AMD Ryzen 5 7600X & Ryzen 9 7900X Review + Benchmark

So here it is. We managed to get our hands on a couple of the latest desktop processors from AMD with their new Ryzen 7000 series and honestly, we can only really say that we’ve been pretty impressed thus far. As usual, the Ryzen 5 offering is looking to be that sweet spot.

Before we get into things, let’s do a recap.

AMD announced their new Ryzen 7000 series lineup of desktop processors earlier this month and in particular, there would be 4 CPUs for the first launch. We have the Ryzen 5 7600X, the Ryzen 7 7700X, the Ryzen 9 7900X and the flagship Ryzen 9 7950X. These will all be made using 4th Generation FinFet technology featuring the new “Zen 4” cores and will be using TSMC’s 5nm process.

Additionally, this will be the first time that AMD is going to use the 1718 LGA Socket for the new AM5 platform, which is a drastic change from the usual we are all familiar with and there will be now an additional line of new motherboards for both the mainstream B-series as well as the higher-end X-Series in the form of the E-suffix. So you will have the B650 and B650E as well as the X670 and X670E. Furthermore, DDR5 is the only option going forward and AMD has also introduced a new open standard for memory overclocking in the form of EXPO.

Now we can go on and on and on because there’s seriously a lot to cover, but for today, let’s focus on what we have on hand and arguably the more important factors. We’re going to cover performance, efficiency and thermals and ultimately value. Is this the upgrade you’re looking for and is it worth it.

So courtesy of AMD, they’ve provided two CPUs for us to play with, the Ryzen 9 7900X as well as the Ryzen 5 7600X. They’ve also provided the X670E Aorus Master ATX motherboard alongside 32GB of G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo DDR5 RAM running at 6000MHz with EXPO. Now as for the rest of the kit, I do want to thank Zhi Cheng from The Tech Revolutionist here in Singapore for really coming in clutch. He provided us with this very test bench equipped with the Cooler Master V850 80+Gold modular power supply and the Radeon RX6800.

Really appreciate it and definitely do check out their content, they do much more in-depth PC stuff compared to us, good stuff.Now he did also provide this Cooler Master MA624 Stealth as well but as you can tell, we don’t have it rigged up. Instead, I had to rip my own personal Corsair H150i Pro and use it here. More on that later. Lastly, we have 2TB of PCIe 3.0 SSD storage as our main drive to complete the whole setup. Once again, here’s the entire list of parts for our test rig at a glance.

For our testing, they were all done on this very open air test bench in a room with an ambient temperature of 24 degree celsius and for the AiO, the Extreme profile was used via Corsair iCUE which sets all three fans to 1400RPM and the pump running around just shy of 3000RPM.

With all that said, let’s just dive into the testing and performance metrics.

First up are the creative and synthetic benchmarks, of which we start with Cinebench R20. For the Ryzen 9 7900X, it managed a score of 11075 and 783 while the Ryzen 5 7600X managed a score of 5843 and 755. Honestly pretty impressive for the Ryzen 9 7900X already outperforms the Core i9-12900K which has 4 more physical cores. The Ryzen 5 7600X on the other hand does leave much to be desired, but it isn’t unsurprising either given its actual focus.

In Cinebench R23, the Ryzen 9 7900X score 28520 and 2015 respectively while the Ryzen 5 7600X did so at 14899 and 1942 respectively. Again, superb performance from the Ryzen 9 7900X, basically achieving very similar performance compared to the previous flagship Ryzen 9 5950X. As for the Ryzen 5 7600X, it does fall behind yet again, especially against its main competitor right now, the Core i5-12600K. But like we mentioned earlier, not unsurprising and as you’ll see, this trend will continue.

We then ran a couple of tests on Blender starting with the BMW scene and the Ryzen 9 7900X managed to complete it in just 1 minute and 21 seconds while the Ryzen 5 7600X managed it in 2 minute and 39 seconds. Now we might be talking differences of mere seconds here but the % do add up in longer sustained loads. Again, we see the Ryzen 9 7900X basically performing on par with the previous flagship while the Ryzen 5 7600X trails far behind. The same is true for the Classroom scene in which the Ryzen 9 7900X managed the render in just 2 minutes and 55 seconds and the Ryzen 7 7600X managed it in 5 minutes and 50 seconds. The trend continues.

Next up we ran 3DMark FireStrike and the Ryzen 9 7900X did it with a score of 37861 while the Ryzen 5 7600X did it with a score 36497. To take note that our scores aren’t necessarily the best achievable out there since we aren’t using the best GPU available in the market right now but this should still give you a good sense of where the new Ryzen 9 7900X and Ryzen 5 7600X are kind of positioned and a glimpse as to their strengths and weaknesses.

We then move on to gaming performance and this is where the Ryzen 5 7600X really shines. No matter the resolution, be it at 1080P, 1440P or 4K, the Ryzen 5 7600X combo is able to basically output the same amount of frames in most titles. Now interesting to note is that in games such as CS:GO or Valorant, the Ryzen 5 7600X actually provides slightly more performance in comparison to the Ryzen 9 7900X, although this is also highly dependent on the scene and the load so do take that with a slight grain of salt.

But to keep it simple, if we’re just talking about gaming scenarios, the Ryzen 5 7600X is no slouch despite having a slightly lower max single core boost clock as compared to the Ryzen 9 7900X. So we’ve covered quite a bit but there’s actually more. And this was something we were personally much more interested in.

With the new 7000 series, AMD has also introduced something called Eco-Mode in which any of the new processors can actually be set to a lower TDP. For example, the Ryzen 5 7600X has a 105W TDP design but can be brought down to 65W while the Ryzen 9 7900X with the 170W TDP design can be brought down to either 105W or 65W. Of most particular interest to us when this was announced was to use the Ryzen 9 7900X at just the mere 65W which might prove to be the perfect option for SFF builds geared towards productivity or even gaming.

So here are the same sets of tests comparing the Ryzen 9 7900X at its full 170W TDP and the Eco-Mode at 65W. As you can tell in the creative and synthetic benchmarks, there is a definite difference in performance but yet it might not be as much as you initially think. AMD touts efficiency at its best at the lower TDP states and this is clearly evident. For example in Cinebench R23, the Ryzen 9 7900X at the 170W TDP state will achieve a score of 28520 while at the 65W TDP state, that’ll drop to 23921. The curve clearly isn’t linear. But the most amazing thing about this would actually be the thermal performance.

At the full 170W TDP, the Ryzen 9 7900X will push 5.2GHz on all cores at 92 degree celsius while at the 65W TDP Eco-Mode, it’ll push 4.3GHz on all cores, which is much lower, but so are the temperatures, at just about 50 degrees celsius.

The same goes for the task in Blender. The BMW scene takes 1 minute and 21 seconds to render at the full 170W TDP while it’ll take just slightly longer at 1 minute and 37 seconds at the 65W TDP Eco-Mode. But again, the temperatures are a huge difference. 5.2GHz on all cores at 92 degree celsius against 4.3GHz on all cores at 50 degree celsius thereabouts.

And if we move on to gaming performance, no matter the resolution, be it at 1080p, 1440p or even 4K, there is basically no difference at all between the two drastically different TDP states.

This is honestly pretty exciting in our opinion, especially with how all Intel and NVIDIA are pushing power above everything else. With how AMD has implemented this system, you can now actually build something like a SFF workstation rig without specifically buying specific processors for that specific build. And like we’ve shown, it still provides favorable performance as you would expect from a Ryzen 9 chip. At the 65W Eco-Mode, it will still outperform the Ryzen 5 7600X at 105W by a large margin. Honestly, we believe we might see much more compact and boutique SFF builds in the very near future, where you no longer have to go crazy with the watercooling and still achieve very admirable performance.

Now as for price, the Ryzen 5 7600X will retail for 299 USD while the Ryzen 9 7900X will retail for 549 USD. If you’re thinking of getting either one of them, we would definitely say that pairing the B650 and B650E with the Ryzen 5 7600X would offer the most value while you would likely want to get the X670 or X670E if you’re going with the Ryzen 9 7900X especially for a workstation build.

As to whether or not you should even be looking at upgrading, it depends.

If you’re using the Ryzen 3000 series or 5000 series, you probably don’t really need to unless you really require some of the newer features that the 7000 series offers, such as AVX-512, PCIe 5.0 and more. If you’re coming from the Ryzen 2000 series and before however, it might be worthwhile to consider. If you’re coming from Intel, that ultimately depends on you. Though we do have to wait and see what 13th-Gen arrives and what it brings to the table.

But on that note, we want to circle back to the Cooler Master MA624 Stealth CPU Cooler that we mentioned in the beginning. Now, AMD has officially stated that AM5 will be backwards compatible with AM4 and that is for the most part true. Manufacturers do not need to redesign an entirely new bracket or mount just for AM5 as the Z-height is kept identical. However, if you have an AM4 cooler that requires the removal of the integrated AMD backplate, it will likely not be compatible and the reason for that is simple.

Due to the use of the new LGA socket design, the bracket for the socket actually screws into that integrated AMD backplate. Which means, something like this Cooler Master MA624 Stealth which uses Cooler Master’s universal Intel and AMD backplate can’t be used; it doesn't have the holes for the LGA socket bracket to screw onto. Thus I had to rip out my own Corsair H150i Pro for testing as that uses the standard AMD clip-on design which is of no issues at all.

So something to take note of. If you have a cooler that requires the removal of the integrated AMD backplate and uses a custom backplate, it is very likely to be incompatible with AM5 until the manufacturer for that cooler provides an updated backplate design.

In any case, we are pretty impressed with what Ryzen 7000 series has to offer, especially when dealing with creative and professional workloads. Efficiency is also really amazing at the lower TDP states as well. The only real concern as a consumer right now would be price and value. No matter how you slice it, it will be expensive as an early adopter of the new platform especially with DDR5 pricing and whatnot. So if you’re willing to fork out that much, by all means go ahead.

But if not, it might be prudent to wait. Not just because of the price, but also because we’ve yet to see what Team Blue has to offer.

Now if you’ve watched up until this point, we really thank you for your support. This is the first time we’re going full in with desktop reviews and more, so we understand that we don’t really have a good sample base for comparisons but hopefully what we’ve shared provided some basic insight and more. Here's to more of such reviews in the future!