW , the 7900X crush the render in 80 seconds vapid – 10 instant faster than the 12900 K – with the 7700X keeping in step at 119 seconds . For the Ryzen 7 7700 K , that is only 20 second base slow than the 5950X , again with few threads to work with . Not too shabby for either of them !
Graphic: Damien Gula / Gizmodo
Benchmark Breakdown: Gaming
With our gambling benchmarks , we noticed a trend that we want to highlight without the GPU performance touch on the data curing . To do this , we ran all of our run at 1080p to move away from GPU colony , ensuring the clear pic of the CPU ’s impingement on gaming and how the two comparison to each other .
The games that we take to prove all had celluloid benchmarks , allowing for predictable information gathering . That data , however , was less than predictable – or , in this case , strangely predictable .
The play performance of the Ryzen 7 7700X and Ryzen 9 7900X was nearly superposable .
Photo: Damien Gula / Gizmodo
After a number of retests and sanity checks with Gizmodo staff , the numbers you see in the chart above are valid . No background tasks , memory leak , or system hiccough muddy these waters , and the Ryzen 7 7700X and Ryzen 9 7900X are neck and cervix in play performance – with one small caution :
In games that utilize multiple threads , the 7900X does take a noticeable atomic number 82 . It is n’t by much , but it is important enough to be outside of the gross profit of fault . Metro Exodus is a prime example of this . With shaft of light tracing enabled , it takes the pencil lead by a few frame per second . That pencil lead , however , was not by a wide margin .
That is n’t to say that gaming carrying into action is unimpressive or insignificant ! Both CPUs run at or beyond 1080p120 in our play test and did so without any performance stuttering .
Energy Efficiency and Thermal Performance
In herAugust 9 tonic , Dr. Lisa Su share AMD ’s ambitious goal of make Zen 4 a platform that leads the industry in performance and get-up-and-go efficiency . What we saw with the new AM5 socket was a high overall TDP push the mainframe at higher temperatures and electrical power from former generations , but at much higher frequencies as well .
In most of our tests , we saw an initial spike heel in power on the front end of test that evened out over the course of the benchmarks . In most single thread situation , the Ryzen 7 7700X stayed below 100 W on modal while the 7900X hovered closer to that point . In productiveness tasks where multiple cores and ribbon are at workplace , we saw those numbers well-nigh double . However , both central processing unit stayed far enough below their maximal power attracter while crush the 5 gigacycle per second barrier that AMD has been stuck below until now .
This spare power does translate into thermal take , but harmonize to AMD , the Ryzen 7000 Series is designed to take the heat . And , candidly , it is n’t too terrible . look at degree Celsius over ambient temperatures ( 74 F or 23.33 C ) , the 7700X and 7900X both stayed in the mid-40 C and low-50 coulomb crop during our play tests , while our productivity suite ranged a fair morsel higher ( ~70 C ) .
concede , the gambling benchmark are not awful long , so they do n’t tell apart us much about day - to - day use . Also , the productiveness benchmark tend to be a bit more grueling on use to try hardware demarcation line . Anecdotally , I catch CPU temperature while act through Destiny 2 ’s weekly history contentedness , and the painting was pretty standardized to the gaming bench mark averages .
The bottom line is that these Zen 4 CPUs do do at a high level , but you could expect the powerfulness draw and temperature to be slenderly high as a result . According to AMD , this is intended . While we are talking about high baron - per - watt , we ’re also talking about more watts , overall .
Unsolicited Advice on Upgrading: The Cost of Power
Benchmarks and information points are fantastic , but one question that often gets asked around the clock time of any major hardware going is : should I upgrade or should I wait ? I have a pretty standard solvent for this question that is middling annoying to most people : what you should do depends on a identification number of factors , including budget , enjoyment case , existing equipment , and your level of patience . All of those have a cost associated with them , and it all depends on what you are unforced to pay and when you are unforced to devote that toll .
commence with the financial toll , the Ryzen 7 7700X and Ryzen 9 7900X come in at $ 399 and $ 549 , severally . While these damage seem high for AMD , remember that we are let the cat out of the bag about the middle of the mathematical product stack here . These numbers cover with the cost of their closest contention ; the Intel Core i7 - 12700 K and Core i9 - 12900 kilobyte retail for $ 399 and $ 589 USD . Do n’t forget , too , that we also encounter a launch price of $ 449 USD for the Ryzen 7 5800X3D just a few unretentive months ago .
While processor cost is one matter to consider , there is also the question of platform cost . At the moment , we do not have official costs for X670 motherboards just yet , and the more budget - orient B650 board will not be released until October . What we do screw , however , is the cost of DDR5 . For an AMD EXPO - enable outfit , like the one we received for this review , you are looking at around$269 USD from Newegg . That is n’t dread for the size of it of the computer memory , but it will be an disbursement deserving considering .
On the positive side of the cost consideration , if you are rebuilding an existing system of rules , there are some constituent that can make the journey with you . For example , CPU heatsinks and all - in - one ( AiO ) limpid coolers that support AM4 are compatible with the AM5 platform . Also , if you have a whole PSU that is only a twosome years old ( under 3 ) , AMD has n’t added any proprietary connection or dongles that you ’ll involve to occupy about . If possible , I always recommend a vindicated outset with a new PSU for refreshing portion .
Now , let ’s talk about the patience toll associate with early adoption . A first contemporaries release of any platform can be embarrassing , and Zen 4 is no exception . With the Ryzen 7000 serial , there are some questions about maturity that I have on the front end , specifically when it comes to retention manipulation and its outcome on boot time .
The initial iron heel cognitive operation took a noticeably long sentence on the first try here . This delay was attributed to “ check ” the computer memory . Our motherboard document a normal first boot taking a minimum of 2 – 3 minutes with 32 GB ( 2 x 16 GB ) establish before hitting the index - on self - trial run ( POST ) . That meter goes up in increment with the amount of RAM installed . This education appendage is also repeated if the CMOS has to be cleared .
On a whim , I tested this possibility out – and I was correct … oh , I was distressingly right . Eight minutes and a reseating of the RAM later , the system finally boot and , I assume , retrain the RAM .
If you have ever build up a PC , that first boot is already filled with enough anxiety without the time lag to POST for computer memory grooming . As it stands , each subsequent boot has taken around 45 mo to go from powering on to hitting the POST covert . If you are used to a faster bang time , this might screen your patience .
Should I buy an AMD Ryzen 7 7700X or Ryzen 9 7900X?
Even with the quirks of a unexampled platform , the Ryzen 7 7700X and Ryzen 9 7900X are reasonably impressive offerings for the middle of the Ryzen 7000 Series mathematical product stack ! With incredible leaping forwards in clock speed , single thread carrying into action , continued potency in multithreaded environments , and simple Aries tuning tailored to the AMD experience with EXPO , as well as the adoption of PCIe Gen 5.0 and DDR5 , the Zen 4 line - up is looking to populate up to AMD ’s promise .
There is , however , a loom question in this assessment : if you were going to buy one of these central processor , which one is right for you ?
If you are looking at value per buck for play performance , without see the performance of the Ryzen 5 7600X , I would extremely advocate the Ryzen 7 7700X at this fourth dimension . In most single thread performance scenarios – such as gambling , our bench mark showed a minimal delta of dispute between it and the Ryzen 9 7900X. In most cases , the execution was achieved at a downcast wattage as well .
However , if you are doing anything that leverages multiple threads , the Ryzen 7 7700X can hang , but the Ryzen 9 7900X is an sheer lusus naturae ! Though this operation make out at the monetary value of redundant mogul draw and heat , it did crush each workload we threw at it .
When I take a footstep back from the numbers , I have to say that I am not mad about the similarity . Remember , these two processor fall in the center of the Zen 4 mathematical product pile and allow for top executive and public presentation for two very unlike user . For the exploiter that is looking for high carrying into action in gambling but does n’t involve much else , the Ryzen 7 7700X is an awesome choice . However , for the user that involve those supererogatory beefy Zen 4 cores , but is n’t quite ready to sink the redundant $ 150 USD for the 7950X , the 7900X provides copious performance while maintain a impregnable showing in unmarried thread task .
My Leslie Townes Hope with Zen 4 is that we will see a similar trajectory of improvement and innovation that we saw happen between AMD ’s Zen 1 to Zen 3 releases . With each contemporaries , we ’ve seen continued maturity and stability . So , if this is the starting point for AMD ’s new political program , Zen 4 is the origin of an awesome fresh era for AMD central processor .
The product discussed in this article was provided by the manufacturer for the role of review .
endure into a tech - forward family during the primordial dawn of the internet , Damien grew up with a nigh insatiable curiosity for how everything bring . With wonder traverse the topics of applied science , religion , and psychological science , Damien is a pastor by trade , but a podcaster , streamer , and freelance author for fun .
Update 9/27/22 3:10 PM : In a prior version of the article , our Geekbench chart refer to Cinebench telephone number . We ’ve replaced it with the proper results .
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