Review AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X Review: Zen 5 brings stellar gaming performance

[SunMaster]

Actually decades ago that is the norm, I still remember in the Pentium D era a 400W PSU is considered excessive. But tbh, with a few still surviving, it still do the job for brosing the web and document processing, we are just advanced too much on the performance front

I know, I was working with computers in the 90s 🙂

 

[SunMaster]

Are we corporate clients here? Come on now. And I don't think corps would be buying this product anyways.

Who knows - maybe corporations get to know that it won't self destruct?

 

[YSCCC]

Oh im perfectly sure amd would want us to compare it with the 7700x. The question is why would anyone do that?

Of course there is. The 7950x is more efficient than the 5950x or the 3700x. Yet on those efficiency graphs it scores lower. Are you actually telling me that the 3700x (i have it btw) is more efficient than the 7950x in MT?

because they could just release a 9700 non x which is slower than the X and consumes even less power in the way, it isn't unreasonable to think they arn't getting something slotting in as a 9700

Of course the 7950X is less efficient than the 5950X by performance per watt, ppl buy it for the POWERR, not efficiency, paying the premium of an era's TOTL lineup to tune it down to think it works more efficiency is as stupid as it can get

 

[stuff and nonesense]

What I do think would be great for the average, midrange, user is to be able to buy a 350-400watt powersupply, knowing it would be plenty for both CPU and GPU.

We're not there yet, unfortunately.

We used to be there…. Then came the race for clock speeds..

1999 Athlon 50W
2000 GeForce 256 DDR, at a guess less than 75W, no second power connector

 

[YSCCC]

I know, I was working with computers in the 90s

bravo, seems we are of the same era, I started building my first Athlon thunderbird since I was 15.

 

[TheHerald]

because they could just release a 9700 non x which is slower than the X and consumes even less power in the way, it isn't unreasonable to think they arn't getting something slotting in as a 9700

Of course the 7950X is less efficient than the 5950X by performance per watt, ppl buy it for the POWERR, not efficiency, paying the premium of an era's TOTL lineup to tune it down to think it works more efficiency is as stupid as it can get

Ok, the 7950x is less efficient than the 5950x. Gotcha man...

 

[TheHerald]

paying the premium of an era's TOTL lineup to tune it down to think it works more efficiency is as stupid as it can get

But that's exactly what the 5950x is. A TOTL tuned down to 140w to make it more efficient. Are people that bought it stupid? Is that what you are suggesting?

 

[-Fran-]

Yes, that I take AMD's word that the 9700X is intended as a replacement for that model.

You should take that one and keep it as a card to use for when the 9950X and 9900X releases because of this:

R5 9600X -> i3 class competitor
R7 9700X -> i5 class competitor
R9 9900X -> i7 class competitor
R9 9950X -> i9 class competitor

If we're going to start making stuff up, may as well make up stuff that could make sense, no?

Regards.

 

[King_V]

I can assure you, the 14900k at 88w will be much faster and more efficient than the 9700x. That's why YCCC refuses to run it 😎

$558 for the 14900K in the US today according to PCPartPicker
$359 for the 9700X.

55.4% more money. You want to restrict the 14900K to 88w? You're more than welcome to. But I am not taking your "assurances" that the 14900k will be much faster and more efficient.

And, of course, since you complained about the 9700X's power use being like 12th gen i7, then let's also restrict the 9700X to 88w, and see how efficient it is as well.

I sure hope the 14900K is at least 50% more performant, given the extra money.


But, honestly, you don't come off like you're trying to inform us. You come off like you determined that there was no way you would, ahead of time, accept that AMD has done anything right, and are now trying to justify that predetermined belief.

 

[jeremyj_83]

And, of course, since you complained about the 9700X's power use being like 12th gen i7, then let's also restrict the 9700X to 88w, and see how efficient it is as well.

I think you mean restrict the 12700k to 88W since the 9700X already has an 88W PPT.

 

[stuff and nonesense]

because they could just release a 9700 non x which is slower than the X and consumes even less power in the way, it isn't unreasonable to think they arn't getting something slotting in as a 9700

Of course the 7950X is less efficient than the 5950X by performance per watt, ppl buy it for the POWERR, not efficiency, paying the premium of an era's TOTL lineup to tune it down to think it works more efficiency is as stupid as it can get

Two things matter to a business, power efficiency and time taken to do a job.

A PC can be incredibly efficient but if it takes too long to do a job it’s useless so people tend to over specify the PC for tasks that will be time limited ..

I used to use a 286 for CAD/CAM, one time after an upgrade to a 33MHz DX I started a circuit board routing task.. went to make a coffee, picked up a magazine.. came back and the PC was idle..

Confused I restarted the task, 2 minutes later it was done. On the 286 it took 30 minutes.

 

[SunMaster]

bravo, seems we are of the same era, I started building my first Athlon thunderbird since I was 15.

I might be even older. One of the first brand name motherboards I used for computer builds was
Western Digital WD286-WDM2 instead of noname taiwanese. It was horrible. It was great when brands like Asus became available. I sold 8086/286 PCs late 80s.

 

[TheHerald]

$558 for the 14900K in the US today according to PCPartPicker
$359 for the 9700X.

55.4% more money. You want to restrict the 14900K to 88w? You're more than welcome to. But I am not taking your "assurances" that the 14900k will be much faster and more efficient.

And, of course, since you complained about the 9700X's power use being like 12th gen i7, then let's also restrict the 9700X to 88w, and see how efficient it is as well.

I sure hope the 14900K is at least 50% more performant, given the extra money.


But, honestly, you don't come off like you're trying to inform us. You come off like you determined that there was no way you would, ahead of time, accept that AMD has done anything right, and are now trying to justify that predetermined belief.

First of all, im most likely going to upgrade to a 9950x 3d the moment it releases. So please spare me the fanboy BS.

The 9700x is already restricted to 88w. Most Intel chips beat it in both performance and efficiency. It is what it is, the mid range offering from amd suck. But you do you man

 

[jeremyj_83]

In this entire thing about the 9700X being "a little slower than the 12700k" can be shown false with one simple graph from that users own choice of benchmarks.

This gives an average overall performance across ALL applications, instead of a cherry picked one or two that are massively threaded. We see that overall the 12700k is about 8% slower overall than the 9700X and that the 9700X is basically as performant overall as the 12900k. Note this average includes MT workloads of difference levels of threading and not just those that can use 32 threads but some that might not scale past 10-16 threads.

Something else to note is that when we compare the Intel and AMD chips of similar current street price we find for example that the 7600X isn't priced against the 14600k or 13600k but instead between the 13400 and 14400. Both of those CPUs are 10c/16t and have nearly identical performance. However, the 7600X is 14% faster on average than those chips. Basically the chips are priced based on total thread counts and NOT some arbitrary model name now. When we see the chips of similar thread/price, the AMD chips have typically been faster than the Intel counterparts.

 

[King_V]

I think you mean restrict the 12700k to 88W since the 9700X already has an 88W PPT.

Well, I've never used power restrictions, so my understanding of what is meant by "restrict the power to X watts" could be mistaken. I had assumed that when they talk about restricting the power, that they mean the CPU will not be permitted to use any more than that amount.

So, if we restrict the 12700k to 88w, it will, under no circumstances pull more than that. Since we know that the 9700X PBO will definitely pull more than that in some of the tests, the same restriction should be put on the AMD chip as well, no?

Again, assuming my understanding of "restrict the power to" is accurate. I might not be.

EDIT: also, when I dove into this, it was watching @TheHerald complain about how at PBO it draws the same power as the stock 12700K, so I was still thinking of those numbers at the time. My bad.

 

[YSCCC]

Intel doesn't have better MT performance at the high end. Or, it does - but at very high power. At same power (which is the only metric I care about) it's behind.

Loyal to intel? Im surrounded by 5 ryzen cpus, lol

"Well I never do that cause the likelyhood of getting a dud CPU is so tiny that's not really worth it. But that's maybe because I buy Intel, I guess if you are buying amd - with such huge DOA numbers - you need to go through that process I guess."

you literally said this in your other post man, running high?

In this entire thing about the 9700X being "a little slower than the 12700k" can be shown false with one simple graph from that users own choice of benchmarks.

This gives an average overall performance across ALL applications, instead of a cherry picked one or two that are massively threaded. We see that overall the 12700k is about 8% slower overall than the 9700X and that the 9700X is closer basically as performant overall as the 12900k. Note this average includes MT workloads of difference levels of threading and not just those that can use 32 threads but some that might not scale past 10-16 threads.

Something else to note is that when we compare the Intel and AMD chips of similar current street price we find for example that the 7600X isn't priced against the 14600k or 13600k but instead between the 13400 and 14400. Both of those CPUs are 10c/16t and have nearly identical performance. However, the 7600X is 14% faster on average than those chips. Basically the chips are priced based on total thread counts and NOT some arbitrary model name now. When we see the chips of similar thread/price, the AMD chips have typically been faster than the Intel counterparts.

That's what I thought also, and TBH, as the underdog on the big 2 in PC chips, they need to price and perform better to gain/retain market share. Ppl still buys intel mostly because historically they are preferrentially optimized by software developers and "it just works", so for coporate or layman less tinkering requirement is better, just that RPL failed hard on this

 

[jeremyj_83]

Well, I've never used power restrictions, so my understanding of what is meant by "restrict the power to X watts" could be mistaken. I had assumed that when they talk about restricting the power, that they mean the CPU will not be permitted to use any more than that amount.

So, if we restrict the 12700k to 88w, it will, under no circumstances pull more than that. Since we know that the 9700X PBO will definitely pull more than that in some of the tests, the same restriction should be put on the AMD chip as well, no?

Again, assuming my understanding of "restrict the power to" is accurate. I might not be.

I was getting at the 9700X being a 65W TDP which for AM5 gives it an 88W PPT (total package power including IO die). Limiting the 12700k to 88W total power would seriously kill its absolute performance and the efficiency vs the 9700X would still look bad.

 

[King_V]

First of all, im most likely going to upgrade to a 9950x 3d the moment it releases. So please spare me the fanboy BS.

The 9700x is already restricted to 88w. Most Intel chips beat it in both performance and efficiency. It is what it is, the mid range offering from amd suck. But you do you man

Is it? Didn't you insist on PBO? Or did you change your mind somewhere along the way?

As to your other point, if you feel like people think you're talking like a fanboy, perhaps changing how you present your points would be helpful.

 

[King_V]

I was getting at the 9700X being a 65W TDP which for AM5 gives it an 88W PPT (total package power including IO die). Limiting the 12700k to 88W total power would seriously kill its absolute performance and the efficiency vs the 9700X would still look bad.

Yeah, made an edit to my post when I realized they'd switched from talking about 9700X with PBO to without PBO.

 

[TheHerald]

"Well I never do that cause the likelyhood of getting a dud CPU is so tiny that's not really worth it. But that's maybe because I buy Intel, I guess if you are buying amd - with such huge DOA numbers - you need to go through that process I guess."

you literally said this in your other post man, running high?

Laptops.

 

[jeremyj_83]

Ppl still buys intel mostly because historically they are preferrentially optimized by software developers and "it just works", so for coporate or layman less tinkering requirement is better, just that RPL failed hard on this

In corporate world there is a saying "no one has been fired for buying Intel" when it comes to computers. Previously it was "no one has been fired for buying IBM." The main thing is that for corporations Intel has a HUGE amount of mind share and that keeps corporations buying their products, even though AMD might have a superior product at the time. With the current 13/14th Gen issues this is killing that mind share though. Intel has also used their size to make it such that AMD's CPUs aren't supported for PRD instances of some software (SAP HANA is an example of this). I do wonder how much longer that will keep going as the Epyc CPUs have been faster than Xeon for a while now.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

According to their own data. At stock settings, the 9700x loses to a 2 generation old $31 cheaper 5800X3D while losing when overclocked by over 10% to a $15 more expensive 7800X3D. Meanwhile, the 9600X is losing to a 2 generation old $70 cheaper 5700X3D. And about that 40% power efficiency this reviews touts, in the summary? They clearly didn't test efficiency in gaming to come up with that number. Techpowerup did do some testing.

You can't really compare X3D to non-X3D to get a meaningful view of what has happened with Zen 5. Rather than showing that, yes, there are games where a 5800X3D can still beat the 9600X/9700X, it's far better to look at like-for-like data. Zen 4 X-class chips often lose to the 5800X3D as well, but the 5800X3D really falls off in non-gaming performance (except maybe in 7-zip where the added cache helps).

The 9600X beats the 7600X by 11.9% in overall gaming performance, and the 9700X beats the 7700X by 12.1%. That is based purely on architectural improvements. Naturally, a gaming-focused X3D chip will show different results in either case, but to see what has happened in that arena, we'll need to wait for the 9000 series X3D processors to arrive. I would expect relatively similar margins when we get 9800X3D and compare it with 7800X3D, but we'll have to wait for the hardware to actually say how those perform.

Ignoring for a moment the X3D results, we have AMD 7600X tying the competing 14600K, and 7700X trailing the competing 14700K by 3%. That has changed to AMD holding a 12% and 9% lead with the new architecture. We'll need to see what Arrow Lake CPUs bring to the table to get the generational comparisons, but a potential ~10% boost in potential gaming performance from a CPU architectural upgrade is nothing to scoff at.

I'm hopeful that the new X3D parts will further improve on what we've seen in prior generations (meaning, boost clocks closer to the regular X parts), but stacking a die on top of the CPU cores will inevitably limit cooling to some degree. At the same time, by dropping power use up to 40% in some cases, that could seriously improve how the Zen 5 chips behave in stacked X3D designs. Check back in 2~3 months and we'll hopefully have the rest of the story.

 

[YSCCC]

In corporate world there is a saying "no one has been fired for buying Intel" when it comes to computers. Previously it was "no one has been fired for buying IBM." The main thing is that for corporations Intel has a HUGE amount of mind share and that keeps corporations buying their products, even though AMD might have a superior product at the time. With the current 13/14th Gen issues this is killing that mind share though. Intel has also used their size to make it such that AMD's CPUs aren't supported for PRD instances of some software (SAP HANA is an example of this). I do wonder how much longer that will keep going as the Epyc CPUs have been faster than Xeon for a while now.

With all the issues and lawsuits telling the big bosses that intel could F up big, I bet it will be soon that they actually trade blows, and need to fight a C/P war so we could benefit as in the Athlon/P3 era where crazy budget friendly offerings have huge margin if you dare tinker, and not costing an arm and a leg for CPU and mobo

 

[TheHerald]

With all the issues and lawsuits telling the big bosses that intel could F up big, I bet it will be soon that they actually trade blows, and need to fight a C/P war so we could benefit as in the Athlon/P3 era where crazy budget friendly offerings have huge margin if you dare tinker, and not costing an arm and a leg for CPU and mobo

I think the problem with AMD is and always was capacity. Don't think they can or even could take 80% of the market like Intel has cause they don't have the capacity for all those chips + consoles + GPUs. That's why they are not really trying to over compete on gaming GPUs especially, it's not a very lucrative market, huge dies with low margins compared to using that capacity for mobile and servers.

 

[Avro Arrow]

This Zen5 launch has been quite polarising. Tom's Hardware and TechPowerUp seem to love Zen5 while Techspot/Hardware Unboxed and Gamers Nexus have panned it.