News AMD Ryzen 9 7900X Review: Zen 4 Has a Pricing Problem

[Admin]

AMD's Zen 4 Ryzen 9 7900X comes packing 12 cores and 24 threads etched on the 5nm process node. We put the chip through our extensive tests to see how it stacks up.

AMD Ryzen 9 7900X Review: Zen 4 Has a Pricing Problem : Read more

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

The pricing problem is even more of a concern when you figure in the requirement of an X670E motherboard if you want PICe 5.0, as X670 and under limit it to NVMe slot(s), or lack it totally, which is fairly critical if you need to use more than one PCIe card as due to Ryzen's lack of PCIe lanes x8/x8 is the arrangement when using 2 cards.

 

[-Fran-]

Thanks for the review.

It is very clear by now that AMD has a pricing issue, even if their CPUs are actually not bad at all. I hope they find a way to address it (along with the IHS, lel) so we all benefit and Intel doesn't drive the knife too deep when Raptor Lake launches to a cheaper platform with similar performance (or so I believe).

Also, as a side note, I've read reports of AMD having a "top heavy" launch and most of what they've been selling has been the stupid high stuff in "acceptable" amounts, so I'm hoping they'll come around by Raptor Lake's launch time to get some discounts on the 7600X and, maybe, 7700X.

And yeah... VCache... Q1 2023 it seems. Depending on how much the Intel knife wounds AMD, they'll probably try to keep that timeline? xD

Regards.

 

[hotaru251]

i feel Zen4's gonna sell poorly until prices drop in a yr.
for msot ppl zen3 3800x3d is all you need.

Glad i made my Zen3 build instead of waiting for Zen4.

 

[cfbcfb]

Looks to me like Intel is going to sell a lot of i7's.

Because your best bet for an AMD system still looks like a 5800x3d on a higher end am4 motherboard with some really fast DDR4.

The idea to abandon AM4 and DDR4 entirely will be a problem for AMD.

In other news, it looks like the folks who did the pricing were a bit high from smoking their own marketing?

Lastly, is anyone else looking at some of these "next gen platforms", seeing the cost, the 1200W power supplies and the cpu/gpu designers just pouring voltage into parts to squeeze out another 5% to top the other guys?

I prefer efficiency and smart performance. This is starting to look like a 1960's horsepower war, where the high performers weren't even driveable on the streets.

AMD should have offered a backwards compatible model, using the AM4 socket and DDR4. Lots of enthusiasts have a lot of money invested in ram and coolers, and I'm not at all satisfied with the current state of the converted AM4 coolers.

Interesting decision to change sockets and ram tech, but put a huge IHS on it so someone can reuse a $50 cpu cooler.

I'm on the fence, with a 3700x on a crappy AM4 board. I think I'll get a high end AM4 board, and wait a bit for the 5800x3d to drop low enough, and put one of those in. I'll wait another 3 years to see how the AM5, ddr5 and so forth drop in price. At that point, the entry level cpu's and gpu's will be as good as some of these higher end 7000 series chips and the prices will be easier to swallow. I'd also like to see the power delivery, cooling and other aspects get a bit more normalized.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

Looks to me like Intel is going to sell a lot of i7's.

Because your best bet for an AMD system still looks like a 5800x3d on a higher end am4 motherboard with some really fast DDR4.

The idea to abandon AM4 and DDR4 entirely will be a problem for AMD.

In other news, it looks like the folks who did the pricing were a bit high from smoking their own marketing?

Lastly, is anyone else looking at some of these "next gen platforms", seeing the cost, the 1200W power supplies and the cpu/gpu designers just pouring voltage into parts to squeeze out another 5% to top the other guys?

I prefer efficiency and smart performance. This is starting to look like a 1960's horsepower war, where the high performers weren't even driveable on the streets.

AMD should have offered a backwards compatible model, using the AM4 socket and DDR4. Lots of enthusiasts have a lot of money invested in ram and coolers, and I'm not at all satisfied with the current state of the converted AM4 coolers.

Interesting decision to change sockets and ram tech, but put a huge IHS on it so someone can reuse a $50 cpu cooler.

I'm on the fence, with a 3700x on a crappy AM4 board. I think I'll get a high end AM4 board, and wait a bit for the 5800x3d to drop low enough, and put one of those in. I'll wait another 3 years to see how the AM5, ddr5 and so forth drop in price. At that point, the entry level cpu's and gpu's will be as good as some of these higher end 7000 series chips and the prices will be easier to swallow. I'd also like to see the power delivery, cooling and other aspects get a bit more normalized.

What board do you have? I’ve got a 5900x running on an asrock ab350 pro 4 and have no issues with it.

 

[InvalidError]

The pricing is not a problem: if you don't like the price of something, don't buy it. If enough people do the same, prices will have to come down or manufacturers will go bankrupt from insufficient sales to keep their companies running.

In a healthy competitive market, manufacturers would fear getting undercut by competitors and price their stuff low enough to keep new entrants at bay. In a duopoly though, it takes a lot more buyer push-back to drag prices down.

 

[-Fran-]

The pricing is not a problem: if you don't like the price of something, don't buy it. If enough people do the same, prices will have to come down or manufacturers will go bankrupt from insufficient sales to keep their companies running.

In a healthy competitive market, manufacturers would fear getting undercut by competitors and price their stuff low enough to keep new entrants at bay. In a duopoly though, it takes a lot more buyer push-back to drag prices down.

It is a problem. For AMD, not us.

Regards.

 

[SSGBryan]

My next upgrade will be replacing my ryzen 2700 with a 5700x.

I don't have a problem with the AM5 prices, or ram prices - I have a problem with the motherboard prices (and how PCIe lanes are deployed).

That being said - I was never moving to 1st gen AM5 to begin with. 2nd gen AM5 would be where I made my changeover - just like I did with AM4.

The article title was very, very click-bait. The prices for AM5 are the same or less than AM4 5000 series.

 

[ravewulf]

I'm definitely getting this to replace my 3900X for video processing/encoding but I'm not in a rush and don't mind waiting till sometime next year when motherboard and DDR5 prices come down.

Any plans to explore ECO mode? I'd like to see what the trade-off in performance/efficiency/heat/power usage looks like - especially important for hot summers and/or running off a UPS during a power outage.

 

[-Fran-]

I'm definitely getting this to replace my 3900X for video processing/encoding but I'm not in a rush and don't mind waiting till sometime next year when motherboard and DDR5 prices come down.

Any plans to explore ECO mode? I'd like to see what the trade-off in performance/efficiency/heat/power usage looks like - especially important for hot summers and/or running off a UPS during a power outage.

You may be interested in this video, then:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgYCgjoIReU


Regards.

 

[escksu]

The pricing is not a problem: if you don't like the price of something, don't buy it. If enough people do the same, prices will have to come down or manufacturers will go bankrupt from insufficient sales to keep their companies running.

In a healthy competitive market, manufacturers would fear getting undercut by competitors and price their stuff low enough to keep new entrants at bay. In a duopoly though, it takes a lot more buyer push-back to drag prices down.

Yes, agreed. Just don't buy it. From what I see, zen4 isn't flying off the shelves. Only early adopters are willing to pay the price premium for it ..

 

[ohio_buckeye]

It has to go a lot lower for me to buy. Intel stuff at the moment seems to be a better price to performance.

 

[BogdanH]

Everyone will look at all that from his own perspective: depending on what he currently has, when he upgraded the last time, and finally, depending on his wallet content. I have Ryzen 5900X, which I bough about 2 years ago, and so that's my starting point. Btw. I'm not a gamer and if it happens I try some game, I'm happy with fluid 60fps.
If at all, I was interested on 7900X and yes, there is significant performance increase compared to 5900X. But, that increase doesn't come from CPU alone. When I switched from 3700X to 5900X, I gained big performance increase without changing anything else. In case of 7900X however, I need to change whole PC. That is, the (total) performance increase doesn't come from CPU alone, but also thanks to whole new hardware (faster DDR5, etc.) -which one needs to pay for.
Yes, I can say I love performance (who doesn't?), but not at any cost. For example: now I'm using $60 air cooler and 5900X runs at full speed at about 75°C. To run 7900X at full speed, a much more expensive water cooler is needed -which will also blow more heat into my room.. which in return, requires more work for air-con, to keep room temperature low at hot summer days.
Some will say: yes, but 7900X is still more efficient, because it does the job quicker. Let me put it this way... If my life income would depend on CPU processing time, then that could make a difference. But I'm just average dude (and so are many here), who needs multi-core performance occasionally. And so, for example, when I work on some video, I don't mind waiting 25 seconds longer when encoding.

Just sharing my thoughts,
Bogdan

 

[ohio_buckeye]

I know for me I was adding up tonight and realized at my local Microcenter I can get an i7 12700 for about what I paid for the 5900x, and a z690 board for around 160. So that might be a consideration at some point since the 5900x is fetching a good price on the used market. And with the Intel platform I can get a board that re uses my 32gb of ram.

 

[thisisaname]

It is an odd way to release the hardware, they released all the CPUs, followed by only the more expensive motherboards then later on the less expensive motherboards. None of them are what I would call great value. Considering none of them come with a cooler and the cooling requirement you need to add yet another $100 to $200 (or more) to the platform price.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poo82SUm934

 

[A Stoner]

Up front, the cost might be high entering the ZEN4 ecosystem. But the thing is, AMD makes that upfront cost worth while as you will be able to use several generations of AMD upgrade chips in the same motherboard whereas Intel almost always forces you to buy a new motherboard with every new generation of chip.

5 year ownership of AMD best vs 5 year ownership of Intel best.
AMD 1 motherboard and 1 set of memory and 3 or 4 new processors.
Intel 3 or 4 motherboards, 1 set of memory and 3 or 4 processors.

Are the Intel motherboards 25% the cost of the AMD motherboards?

By the way, I have not owned any AMD products. But the argument that the AMD ecosystem is prohibitively expensive is only for a short sighted audience.

 

[DavidLejdar]

Myself, I will likely pay "a bit" extra for a DDR5 setup (planning to renew my rig in the near future). The way I understand it, DDR5 is better for supporting them many-core CPUs. So, a DDR5 setup should be plenty good for at least several years.

And in that context it currently seems that going for AMD may be a bit cheaper, as Intel chipset reportedly won't have PCIe 5.0 for on-board SSDs on low/mid-range motherboards - which is relevant to me, in regard to gaming for open-world, simulator, and strategy.

Thank you for all them benchmarks and stuff in any case. It sure helps with orientation.

 

[InvalidError]

Up front, the cost might be high entering the ZEN4 ecosystem. But the thing is, AMD makes that upfront cost worth while as you will be able to use several generations of AMD upgrade chips in the same motherboard whereas Intel almost always forces you to buy a new motherboard with every new generation of chip.

What percentage of the overall PC market ever upgrades CPUs in an existing system? I suspect we're talking less than 1% here which is drastically over-represented on technical forums such as THG's. I am not aware of any friends of family who have upgraded CPUs in an existing system and I'm the 'tech guy' for most of them. By the time they ask me about getting something faster, their previous PC/laptop is usually 5+ years old.

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

After what AMD pulled with the 300 series chipset boards, I'm not believing them one bit about compatibility. If Alder Lake didn't exist at the prices it did AMD would never have extended Zen 3 compatibility to them after over a year of screaming they wouldn't ever do it.

 

[BogdanH]

By the time they ask me about getting something faster...

...I think I would recommend to my friends an AM4 based system right now.

I would say, 5-6 years old system usually isn't that bad (even by today's standards). What I realized is, most of older comps become sluggish because owners do no software maintenance. They just install-deinstall-install stuff, not even knowing how much garbage is left behind -they actually forgot how fast and responsive their PC once was. And it happens quite often, they say "wau" after I make fresh Windows install. Similar happens after they increase RAM from 8 to 16GB (in case they use software that benefits from RAM increase).

 

[InvalidError]

I would say, 5-6 years old system usually isn't that bad (even by today's standards).

Depends on how low on the performance totem pole you are starting from. For something i5-ish, I agree that 16GB of RAM will keep those acceptable for basic everyday use for 10+ years. On an i3 or worse though, more than a bump from 8GB to 16GB may be required to comfortably reach the 10 years mark.

 

[-Fran-]

What percentage of the overall PC market ever upgrades CPUs in an existing system? I suspect we're talking less than 1% here which is drastically over-represented on technical forums such as THG's. I am not aware of any friends of family who have upgraded CPUs in an existing system and I'm the 'tech guy' for most of them. By the time they ask me about getting something faster, their previous PC/laptop is usually 5+ years old.

Ironically, OEMs shouls love AMD's approach: less expenses on new tooling, cases and such. They just keep the same platform for longer and just advertise the new CPU, as that's what counts for "marketing" these days anyway.

Then again, who can argue against Intel's OH SO generous discounts if they order 90% of the OEM stock from them, right? 😀

Regards.

 

[salgado18]

What percentage of the overall PC market ever upgrades CPUs in an existing system? I suspect we're talking less than 1% here which is drastically over-represented on technical forums such as THG's. I am not aware of any friends of family who have upgraded CPUs in an existing system and I'm the 'tech guy' for most of them. By the time they ask me about getting something faster, their previous PC/laptop is usually 5+ years old.

My nephew needed a new PC some three years back, and I got him a cheap AM4 A320 motherboard with the lowly A8-9600. I had a Ryzen 5 3600 in my system. Then, I decided to upgrade myself to the 5900x, and donate the 3600 to him. If I had bought him an Intel platform and I also had one, I'd have to either change my motherboard, or his. The AM4 ecosystem saved me a good cash there.

I know it's not common, but the fact that people can upgrade from a Ryzen 2600 to a Ryzen 5900x or 58003D is avery appreciated value proposition.

AM5 probably has this advantage: if you get it now, you don't need to upgrade the motherboard when the CPU gets weak a few years later. And since prices between both is similar, why not leave a door open?

 

[InvalidError]

Ironically, OEMs shouls love AMD's approach: less expenses on new tooling, cases and such. They just keep the same platform for longer and just advertise the new CPU, as that's what counts for "marketing" these days anyway.

Practically no OEM has a case design for any particular CPU or chipset and practically all of them only ship systems with matching-generation motherboards since that is one more shiny new thing they can mention in the specs even when chipset features remained completely unchanged. There is practically no "tooling change" between generations for builders who use standard mATX/ATX/ITX motherboards. My i5-11400 is in the same Antec 300v2 case I bought for my i5-3470 10 years ago.