Review AMD Ryzen 9 7950X and Ryzen 5 7600X Review: A Return to Gaming Dominance

[Admin]

We put the Intel-beating Zen 4 Ryzen 9 7950X and Ryzen 5 7600X through our extensive series of tests to see if the chips are worth your hard-earned cash.

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X and Ryzen 5 7600X Review: A Return to Gaming Dominance : Read more

 

[-Fran-]

Thanks for the review(s)!

Good to see more reaffirmation these CPUs don't have a performance problem, but a platform cost (or "cost of entry") problem with them. I hope AMD can alleviate it a bit so they become more of a mainstream crowd fav.

One small point that I won't really defend much, but buying into the AM5 platform, you buy into several years of support. The huge caveat is you have to trust not only AMD, but the partners to go with it and roll the BIOS updates down the line. This being said, after AM4, I'd imagine both AMD and partners have seen it does matter they do keep supporting newer CPUs and see that as a strength. Maybe partners would rather convince you to buy a new motherboard, but allowing this "mix and match" with generations does help overall sales; or so it is my impression. Plus, we all know which motherboard vendors actually followed through with the updates, so they'll get more sales once B650 launches. Could Tom's have the list of motherboards from the 300-series chipsets that do support Ry5K? That would actually help track which partners are indeed reliable and can be trusted with buying into AM5.

Regards.

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

The headline: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X and Ryzen 5 7600X Review: A Return to Gaming Dominance

The reality: 5800X3D performs better in games than either of those.

 

[-Fran-]

The headline: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X and Ryzen 5 7600X Review: A Return to Gaming Dominance

The reality: 5800X3D performs better in games than either of those.

To be pedantic, the title is correct. They now have more than just 1 CPU topping the charts and most (if not all) above Intel offerings.

You'd be correct if the title was something like "7950X is the new gaming overlord/king/champion*" or something that implies "the CPU is 1st in gaming", which as you clearly noticed, it is not.

Plus, it depends on the game anyway.

Regards.

 

[BogdanH]

I didn't read the article, simply because it's too long -quick view on some of pages gave me impression, that there's a lot of repeating from previous articles.. so why bother.
Another reason why I didn't read, is the title. When I see a CPU like 7900X/7950X (or Intel's pendant) in conjunction with "gaming", I can already imagine the content. I assume, such title should grab the attention... I'm not sure who's attention, though. Are you trying to convince "gamers" to shell out 800€ for CPU alone? Yes, there's always said, that for gaming alone, it's "wiser" to get 7600X (or 5800X3D) -but such title still imply that 7950X is simply "the right thing"... "if you wish to have it all..". -again, that's my impression, so feel free to diagree.

Ok, so you say (for example), 7950X is 15% faster (in whatever) than 5950X. Now, some of this performance increase happens thanks to faster new DDR5 memory. And quite a lot performance increase (in my opinion) goes to much higher clock speed -which in turn comes back as heat dissipation. There's also faster PCIe5.0, etc ... Now I wonder, how much has actual CPU improved (compared to 5950X)? I mean IPC. Because if IPC is the same, then I see 7950X as a "brute force" improvement. In sense: Make it faster, no matter the costs (power draw & heat dissipation).
Yes, I know: 7950X finishes work faster (than 5950X) and so at the end, electricity bill will be lower. That's true if we look strictly from CPU side. But, if we take the cooling (of whole PC) into account, then the total power draw doesn't look that appealing anymore -especially in summer. In short: CPU is more efficient, but whole PC probably isn't.

I can read many times in forums, that many are already running their PC in eco-mode (to save energy, to make PC more silent, having less heat in room, etc) -they're ready to sacrifice fps by few percent for that. So I assume, what they wish or hope for, is certain performance increase, without affecting power draw -at least not by much.

I don't blame AMD/Intel/Nvidia for going into high power consumption direction. They know we wish everything faster (than it was in previous generation), so they do it -and many will buy it.. and that's the whole idea,
However, I do blame media for not putting more investigation/research into efficiency and write about that.

Just sharing my thoughts (being aware I may be wrong)
Bogdan

 

[DavidLejdar]

Thanks for the review(s)!

Good to see more reaffirmation these CPUs don't have a performance problem, but a platform cost (or "cost of entry") problem with them. I hope AMD can alleviate it a bit so they become more of a mainstream crowd fav.

...

If one wants to go for as cheap a build as possible e.g. just to play CS:GO, then yeah, the DDR5 requirement with AM5 may sure be off-putting. Myself, I will be upgrading in the near future from DDR3 anyhow, and (here) the extra cost for 32 GB DDR5-5200 (instead of DDR4-3200) is around 80 currently. At the same time, B650E has PCIe 5.0 both for GPU (16x) and NVMe at currently around 300-400 cheaper than what motherboards for Raptor Lake with the same connectivity cost (that is the few released so far). And only a handful of Alder Lake MBs have PCIe 5.0 for NVMe, while taking away 8 lanes from the GPU for that though.

So what I am currently looking at is around 250 for AM5 motherboard and 170 for 32 GB of DDR5 - which isn't as cheap as it can get, but should be plenty good for at least several years, giving me the option to upgrade individual parts later.

And to me that seems worth it to go for that, instead of saving perhaps 100 bucks with a Raptor Lake MB and DDR4 now, which likely won't support Meteor Lake already and would require me to get a lot of new parts then if I may want to boost performance in a year or two.

Of course, as you point out, not really a guarantee that even AMD directly may not push AM6 soon if Meteor Lake is taking it all to very new heights. But even if I upgrade the MB sooner than I was expecting, at least I will already have DDR5 to reuse, including having made use of it in the meantime.

... . But, if we take the cooling (of whole PC) into account, then the total power draw doesn't look that appealing anymore -especially in summer. In short: CPU is more efficient, but whole PC probably isn't.

I can read many times in forums, that many are already running their PC in eco-mode (to save energy, to make PC more silent, having less heat in room, etc) -they're ready to sacrifice fps by few percent for that. So I assume, what they wish or hope for, is certain performance increase, without affecting power draw -at least not by much. ...

Very strictly taken, sure, the cooling uses some power too. But then again, a case fan has a power consumption of up to 6W, and CPU coolers (air or liquid) usually don't consume more than that. So even if all the cooling would take 20W at full load, that is 50 hours of full load to get to 1 kWh. And e.g. in the U.S., it is less than $1 for 4 kWh, isn't it?

The electricity costs can add up quickly though. E.g. if someone is gaming 50 hours a week at 700W, that's possibly up to 35 kWh right there, coming to 140 kWh a month.

Myself, I wouldn't know how to have that much time for gaming. So even if my rig would consume 700W, perhaps every other week to play at full load for a total of 10 hours, at the U.S. electricity price that would be less than $2.

Which isn't to say that it wouldn't be nice if there would be more improvement for power efficiency. But the review mentions that the Ryzen 5 7600X is a very sound choice for gaming (unless one can wait a few months to check out the gaming specific CPU). And that one has quite less Watt than the top tier one. And coupled with perhaps not the top-tier GPU around, e.g. the RTX 3060, which has around 200W, one can have a solid build which comes in at under 500W at full load.

 

[BogdanH]

Very strictly taken, sure, the cooling uses some power too. But then again, a case fan has a power consumption of up to 6W, and CPU coolers (air or liquid) usually don't consume more than that. So even if all the cooling would take 20W at full load...

-that's 20W (probably less) just to move hot air out of PC case into our room.. which we need to cool in summer days.
Many say, it's "only 10€/year more" (or whatever number).. but there are millions of PC's running. And if looking that way, we can see see how much energy is wasted.. and is really not about who can afford to pay electricity and who can't.

Best wishes,
Bogdan

 

[chalabam]

Der Bauer has shown that this CPU is 20 degrees hotter than it should be due to bad packaging

 

[Sluggotg]

Nice new lineup for AMD. Looking forward to the industry moving to PCIE 5 and USB 4. The 7600 is very impressive. (For 300 Bucks!). With Intel's new chips coming out next month we should see some very healthy competition that will hopefully lead to overall lower prices. With the New CPUs and the New Graphics cards all coming out in the next several months, we should be able to do some nice upgrades. Hopefully the Scalpers will fail to corner the market.

 

[-Fran-]

I didn't read the article, simply because it's too long -quick view on some of pages gave me impression, that there's a lot of repeating from previous articles.. so why bother.
Another reason why I didn't read, is the title. When I see a CPU like 7900X/7950X (or Intel's pendant) in conjunction with "gaming", I can already imagine the content. I assume, such title should grab the attention... I'm not sure who's attention, though. Are you trying to convince "gamers" to shell out 800€ for CPU alone? Yes, there's always said, that for gaming alone, it's "wiser" to get 7600X (or 5800X3D) -but such title still imply that 7950X is simply "the right thing"... "if you wish to have it all..". -again, that's my impression, so feel free to diagree.

Ok, so you say (for example), 7950X is 15% faster (in whatever) than 5950X. Now, some of this performance increase happens thanks to faster new DDR5 memory. And quite a lot performance increase (in my opinion) goes to much higher clock speed -which in turn comes back as heat dissipation. There's also faster PCIe5.0, etc ... Now I wonder, how much has actual CPU improved (compared to 5950X)? I mean IPC. Because if IPC is the same, then I see 7950X as a "brute force" improvement. In sense: Make it faster, no matter the costs (power draw & heat dissipation).
Yes, I know: 7950X finishes work faster (than 5950X) and so at the end, electricity bill will be lower. That's true if we look strictly from CPU side. But, if we take the cooling (of whole PC) into account, then the total power draw doesn't look that appealing anymore -especially in summer. In short: CPU is more efficient, but whole PC probably isn't.

I can read many times in forums, that many are already running their PC in eco-mode (to save energy, to make PC more silent, having less heat in room, etc) -they're ready to sacrifice fps by few percent for that. So I assume, what they wish or hope for, is certain performance increase, without affecting power draw -at least not by much.

I don't blame AMD/Intel/Nvidia for going into high power consumption direction. They know we wish everything faster (than it was in previous generation), so they do it -and many will buy it.. and that's the whole idea,
However, I do blame media for not putting more investigation/research into efficiency and write about that.

Just sharing my thoughts (being aware I may be wrong)
Bogdan

Er... Paul (the article) did include IPC measurements and a couple parragraphs to that. Zen4 is indeed faster, clock for clock, than Zen3. It's just it gets more overall performance from the increased clocks (hence the higher power budget) than raw IPC improvements.

Regards.

 

[hotaru251]

so zen 3 they held out entire generation for a 5700x

and now zen 4 its the 7800x missing...AMD ffs why do you do this?

and as said before...the cpu are great, but platform isnt worth it with 5800x3d existing.

(will likely change by time weg et 3d cache zen4 cpus)

 

[Sleepy_Hollowed]

These are great CPUs and, for the 2022 prices, they're the right ones too, I've been looking at intel ones and yeah, no, it's one thing MSRP and another one finding boards and chips at that price.

The 7600X is absolutely a beast for those looking for a next gen platform, and the cooling needed is not even close to what intel needs, I'm a bit confused by those cons.

 

[fybyfyby]

I didn't read the article, simply because it's too long -quick view on some of pages gave me impression, that there's a lot of repeating from previous articles.. so why bother.
Another reason why I didn't read, is the title. When I see a CPU like 7900X/7950X (or Intel's pendant) in conjunction with "gaming", I can already imagine the content. I assume, such title should grab the attention... I'm not sure who's attention, though. Are you trying to convince "gamers" to shell out 800€ for CPU alone? Yes, there's always said, that for gaming alone, it's "wiser" to get 7600X (or 5800X3D) -but such title still imply that 7950X is simply "the right thing"... "if you wish to have it all..". -again, that's my impression, so feel free to diagree.

Ok, so you say (for example), 7950X is 15% faster (in whatever) than 5950X. Now, some of this performance increase happens thanks to faster new DDR5 memory. And quite a lot performance increase (in my opinion) goes to much higher clock speed -which in turn comes back as heat dissipation. There's also faster PCIe5.0, etc ... Now I wonder, how much has actual CPU improved (compared to 5950X)? I mean IPC. Because if IPC is the same, then I see 7950X as a "brute force" improvement. In sense: Make it faster, no matter the costs (power draw & heat dissipation).
Yes, I know: 7950X finishes work faster (than 5950X) and so at the end, electricity bill will be lower. That's true if we look strictly from CPU side. But, if we take the cooling (of whole PC) into account, then the total power draw doesn't look that appealing anymore -especially in summer. In short: CPU is more efficient, but whole PC probably isn't.

I can read many times in forums, that many are already running their PC in eco-mode (to save energy, to make PC more silent, having less heat in room, etc) -they're ready to sacrifice fps by few percent for that. So I assume, what they wish or hope for, is certain performance increase, without affecting power draw -at least not by much.

I don't blame AMD/Intel/Nvidia for going into high power consumption direction. They know we wish everything faster (than it was in previous generation), so they do it -and many will buy it.. and that's the whole idea,
However, I do blame media for not putting more investigation/research into efficiency and write about that.

Just sharing my thoughts (being aware I may be wrong)
Bogdan

Blaming amd for going higher? Just please read article. Especially part about efficiency. 7950x follows 5950x wattage but with higher frequencies and IPC. But when 5950x falls down on frequency, 7950x continues to grow. Of course with more power. So it's basically unlocked 5950x with better IPC and higher frequencies. So better in every aspect. What did you expect ?

 

[BogdanH]

Blaming amd for going higher? ...

In my post I said "I don't blame.." -I'm only questioning how that's achieved.

So it's basically unlocked 5950x ...

-agree.

...with better IPC and higher frequencies...

Let me put it this way.. In average, 7950X is about 15% (give or take) faster than 5950X. 7950X boost (max) frequency is 5.7GHz and for 5950X it's 4.9GHz -that's 16% higher. Without start nitpicking, we can say, that CPU's speed increases proportionally to frequency increase.. means, if we could increase 5950X frequency to 5.7GHz, it would become 16% faster. Means, it would be about that fast as 7950X -without IPC changes, without DDR5, etc. Of course, in that case, 5950X would also consume much more power -like 7950X does.
So, my question remains: where's IPC gain? Ok, there probably is some, but in my eyes, it's negligible. Looking strictly from speed perspective, then yes, 7950X (or any 79xx CPU) is better than previous gen, but not in "every aspect": power consumption increase doesn't confirm better efficiency.
Again, that's just my personal opinion. And I don't bash AMD -I have AMD system and I'm happy with it.

Regards,
Bogdan

 

[fybyfyby]

In my post I said "I don't blame.." -I'm only questioning how that's achieved.

-agree.

Let me put it this way.. In average, 7950X is about 15% (give or take) faster than 5950X. 7950X boost (max) frequency is 5.7GHz and for 5950X it's 4.9GHz -that's 16% higher. Without start nitpicking, we can say, that CPU's speed increases proportionally to frequency increase.. means, if we could increase 5950X frequency to 5.7GHz, it would become 16% faster. Means, it would be about that fast as 7950X -without IPC changes, without DDR5, etc. Of course, in that case, 5950X would also consume much more power -like 7950X does.
So, my question remains: where's IPC gain? Ok, there probably is some, but in my eyes, it's negligible. Looking strictly from speed perspective, then yes, 7950X (or any 79xx CPU) is better than previous gen, but not in "every aspect": power consumption increase doesn't confirm better efficiency.
Again, that's just my personal opinion. And I don't bash AMD -I have AMD system and I'm happy with it.

Regards,
Bogdan

That blaming was meant as: why anyone should even consider if blame AMD for something ?

Anyway ... I didn't do any tests according to IPC. But at least, according to my own tests, I can say, that AMD achieved much higher performance on same tdp. If you compare zen4 on 105w and 170w (tdp) you will get same ST and only few percents lower MT(maybe its more tied to type of usage). I can also give you frequencies. On 105w tdp 7950x boosts 5750 one core and 4900 all core. If you look where 5950x or 5900x falls on all core 105w tdp, you can see, that AMD perfected zen4 in every way and on top of that you can use higher tdp to get even better performance. I think going 170w is good for marketing but dumb for consumer. So try to imagine how zen4 performs on zen3 tdp and you will see massive power efficiency gain.

 

[coromonadalix]

The cons are kinda stupid in a way, you already now, you have to be in ddr5 and get new motherboards ... its an obligation to do so ... yes it suck in a way, but Intel are specialists in doing so ...

Now being on an x570 and 5600x, i'm not sure to make a jump ..... prices are high for the cpus, and the motherboards prices are crazy, here in Canada, i cant find reasonable pricing

Today the exchanges rates are plain stupid, just bought csomething yesterday and it's 30% more

 

[fybyfyby]

The cons are kinda stupid in a way, you already now, you have to be in ddr5 and get new motherboards ... its an obligation to do so ... yes it suck in a way, but Intel are specialists in doing so ...

Now being on an x570 and 5600x, i'm not sure to make a jump ..... prices are high for the cpus, and the motherboards prices are crazy, here in Canada, i cant find reasonable pricing

Today the exchanges rates are plain stupid, just bought csomething yesterday and it's 30% more

Yeah! I considered these also like negatives. But on the other hand, its enter to new platform and that should not be negative according to AMD sockets lonegivity history. So it can be also positive - you can buy platform, which will last several future generations.

 

[RichardtST]

Call me an old fuddy-duddy, but you've gotta give me at least a doubling of performance before I will shell out for a new motherboard. This 10, 15, even 25% just isn't gonna cut it. I will wait.

 

[BoredErica]

What is the thought process behind benching ADL at DDR5 6400 but zen4 at 6000?
Thanks

 

[-Fran-]

What is the thought process behind benching ADL at DDR5 6400 but zen4 at 6000?
Thanks

AMD guidelines. They recommended the reviews to use the provided DDR5 6000 kit.

Putting faster RAM did demonstrate better results (single low % improvements; ~3%-4%) in some reviews (as they did test with different speeds anyway in some places), so I have no idea why AMD did that, TBH.

Regards.

 

[fybyfyby]

AMD guidelines. They recommended the reviews to use the provided DDR5 6000 kit.

Putting faster RAM did demonstrate better results (single low % improvements; ~3%-4%) in some reviews (as they did test with different speeds anyway in some places), so I have no idea why AMD did that, TBH.

Regards.

Because 6000 is sweetspot, as was 3600/3800 last gen. Due to 1:1 bus frequency.

 

[-Fran-]

Because 6000 is sweetspot, as was 3600/3800 last gen. Due to 1:1 bus frequency.

They've said now you no longer need IF:RAM to be 1:1. In fact, it is now 2:3 since the IF is 2000Mhz and the RAM is 3000Mhz (6000MT/s) in that configuration. Things have changed with Zen4. And AMD said to leave the IF on "auto" mode anyway.

Regards.

 

[fybyfyby]

They've said now you no longer need IF:RAM to be 1:1. In fact, it is now 2:3 since the IF is 2000Mhz and the RAM is 3000Mhz (6000MT/s) in that configuration. Things have changed with Zen4. And AMD said to leave the IF on "auto" mode anyway.

Regards.

You dont have to, but according to AMD: Hallock believes that DDR5-6000 will be the sweet spot for Zen 4 based on cost, stability, performance, availability, and ease.

So its probably this speed, which will be pursued by many.

DDR5 6000 sweetspot

 

[-Fran-]

You dont have to, but according to AMD: Hallock believes that DDR5-6000 will be the sweet spot for Zen 4 based on cost, stability, performance, availability, and ease.

So its probably this speed, which will be pursued by many.

DDR5 6000 sweetspot

However it is, IF:RAM is now 2:3 for me as that's what seems to be the best ratio for Zen4 (so far), independent of the actual transfer rate of the RAM. With an IF or 2100Mhz, that will yeld 3150Mhz RAM (6300MT/s) and 2200Mhz IF -> 3300Mhz RAM -> 6600MT/s. Since it feels like Ry7K can do 2Ghz IF on average, getting away with up to 6600MT/s in 2:3 ratio seems doable in most SKUs. I'd love if someone could see how the "2:3" rule works vs "auto:whatever".

Regards.