AMD Zen 4 Ryzen 9 7950X and Ryzen 5 7600X Review: Retaking The High-End
by Ryan Smith & Gavin Bonshor on September 26, 2022 9:00 AM ESTCPU Benchmark Performance: Legacy Tests
In order to gather data to compare with older benchmarks, we are still keeping a number of tests under our ‘legacy’ section. This includes all the former major versions of CineBench (R15, R11.5, R10) as well as Geekbench 4 and 5. We won’t be transferring the data over from the old testing into Bench, otherwise, it would be populated with 200 CPUs with only one data point, so it will fill up as we test more CPUs like the others.
We are using DDR5 memory on the Ryzen 9 7950X and Ryzen 5 7600X, as well as Intel's 12th Gen (Alder Lake) processors at the following settings:
- DDR5-5200 CL44- Ryzen 7000
- DDR5-4800 (B) CL40 - Intel 12th Gen
All other CPUs such as Ryzen 5000 and 3000 were tested at the relevant JEDEC settings as per the processor's individual memory support with DDR4.
Legacy
In our fabled and older school selection of benchmarks passed their 'sell by date', the Ryzen 9 7950X wins in every one of these tests, both single-threaded and multi-threaded. In the purely single-threaded tests, the Ryzen 5 7600X is the next best, although it is more in line with the Ryzen 7 5800X as we've consistently seen in our multi-threaded results all throughout this review.
205 Comments
View All Comments
RestChem - Wednesday, October 5, 2022 - link
Meh, time will out the ultimate price-points and all that, but as it emerges I really wonder what kind of users are looking to drop this kind of dollarses on high-end AMD builds. My gut is that they've priced themselves out of their primary demographic, and max TDP is right up there too, same as with their GPUs. When it comes down to a difference of a couple hundred bucks per build (assuming people build these with the pricey DDR5-6000 there's scant mobo support for through whatever AMD's integrated mem-OC profile scheme is) are there going to be enough users who just root hard enough for the underdog to build on these platforms, contra even high-end Alder Lake or (however much extra, reamins at time of writing to be seen) Raptor Lake builds? Before the announcements I was expecting AMD to get in cheap again, promise at least like performance for a bit of a discount, but it seems even those days are over and they want to play head-to-head. I wish them the best but I don't see them scoring well in that fight. Replytvdang7 - Thursday, October 6, 2022 - link
" I have a 1440p 144Hz monitor and I play at 1080p just because that's what I'm used to."Is this some kind of joke. We are supposed to listen to reviewers that are stuck in 2010 Reply
Hresna - Sunday, October 9, 2022 - link
I’m curious as to whether there’s any appreciable difference to a consumer as to whether a particular PCIe lane or USB port is provisioned by the CPU or the Chipset…. Like, is there a reliability, performance, or some other metric difference?I’m just curious why it’s a design consideration to even include them in the CPU design to begin with, unless it has to do with how the CPU lanes are multiplexed in/out of the CPU and somehow some of the lanes can talk inter-device via the chipset without involving the cpu… Reply
bigtree - Monday, October 10, 2022 - link
Where is octa channel memory? dual channel memory is a $300 CPU.Where is native Thunderbolt 4 support?
(mac minis have had thunderbolt 3 for over 5 years).
Cant even find one X670 Motherboard with 4x Thunderbolt 4 ports. And you want $300? Thunderbolt 4 should be standard on the cheapest boards. Its a $20 chip. Reply
Oxford Guy - Monday, October 10, 2022 - link
The mission of corporations is to extract profit for shareholders and protect the lavish lifestyles of the rich. It is not to provide value to the plebs. Do the absolute minimum is the mantra. ReplyRedGreenBlue - Tuesday, October 11, 2022 - link
That must be why Intel made Thunderbolt royalty-free and it’s now built into USB 4. ReplyOxford Guy - Wednesday, October 12, 2022 - link
It probably can afford to since states like Ohio are willing to bankroll half of the cost of its fabs. ReplyRedGreenBlue - Tuesday, October 11, 2022 - link
It’s built into USB 4 now. Just make sure it’s functional already because it might need a driver, AMD did that on the 600 series. Aside from that important fact, I don’t care if there aren't many boards with it. The thunderbolt ecosystem has been crap since the beginning. Peripheral makers didn’t take advantage of it because USB was a more common approach and intel didn’t make thunderbolt cheap to implement. The Mac Minis have it because Apple made a big bet on it when it came out. These days it’s nice to have but it’s a throw-away feature unless you have a niche product that needs it. It’s for niche purposes and that would have been a waste of pci lanes. I would’ve liked it for external GPU’s but intel effectively shut that down and I don’t know if they’ve opened the door to it again. USB is way more convenient. ReplyRedGreenBlue - Tuesday, October 11, 2022 - link
And 8 channel memory, like, this sounds like a joke. That’s for server or workstation cpus because of how many layers it takes for the wiring on the board and the pins on the socket. That’s part of why server and workstation boards are so expensive. If you need that much bandwidth you’re in the wrong market segment. Look at Threadripper chips. ReplyRedGreenBlue - Tuesday, October 11, 2022 - link
It would be appreciated if architecture reviews had the pipeline differences in a chart to compare across generations. Anandtech used to have that included and it gave a good comparison of different generations and competitor architectures. I can understand not including it in the product review but I don’t remember a chart being in the previous Zen 4 overview article. Reply