Ahead of AMD’s Ryzen 7000 series launch, I took a look at the Ryzen 5 7600X and the Ryzen 7 7700X but at the time we didn’t have the two other 7000 series CPUs to test. That said AMD did end up sending over the Ryzen 9 7900X and the 7950X for testing and while a little late today I’m going to check both of the Ryzen 9 CPUs out and see what they are all about. Both CPUs double up the core count from the 7700X and 7600X with the 7950X having 16 cores and the 7900X having 12 cores and they have similar clock speeds so I’m excited to see how they perform.

Product Name: AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and 7950X

Review Sample Provided by: AMD

Written by: Wes Compton

Amazon Affiliate Links: 7900X and 7950X

 

I went over both the Ryzen 9 7900X and the 7950X in our launch day review but for those that missed that both of these CPUs sit in a higher class compared to the Ryzen 7 7700X and Ryzen 5 7600X that I previously took a look at. The two lower-end CPUs have half the L3 cache and have TDPs that are 65 watts less. The Ryzen 9 CPUs also have a much higher max socket power with both at 230 watts vs 105 watts for the other two. They have the same die size, ECC support, and max memory speed, however. They also have a similar clock speed configuration when it comes to base clocks. The 7950X has a lower base clock speed of 4.5 GHz just like the 7700X and the 7900X has a little higher clock speed. As for CPU cores, the 7950X doubles up the core count of the 7700X with it having 16 cores and 32 threads and the 7900X does the same for the 7600X with its 12 cores and 24 threads.

Specifications

Ryzen 9 7950X

Ryzen 9 7900X

Ryzen 7 7700X

Ryzen 5 7600X

Core/Threads

16/32

12/24

8/16

6/12

Max Boost

5.7 GHz

5.6 GHz

5.4 GHz

5.3 GHz

Base Clock

4.5 GHz

4.7 GHz

4.5 GHz

4.7 GHz

L2 Cache

16x1MB

12x1MB

8x1MB

6x1MB

L3 Cache

64MB

32MB

TDP

170W

105W

Max Socket Power (PPT)

230W

105W

Max Current (EDC)

225A

170A

Max Curren, Thermally Limited (TDC)

160A

110A

TjMax

95C

Stock/Auto Voltage Range (Active Core)

0.650 – 1.475V

Typical Loaded Temperatures

70-90C

Boost Algorithm

Precision Boost 2

Recommended Cooler

240-280 Liquid (or equivalent)

Mid-Frame Tower Cooler (or equivalent)

Max Memory Speed (Non-OC)

DDR5-5200 (2x16GB)

ECC Support

Enabled in-silicon, support varies by motherboard

CCD Die Size

70mm ²

CCD Transistor Count

6.5 billion

IOD Die Size

122mm ²

IOD Transistor Count

3.4 billion

MSRP

$699

$549

$399

$299

 

Before testing, I did double-check things with CPU-Z which for the 7950X does have it running at 5.7 GHz and 5.6 GHz for the 7900X. Our testing is done with the memory overclocked to 6000 MHz for the sweet spot and like with all of our CPU tests cooling is a standard 240mm Corsair AIO cooler.

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I was surprised when the two Ryzen 9 CPUs came in that their packaging was different from the two other 7000 Series CPUs. Both of these come in a larger box. The front of the box still has the same grey and orange theme with the window in the center so you can see the CPU. Looking inside of the box AMD just filled the extra space with the foam they didn’t include a cooler given that they recommend a 240mm or larger AIO for cooling but I thought maybe that space had some sway or something space for picking up their new high-end CPUs. I don’t think having larger boxes just to add more waste and take up more space in shipping was necessary.

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Inside along with the foam, the CPU comes in the same clamshell tray along with a warranty and legal info paper. You do get the small Ryzen 9 case sticker as well.

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As for the CPUs, if you didn’t see our previous review. The new Zen 4 CPUs with the new AM5 socket have dropped the pins on the CPU for an LGA socket design with contact pads on the CPU. The new CPUs also have a cool X-shaped heatspreader that stands out as well, especially with the Ryzen branding etched on them.

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image 9

 

 


Test Rig and Procedures

Test System

Motherboard: ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Hero - Live Pricing

Cooling: Corsair iCUE H100i ELITE LCD Liquid CPU Cooler - Live Pricing

Noctua NT-H1 Thermal PasteLive Pricing

Memory: G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo DDR5 16GBx2 6000MHz - Live Pricing

Storage: Corsair 2TB MP600 PCIe Gen 4 SSD - Live Pricing

Video Card: Nvidia RTX 3070 FE - Live Pricing

Power Supply: Corsair AX1200 - Live Pricing

Case: Primochill Wetbench - Live Pricing

OS: Windows 11 Pro 64-bit - Live Pricing

 

CPU Testing Procedures

Team Fortress 2

1080p – high, very high, high, reflect world, high, enabled, 8x msaa, x16, multicore on.    https://bit.ly/2vOebin

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands

Built-in Benchmark, 1080p, High detail setting

Dirt 5

Built-in benchmark, running at 1080p on all three resolution settings, V-Sync is turned off, dynamic resolution is turned off, and on the low detail setting

Far Cry 5

1080p with High Detail setting using the built-in benchmark

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Built in benchmark, gtx 1080Ti, 1080p, high detail setting, RTX/DLSS Off

Metro Exodus

Default benchmark low setting

Watch Dogs Legion

1080p, dx12, medium detail

Borderlands 3

Built-in benchmark. fullscreen, 1080p, medium quality, dx11

Far Cry 6

1080p with High Detail setting using the built-in benchmark

Dolphin 5.0 Benchmark

https://bit.ly/2dpa9n3

3DMark

Fire Strike - Physics Score – Performance benchmark, Time Spy - CPU Score, and CPU Profile test

7-Zip

Built-in benchmark set to 32MB, run 4 or more passes. Combined MIPS, Compressing, and Decompressing scores all used. Just the Current result, not the resulting

Jetstream

https://browserbench.org/JetStream/

wPrime

1024M

Cinebench R15

CPU and CPU (Single Core results)

Cinebench R20

CPU and CPU (Single Core results)

Cinebench R23

CPU and CPU (Single Core results)

CPUz

CPUz's built-in benchmark, both single and multi-core scores

Passmark 9

CPU Mark Score

Passmark 10

CPU Mark Score

PCMark 10

Normal test ran, not the express or extended

Procyon

Office productivity benchmark is done with the current Microsoft Office 365, Photo Editing Benchmark is done with Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom Classic. Video Editing Benchmark uses Adobe Premiere Pro. All adobe products are running on the latest version at the time of testing

V-Ray

CPU Benchmark time used as the score

POV-Ray

Using built-in benchmark. Settings are all set to the "Standard Benchmark Switches" listed on http://www.povray.org/download/benchmark.php

Handbrake

Tested using 2d 4k 60 FPS version, resized using the Fast 1080p30 preset, average FPS used. Here is the file download location http://bbb3d.renderfarming.net/download.html

Blender

Using new official benchmark using 3.1.0

AIDA64

Memory, Cache, and FLOPS testing done with built-in GPGPU and Memory benchmarks

Temps

Aida64 FPU stability test to load and to record temperature readings

Power Usage

Idle and load testing using a Kill-A-Watt and wPrime to put the CPU under load and again with the AIDA64 FPU CPU workload

 

Onboard Testing Procedures

Borderlands 3

In-Game benchmark, 1080p, Low detail preset

Tomb Raider

Adrenaline Action Benchmark Tool on the “Medium” quality setting at 1080p

Hitman: Absolution

Adrenaline Action Benchmark Tool on the “Medium” quality setting at 1080p

Far Cry 5

1080p, Lowest Detail setting, In game benchmark

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

1080p, Low Detail setting, In game benchmark, RTX/DLSS off

Team Fortress 2

1080p – high, very high, high, reflect world, high, enabled, 8x msaa, x16, multicore on.   https://bit.ly/2vOebin

Unigine Superposition

720p Low and 1080p Medium settings

Cinebench R15

OpenGL benchmark

3DMark Fire Strike

Performance setting – GPU Score

3DMark Time Spy

GPU Score

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands

Built-in Benchmark, 1080p, Low detail setting

 


CPU Performance

To start testing off I went with a rendering-focused benchmark with the always popular Blender. This benchmark was recently updated so our result list is smaller here. I have all three tests stacked together so we can see an overall of them altogether. Blender loves the higher core counts so the older 3900X did well here. Both the 7950X and the 7900X jumped ahead of the 12900K by a large margin with their higher core counts, especially the 7950X which is ahead of even the 7900X before adding in the classroom result.

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Continuing with the video encoding theme I also have Handbrake which is an open-source transcoder. For this test I am taking a 4k video down to 1080p 30 FPS, the results are the average FPS of that task. The 12900K is still in the lead here but the Ryzen 9 7950X is just behind it with both the 7950X and 7900X way out ahead of the rest of the field.

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For the always popular Cinebench, I ran the three most recent versions. These are once again rendering and the latest R23 test is the most relevant for current applications but I love being able to see how everything compares in some of the older tests as well. In R15 the multicore test show just how well both Zen 4 Ryzen 9 CPUs handle things with the 7950X 2279 points ahead of the 12900K and the 7900X out ahead as well dwarfing the rest of the CPUs tested. The R15 single-core test has a much tighter field but with the IPC of Zen 4 and the high clock speeds, both Ryzen 9 CPUs are tied at the top just ahead of the 12900K. Cinebench R20 was similar in the multicore test with the 7950X and its 16 cores way out ahead and the 7900X being in second but closer to the performance of the 12900K. For R20 single core the 7900X which has a higher base clock did edge out a little ahead of the 7950X and both are 10+ points ahead of the 7700X and 7600X with all four 7000 Series CPUs at the top. Then the last and latest Cinebench R23 has the 7900X slightly ahead on the single-core test with both almost 100 points ahead of the 12900K there and then on the multi-core test, the 7950X is way out in front with the 7900X and the 12900K closer together.

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Next up we have ray tracing focused rendering benchmarks. Here I tested the CPUs in POV-Ray and V-Ray. POV-Ray was also tested with a single core and across all of the cores. In POC-Ray both the 7950X and the 7900X are out ahead of the 12900K with the 7950X over 3500 points ahead of the 12900K. The single core results are closer but all of the Zen 4 CPUs did well with them. Then in V-Ray, the 7900X edged out 4 fewer seconds than the 12900K and the 7950X did it in an even more impressive 22 seconds which is 10 seconds or a 31% improvement!

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graph9

I also tested using the CPUz’s built-in benchmark which does run on a single thread and with all threads. I think this is the only result that shows the 12900K ahead in a single-threaded test, the 7950X and 7900X did close the gap slightly with both of them being a little faster than the 7700X. For the multi-thread CPUz test, it really likes the high core count CPUs and the 7950X and 7900X are both high core count with 12 and 16 cores putting the 7900X ahead of the 12900K and the 7950X way out ahead of both.

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graph11

Next, we have wPrime which is a classic overclocking benchmark that calculates pi out to 1024 million digits and is timed. This is a multi-thread heavy test which has the older high core count CPUs still all over the top of the charts so it isn’t a surprise that both the 7900X and the 7950X are at the top.

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7 Zip is another open-source program, this time for compressing and decompressing all of your files. Here I have run the benchmark and we have three results. The combined MIPS is a combination of compressing and decompressing performance. Then I have it broken down between the two. This workload likes extra cores which can be seen with the CPUs that are up at the top being some of the older high core count CPUs that I have tested in the past. The high core count of both Ryzen 9 CPUs and their IPC puts them way out in front of everything else we have tested in the past with the 7950X sitting with a 60% improvement over the 12900K.

graph13

graph14

Jetstream 2 is a compilation benchmark that takes a long list of HTML5 and Java in-browser tests and runs them all three times and puts together an overall score. I love this benchmark because let's be honest, most people are using their browser more than any other game or program. Jetstream gives some interesting results sometimes though but it tends to prefer high IPC or single-core performance and there are some situations where it prefers lower core count CPUs and the 7700X being ahead of both the 7950X and 7900X would fall under that, but as a whole, though I was impressed that all four of the Zen 4 CPUs are sitting up at the top way out ahead of everything else tested.

graph15

For Passmark Performance Test I took a look at both the older version 9 and the newer version 10. On both, I only look at the overall CPU score which takes a few different synthetic benchmarks and combines the results to put together an overall score. This is another example of the high core count of both of the Ryzen 9 CPUs combined with their clock speed/IPC just making everything else tested look bad. The 12900K is back just above the 7700X and the 7900X is a 39% improvement over it and the 7950X dwarfs that with its 69% improvement in Performance Test 9. Performance Test 10 was similar only with an even larger gap with the performance gap between the 7950X and the 12900K being 72%.

graph16

graph17

PCMark 10 is a great test because it tests things like video calls, browser performance, excel, and word performance to give an idea of real-world performance. It tends to like higher clock speeds which you can see all of the 5 GHz CPUs up at the top. The 7700X outperformed the 12900K leaving room for the 7900X and the 7950X above that up at the top.

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We recently added even more real-world testing with the UL Procyon Benchmarks which are as real-world as they can get using the actual programs that you would use in each test. There are three overall benchmarks, first is the Office Productivity Benchmark which uses Microsoft Office 365 to test actual performance in word, excel, PowerPoint, and outlook. The second benchmark is the Photo Editing Benchmark which is run using the latest version of Photoshop as well as Lightroom Classic to look at photo editing performance. Then the last test is the Video Editing Benchmark which uses the latest version of Adobe Premiere Pro to test video editing performance. I have all three scores stacked together to get an overall look at the performance. All four of the Zen 4 CPUs are at the top here but it is interesting to see how the 7700X with its higher boost clock edges out the 7900X just slightly in the combined results.

graph19

Moving the focus over towards gaming my next test is using Dolphin 5.0 Benchmark. Dolphin 5.0 is a Wii emulator and like most emulators, it doesn’t care about high core counts at all. In fact, it only runs two in total. Clock speeds are king here but apparently, it is all about the base clock speeds with both the 7700X and the 7950X sitting behind the 12900K and the 7900X and the 7600X out in front.

graph20

Before diving into game testing I wanted to check out synthetic performance using 3DMark. I tested with the older DX11 Fire Strike test as well as the newer DX12 Time Spy. I also added the new 3DMark CPU Profile benchmark into the mix as well which does a good job of showing the full range of thread counts that you might see being used in games as well as a max threads option that does everything above 16 threads. In the Fire Strike test, the Ryzen 9 7900X edged out ahead of the i9-12900K but with the four extra cores, the 7950X is way out ahead of everything else. In Time Spy on the other hand the 12900K is still way out in front and the 7950X and the 7900X are right with each other. Last up with the CPU Profile it is interesting that even with both CPUs having more than 16 threads that there still wasn’t too big of a difference between the 16 thread result and the max threads result. That said the 7950X is still at the top with a big gap between it and anything else and the next closest is the 7900X and it also has a big gap between it and the 12900K.

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For in-game performance testing, I ran them through a variety of new and old games. TF2 for example is a very old game at this point but is also extremely CPU dependent which makes it a good option to check out for older source-based games. Game results for both the Ryzen 9 7950X and the Ryzen 9 7900X did well with them near the top of the charts in all but one game however we don’t have the 5800X3D to test alongside which is still the fastest gaming option out there. Dirt 5 still seems to be the exception with weird results there. There are also a lot of games, like with the 7700X and the 7600X which the higher base clock speed of the 7900X gives it better performance than the higher max boost clock of the 7950X.

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I did also run both CPUs through a few tests using AIDA64, specifically, I wanted to check out cache performance, memory performance, and how the CPUs handle single and double precision and different integers. The 7950X and 7900X are in their own world compared to the 7700X and 7600X as far as L1 and L2 cache performance where having so much more makes a big difference. The cache latency improvements of Zen 4 are still noticeable here, especially in the L3 cache where the latency was lower than the 7700X and 7600X. Memory read speed was a little faster but for everything gained there it was lost on the write speed evening things out. The Single-Precision FLOPS and double-precision FLOPS of both Ryzen 9 CPUs was twice that of the lower-end 7000 series CPUs which themselves were higher than anything else tested. The same goes for all three of the integer IOPS tests as well.

AIDA64

L1 Cache Read

L1 Cache Write

L1 Cache Latency

L2 Cache Read

L2 Cache Write

L2 Cache Latency

L3 Cache Read

L3 Cache Write

L3 Cache Latency

GB/s

GB/s

ns

GB/s

GB/s

ns

GB/s

GB/s

ns

AMD Ryzen R7 2700X

999.43

502.5

1

978.03

495.12

2.8

414.95

417.71

8.8

AMD Ryzen R5 2600X

768.13

388.05

1

729.37

366.01

2.9

429.09

323.83

9.1

Ryzen 5 2400G

485.01

238.29

1

459.8

232.2

3.1

222.96

181.6

9.6

Ryzen 3 2200G

460.55

227.41

1.1

352.84

177.56

3.3

137.3

171.2

10.2

Intel i7-8700K

1595.6

803.65

0.9

640.37

397.14

2.6

337

213.67

11

Intel i5-8400

1417.2

710.79

1

543.81

352.9

3.1

270.89

186.82

13

Intel Core i9-7980XE

3758.3

1896.7

1.1

1671.7

1069.9

5.6

229.61

118.4

21

Intel Core i9-7960X

3532.3

1785.2

1

1571.6

1003.5

5.1

220.22

121.04

19.8

Intel Core i7-7820X

1969.9

995.02

1

884.63

574.74

5.6

114.4

103.57

19.2

Intel Core i5-7640X

1044.8

31888

1

397.26

247

2.9

228.31

163.86

11.1

Intel Core i9-7900X

2418.5

709.16

1

1037.3

521.94

5.2

124.16

106.78

21.2

Intel Core i7-7740X

1102.7

561.25

0.9

424.55

304.3

2.7

287.01

186.67

21.2

Intel i7-6900K

1963.9

999.59

1

710.28

310.34

4.1

243.96

195.41

14.6

Intel i7-7700K

1114.6

560.82

0.9

415.45

285.97

2.7

234.5

188.7

10.4

Intel i7-5960X

1748.5

874.6

1.2

623.08

272.77

3.5

260.72

184.92

15.3

AMD Ryzen R7 1800X

917.46

460.16

1.1

831.95

446.37

4.7

388.18

386.01

12.4

AMD Ryzen R7 1700X

867.89

435.33

1.2

809.29

419.38

5

369.75

350.31

12.9

AMD Ryzen R7 1700

793.9

398.12

1.3

742.92

389.73

5.4

334.36

332.12

14.2

AMD Ryzen R5 1600X

689.47

345.95

1.1

630.99

334.93

4.7

386.48

326.86

12.3

AMD Ryzen R5 1500X

446.84

224.01

1.1

306.82

211.58

11.8

306.82

211.58

11.8

AMD Ryzen R5 2600

685.38

344.05

1

669.28

333.5

3.1

381.16

320.56

9.8

AMD Ryzen R7 2700X

849.91

426.09

1

837.76

418.75

3

357.51

356.71

9.4

Intel i7-8086K

1596.4

803.56

0.9

623.36

423.53

2.6

380.04

243.73

10.9

Intel i9-9900K

2375.6

1195.4

0.8

907.65

626.34

2.4

302.01

221.1

11

AMD Ryzen 9 3900X

3098.6

1551.4

0.9

1545.3

1416.8

2.8

1014.4

836.39

11.5

AMD Ryzen 7 3700X

2133.2

1072.9

0.9

1069.1

993.49

2.8

611.53

573.21

10.2

AMD Ryzen 5 3600X

1547.4

779.24

1

777.62

745.3

2.8

584.93

538.45

10.4

AMD Ryzen 3 3400G

508.97

253.87

1

490.26

247.04

3

233.57

193.62

9.3

AMD Ryzen 3 3300X

1080.5

541.5

0.9

541.84

530.5

2.7

322.13

321.33

11.1

AMD Ryzen 3 3100

965.85

484.67

1

485.55

460.71

3.1

374.11

343.53

11.8

Intel i5-10600K

1676.6

840.87

0.8

662.98

452.67

2.5

361.35

238.47

10.5

Intel i9-10900K

3162.1

1586.7

0.8

1201.8

759.97

2.4

407.66

245.94

11.4

AMD Ryzen 5 5600X

1721.4

869.69

0.9

851.89

831.97

2.6

276.24

298.84

11

Intel i9-11900K

4542.8

2299.3

1

1413.2

691.62

2.5

330.32

213.28

11.4

Intel i5-11600K

3412.3

1724.9

1

960.91

526.76

2.7

319.1

198.57

11.4

Intel i9-12900K

2310

1438.7

1

1233.5

562.72

2.9

678.84

418.11

19.8

Intel i5-12600K

1461.1

971.78

1.1

846.4

360.51

3.2

598.86

292.09

21.4

AMD Ryzen 5 4500

1561.9

784.1

1

785.34

751.61

2.9

350.05

571.19

10.5

AMD Ryzen 5 5600

1646.6

831.24

0.9

832.43

767.22

2.7

445.8

437.73

11.9

AMD Ryzen 7 5700X

2267.8

1157.8

0.9

1147.6

1026.1

2.6

501.53

526.11

11.5

AMD Ryzen 7 7700X

2722.9

1381

0.7

1361.1

1305.1

2.7

887.95

901.2

10.1

AMD Ryzen 5 7600X

1996.3

1019.3

0.7

1020.9

999.93

2.6

847.43

847.61

10.5

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X

5252.2

2685

0.7

2615.6

2588.4

2.6

1293.7

1357.3

9.9

AMD Ryzen 9 7900X

4042.4

2051.4

0.7

2008.5

1956.3

2.5

1278.6

1394.1

9.8

 

AIDA64

Memory Read

Memory Write

Memory Latency

Single-Precision FLOPS

Double Precision FLOPS

AES-256

24-bit Integer IOPS

32-bit Integer IOPS

64-bit Integer IOPS

MB/s

MB/s

ns

GFLOPS

GFLOPS

MB/s

GIOPS

GIOPS

GIOPS

AMD Ryzen R7 2700X

50214

48578

65

507.9

253.9

70514

127.7

127.7

64.22

AMD Ryzen R5 2600X

50273

48346

65.5

383.2

191.4

51932

95.82

95.82

48.15

Ryzen 5 2400G

45967

47850

66.6

235.9

117.8

32388

58.94

58.98

29.67

Ryzen 3 2200G

35567

36240

118.4

225.8

112.6

27603

56.32

56.32

28.3

Intel i7-8700K

38421

40175

57.9

825

412.5

29406

370

370

51.55

Intel i5-8400

38096

40549

59.8

728.8

364.5

25192

323.5

323.5

45.55

Intel Core i9-7980XE

77004

68888

73.4

1831

915.5

69377

821.2

821.3

121.6

Intel Core i9-7960X

79416

71554

74.9

1681

840.6

65409

754

753.9

114.7

Intel Core i7-7820X

76049

73759

71.6

944.9

472.5

36420

423.7

423.7

63.85

Intel Core i5-7640X

30786

31888

68.5

536.5

268.2

18547

238.1

138.1

33.53

Intel Core i9-7900X

76856

72856

72.8

1148

574.5

45506

515.1

515

79.76

Intel Core i7-7740X

38455

40596

53.2

575.4

287.8

20503

258.1

258

35.97

Intel i7-6900K

66786

68130

61.9

1023

511.7

36340

255.9

255.9

63.96

Intel i7-7700K

38498

40448

52.7

575.7

287.9

20519

258

258

35.98

Intel i7-5960X

66108

49545

62.8

895.5

447.7

31783

223.9

223.9

55.97

AMD Ryzen R7 1800X

44031

43425

81.8

472.4

236.2

64016

118.1

118.1

59.03

AMD Ryzen R7 1700X

44493

43749

78.3

446.8

223.4

61730

111.7

111.7

55.84

AMD Ryzen R7 1700

45343

43777

82.6

408.5

204.3

56811

102.1

102.1

51.05

AMD Ryzen R5 1600X

44452

43918

83.7

354.9

177.5

49340

88.74

88.73

44.34

AMD Ryzen R5 1500X

44289

43746

83.1

229.8

114.8

31983

57.43

57.45

28.72

AMD Ryzen R5 2600

50385

48499

66.5

351

175.4

48939

88.03

88.02

44.01

AMD Ryzen R7 2700

50088

48343

65.9

434.3

217.2

60336

108.6

108.6

54.68

Intel i7-8086K

39069

40675

56.2

824.9

412.5

29397

369.9

369.9

51.55

Intel i9-9900K

39682

41015

51.1

1226

613

45542

550

549.8

79.79

AMD Ryzen 9 3900X

53981

52271

70.7

1546

772.1

106943

385.7

385.7

96.57

AMD Ryzen 7 3700X

51498

28739

67.3

1078

537.8

74474

271

271.2

67.77

AMD Ryzen 5 3600X

50769

28736

68.9

799.5

400

55456

198.6

198.6

49.64

AMD Ryzen 3 3400G

49936

53502

67.1

257.2

128.5

35736

64.16

64.16

32.25

AMD Ryzen 3 3300X

51435

28743

66.4

551.6

276.1

38176

138.7

138.7

34.65

AMD Ryzen 3 3100

50246

28734

71.1

497.6

248.7

34946

124.4

124.4

31.09

Intel i5-10600K

43340

43430

48.2

863.8

431.9

30782

387.2

386.9

53.99

Intel i9-10900K

44972

43808

50.5

1632

815.7

58163

731.3

731.2

102

AMD Ryzen 5 5600X

50972

28772

59.2

891.9

445.8

61623

709.6

709.7

55.72

Intel i9-11900K

44919

43343

51.8

1068

534.2

164966

547

547

182.7

Intel i5-11600K

43953

43468

55.6

838.7

419.4

123767

429.3

429.3

143.4

Intel i9-12900K

71418

72395

82

695.7

247.9

140499

400.6

400.6

166.2

Intel i5-12600K

65416

71336

87.8

432.5

216.2

86470

252.7

252.7

96.22

AMD Ryzen 5 4500

52683

53191

82.8

806

402.6

56578

201.5

201.3

50.35

AMD Ryzen 5 5600

48444

28753

70.9

853.2

426.2

107839

675.8

679.6

53.38

AMD Ryzen 7 5700X

47858

28760

68.2

1158

577.9

137459

919.1

912.9

74.38

AMD Ryzen 7 7700X

58755

80120

70

1392

694.6

192730

1205

1205

602.4

AMD Ryzen 5 7600X

54720

80771

69.5

1046

523.1

147661

912.5

912.5

456.4

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X

67342

76712

69

2735

1364

379510

2370

2370

1184

AMD Ryzen 9 7900X

68064

78123

67.7

2062

1029

288134

1792

1789

895.4

 

 


iGPU Performance

Onboard performance isn’t something that you think about when it comes to high-end CPUs because I think the expectation is that you will be adding a dedicated GPU but there are situations where a dedicated GPU isn’t needed or you may need to run the integrated graphics while waiting on your video card to come in or be replaced. So I do still want to check out the performance of both the 7950X and the 7900X when it comes to integrated GPU performance. For that, I have run a few basic tests with a mix of older and newer games and benchmarks. Integrated GPUs aren’t anywhere near the performance of even the lowest-end GPUs but it is still interesting to see what they can do. To start that I went with the older Cinebench R15 which has an OpenGL benchmark showing basic rendering performance. All four of the 7000 series CPUs are sitting at the top on this one with fractions of an FPS setting them apart.

obgraph1

Next, I defaulted to the always consistent 3DMark with both the older Fire Strike benchmark and the newer Time Spy which is DX12. I only used the graphics score, not the total score to take the CPU performance out of the equation as much as possible. In both tests all four Zen 4 CPUs came in the middle of the pack with the older G series Ryzen CPUs with their upgraded integrated graphics out in front then the 12th gen Intel CPUs and in Fire Strike the 11th gen as well out ahead of the 7000 series CPUs.

obgraph2

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In Unigine Superposition I ran the 1080p medium detail and 720p low detail tests and the results here weren’t much different than the previous tests. The 7700X and 7600X were slightly ahead of the 7950X and 7900X here, most likely due to the extra heat the two Ryzen 9 CPUs create. They were ahead of the Intel 11th gen CPUs but behind the 12th gen Intel CPUs and both the 2400G and 2200G.

obgraph4

Then from there on, I jumped into game tests. Some of our tests are older games but I did also add in a few newer games as well to get an idea of newer games when tested at 1080p and low or medium settings. I was surprised that in TF2 the 7950X came in at the bottom of the pack compared to the other 7000 series CPUs and the 7900X was at the top. They were all significantly faster than anything else tested but I suspect the 7950X was hit with more thermal throttling. In Wildlands the 12th gen Intel CPUs were still out in front with the Zen 4 CPUs behind that but all of the results there were still not what I would consider playable at 1080 even on the low detail level. The old Tomb Raider had playable FPS with all four CPUs right at the same FPS but the Intel 11th and 12th gen were out ahead as well as CPUs like the 5775C, 2400G, and 2200G with their improved GPUs which showed that you can even get into the 60+ FPS range. Hitman Absolution was right on the edge of the “playable” 30 FPS range with the 7950X and 7900X sitting at the top and all four 7000 Series CPUs at the top. In Borderlands 3 all four had nearly the same FPS and at 17 FPS it wasn’t playable at 1080p. Far Cry 5 was at a similar FPS which means 720p would be the best chance, the 12900K did edge things out by 1 FPS in that test. Then in the latest Tomb Raider (Shadow of the Tomb Raider) all four Zen 4 CPUs are at the top with the same 23 FPS. 720p would again be the best chance here.

obgraph5

obgraph6

obgraph7

obgraph8

obgraph9

obgraph10

obgraph11

 

 


Power Usage and Temperatures

For some people, performance is the only thing important, but for others, power usage and temperatures also play a role so we do take a look at both of those as well. This is especially important in SFF or even just smaller mid-sized builds and it affects the components you need to get for your system as well with your PSU and cooler. To take a look at power usage I ran three different tests. I noted the idle power draw of our entire system then I took a look at the load wattage of the system using two different workloads. One was wPrime and the second was AIDA64 using their FPU workload which is extremely demanding. At idle the testbench with the 7950X pulled 114 watts which is high but not far from the 95 watts that the other 7000 series CPUs were doing at idle. This is an issue that I hope we see toned down with future updates to keep power usage from being too crazy when you are doing light loads or nothing at all. Putting the 7950X and 7900X under load with wPrime I saw them both reach near the top of our charts with the 7950X at the top at 333 watts from the system and 291 watts for the 7900X putting it behind the Intel i9-10900K. With AIDA64 FPU as the workload surprisingly the 7950X dropped 3 watts down to 330 but the 7900X did increase in usage at 305 watts.

graph33

graph34

With the 7700X and the 7600X AMD had them listed as being tower cooler compatible, but with the higher TDP of the 7950X and the 7900X AMDs suggestion is a 240mm or 280mm radiator so I was curious to see how the thermal numbers would be with our 240mm radiator. With the way that precision boost 2 works however all of the CPUs consistently push things up into the 90c and higher range. The 7950X however was locked in at 95c, 1 degree higher than the 7700X. The 7900X like the 7600X did run cooler at 91c. Basically no matter what you have for cooling it will throttle up to use the cooling that you give it to get the best possible performance.

graph35

 

 


Overall and Final Verdict

With my launch day review of the Zen 4 based Ryzen 7 7700X and Ryzen 5 7600X, I was especially impressed with their single-core performance which put the 6 and 8-core CPUs up against CPUs like the Intel i9-12900K and often had them beating it which was impressive. So going into my testing of the Ryzen 9 CPUs which doubles up the core count compared to those two and have even higher max boost clocks I had high hopes and the Ryzen 9 7950X and the Ryzen 9 7900X met those expectations and much more. The two Ryzen 9 CPUs top almost all of the charts from our testing and in any test that has more of a focus on high core/thread count the 7950X stands out with a huge lead often dwarfing the rest of the results. But it is the higher clock speeds that helped the 7950X and 7900X do so well in the gaming tests. Overall Zen 4 shows just how far AMD has come from the original Ryzen launch.

I spoke a lot about it in our launch day review as well, but the new AM5 socket and some of the features it has opened up is also another exciting facet of this launch. The new socket has expanded the PCIe lanes available and the amount of power AMD can bring to the CPU which has opened up the possibility for CPUs like the 7950X and 7900X. The extra PCIe lanes mean there is a lot less balancing things on the motherboard side. Our test board, the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero had 5 M.2 slots three of which were PCIe 5.0, and enough USB ports to handle anything you throw at it with four Type-C and 8 Type-A just on the rear I/O alone. These new CPUs now have DDR5 and PCIe5 options for the GPU and storage if you go with an X670E motherboard which are all big changes from the last generation. Of course, these new boards are a lot more expensive than in the past. This is less of a concern with the Ryzen 9 CPUs because if you are going high end those are the boards that I would think you would be looking at. But overall if you are going with ANY AM5 build right now the motherboard and DDR5 costs are going to increase your build costs. That will change once AMD brings out more chipsets, but for now, it is a real concern.

Beyond that, I did see the same high idle wattage on the 7950X and 7900X that I saw on the lower-end CPUs as well. The way that boosting is handled unless you run eco mode means that they put out a lot of heat no matter what cooling option you go with they will boost up to utilize the cooling and with that, the load power usage is high as well.

I have to mention pricing as well because with the Ryzen 9 7950X having an MSRP of $699 and the Ryzen 9 7900X having an MSRP of $549 both are expensive and more than most people are going to be looking to spend. But given their performance I wouldn’t say they are priced wrong, you do get game-changing performance for anyone who can put the high core counts to work. If you don’t need 12 or 16 cores but still want Zen 4 performance the 7700X and 7600X that I previously reviewed are going to be much better options. Of course, with any of the 7000 Series CPUs, getting in early with AM5 means that you should have options in the future to upgrade as AMD has been great about sticking to a socket and they have already said they plan on supporting the new socket for 5 years.

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Live Pricing: HERE

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Live Pricing: HERE

 

 

 

Author Bio
garfi3ld
Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org
Editor-in-chief
You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.

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