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.

fv67900xrecommended

Live Pricing: HERE

fv67950xtophonors

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.

Log in to comment

We have 1462 guests and no members online

supportus