AMD Ryzen 7 9700X Review: Zen 5 Arrives

[zx8086]

Dear Lord, testing a major CPU which many people are genuinely interested in buying only @1080p is really taking a mick ><

Overall the review seems somewhat rushed, for the aforementioned reason and also why is there no 9600X when most other sites combine the two?

Hope the upcoming 9600X review can fix the first point at least.

 

[Soulburn74]

During the lockdowns I built a 3950x machine. Its still running pretty well for my use case scenario: 4k gaming w/ a later added 4090. I watched the 5950x, and 7950x reviews come and go, and 4k gaming benchmarks weren't really touched much.....I look forward to seeing a 9950x review soon to see if I will still be keeping the current setup (my guess is yes).

 

[Endymio]

Techpowerup summed it up nicely: (Despite high price, they still gave it a "Highly Recommended" award.)
Steven Walton said "a little efficient" while at Techpowerup, it's labeled as "Very energy efficient".

Yet TPU's own data fails to explain why they gave it that recommendation. On energy efficiency, their own chart shows its gaming power usage to be worse than nearly every other AMD chip:

https://tpucdn.com/review/amd-ryzen-7-9700x/images/power-games.png

In their frames-per-watt chart, it does slightly better in the rankings, but in terms of overall numbers, the 7700 bests it by 17%, the 7600 by 36%, and the 8500 by a whopping 237%. I don't call that "highly efficient" for a next-generation chip, when compared to the prior generation.

As far back as I can remember, TPU has given every new AMD cpu a "highly recommended" rating. They're not always justified.

Testing "gaming CPUs" mainly with games and "application CPUs" mainly with applications DO [sic] make sense. You want gaming, buy gaming CPU.

So you're saying this CPUI is unsuitable for gaming -- but then complain when a gamer-oriented site like TS rates the chip poorly? Your logical thinking skills need reevaluation.

 

[mistyrain]

Photoshop 2024, 2023 game releases like Hogwarts and Cyberpunk: Phantom Liberty, and 2024 releases like Homeworld 3 are "old stuff"? And while they do test some older games, the performance differentials there are no better than on the newer ones. You might want to rethink your reasoning here.

The idea here is that they aim for future uses on those new chips. Check the other reviews and you will see what I mean.

 

[Nobina]

Photoshop 2024, 2023 game releases like Hogwarts and Cyberpunk: Phantom Liberty, and 2024 releases like Homeworld 3 are "old stuff"? And while they do test some older games, the performance differentials there are no better than on the newer ones. You might want to rethink your reasoning here.

No, no! AM5 is actually really fast but it's made for very specific software, new software, so new it's not been made yet, or never will. But in that software, it's the best, better believe it!

 

[HardReset]

No, no! AM5 is actually really fast but it's made for very specific software, new software, so new it's not been made yet, or never will. But in that software, it's the best, better believe it!

Well, Cinebench is supposed to be 2024 CPU rendering software, yet it lacks AVX512 support.

But since you asked for it, here you go: https://www.phoronix.com/review/ryzen-9600x-9700x

So you're saying this CPUI is unsuitable for gaming -- but then complain when a gamer-oriented site like TS rates the chip poorly? Your logical thinking skills need reevaluation.

TS only tests games? Oh, I saw pretty much other benchmarks too...

If TS wants to make GAME review about CPUs, then they should name that review to be about games only. Also they already told Zen5 architecture is a flop. And no single mention about best AVX512 implementation so far "".

 

[Manoa]

Programmers don't wanne use AVX3, becuase they affraid on one computer it can not work at all and on another will be verry slow (like, as slow as AVX2, becuase on all know processors when AVX is run even if not AVX3 iteself, the processor slowing himself down to make shure he is not overheating, that is the problem this Zen 5 is probably the first processor that dosen't slowing down when running AVX/3, and if you wonder about what will hapen on future programs you can be shure that programmers will not wright for only 1 processor that can run AVX3 this is whay Zen 5 is bad design choice (AVX3 or get out), AMD think they can tell programmers which vectorization to use they living in a movie. but I also remember AMD is low budget technology corporation and despite the (HUGE) discounts TSMC gived them, the nodes are limited, I don't think even if they had this "3nm" that TSMC gived to apple would maked mutch of a diffrence, but if they did gived them this node I blive they wouldn't need to reduce low-bit SIMD performance at all, could be AMD try to save money and choosed not to buy "3nm" from TSMC, could be that blueprints were alredy developed for TSMC N4 and then that was before "3nm" was ready (this things costs many money....), for customers I think the best is to decide if they can take advantage of AVX3

 

[Dr Roboto]

Looking at Tom's Hardware review data (I see them as reputable), this is what they got for the 9700X PBO compared to 7700X.

1080p = 21% (on par with the price increase)
1440p = 17% (a bit under achieving)
single-threaded = 10% (ouch)
multi-threaded = 47% (nice)

From my previous post above, here are the straightforward numbers from Tom's Hardware in an easy-to-understand format. Again, the 9700X is not a failure. It is not a revolution either. It is a mixed bag with some ups and downs.

Overall, it is probably a "meh" from a performance perspective for the average user, with a nice reduction in power usage. If you want the best gaming CPU, then you need to look at the X3D CPUs. The 9700X is not focused on gaming; its focus seems to be the 47% multi-thread gain, which is pretty impressive. However, those benchmarks can be hard to translate to real-world use for the average person.

The 9700X is not going to set the world on fire, especially given its pricing, and that is okay. If you care more about gaming, then this CPU looks more like a dud. If you care more about multi-thread applications, then it looks like a superhero. The rest of us are probably somewhere in the middle, and it feels "meh."

 

[HardReset]

Programmers don't wanne use AVX3, becuase they affraid on one computer it can not work at all and on another will be verry slow (like, as slow as AVX2, becuase on all know processors when AVX is run even if not AVX3 iteself, the processor slowing himself down to make shure he is not overheating, that is the problem this Zen 5 is probably the first processor that dosen't slowing down when running AVX/3, and if you wonder about what will hapen on future programs you can be shure that programmers will not wright for only 1 processor that can run AVX3 this is whay Zen 5 is bad design choice (AVX3 or get out), AMD think they can tell programmers which vectorization to use they living in a movie. but I also remember AMD is low budget technology corporation and despite the (HUGE) discounts TSMC gived them, the nodes are limited, I don't think even if they had this "3nm" that TSMC gived to apple would maked mutch of a diffrence, but if they did gived them this node I blive they wouldn't need to reduce low-bit SIMD performance at all, could be AMD try to save money and choosed not to buy "3nm" from TSMC, could be that blueprints were alredy developed for TSMC N4 and then that was before "3nm" was ready (this things costs many money....), for customers I think the best is to decide if they can take advantage of AVX3

To start, compilers make AVX3 code in addition to "normal" code paths, so it will run even without AVX3 support. I think I stop here.

No idea how you could put so much BS on such short post, but congratulations, I guess.

 

[Manoa]

It is not compilers that make code, it is programmers