New AMD processors are added to the growing list of Zen 4 generation for the AM5 socket. In this review we cover the new Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 9 with 8 and 12 cores, respectively, with an ultra-low power envelope
In the coming days, store shelves are expected to include three new AMD processors for the AM5 socket. After we introduced the four advanced processors with the suffix X that are designed for unbridled performance, now comes a trio of processors that actually have a bridle, and also an improved price tag.
An integral part of the process of launching a new processor base is also the launch of processors that come to serve any audience that is not the most ambitious audience for hardware. Part of the story is making sure that the power consumption is such that it allows these processors to operate on motherboards that are cheap to make and with simple coolers.
The three new Ryzen processors with a basic heat envelope of 65W are exactly like that. The Ryzen 5 7600, Ryzen 7 7700 and Ryzen 9 7900 are expected to delimit the lower part of each processor series for the AM5 bracket when they come with slightly more tamed frequencies and as a result also low heat emission.
While with the Ryzen 5 7600 you get a simple Wraith Stealth cooling in the package, with the Ryzen 7 7700 and Ryzen 9 7900 processors you get the Wraith Prism cooling which is suitable for a heat envelope of up to 105W. In practice, it is difficult to measure heat sinks for different heat envelopes simply because the effectiveness of heat transfer from processors to heat sinks has changed a lot in recent years.
We conducted a performance review for the Ryzen 5 7600 which you can find here. This review focuses on the performance of the new pair of AMD processors for the medium and high end market.
The Ryzen 9 7900 is a processor with 12 cores and 24 filaments. This is the most powerful processor available for the AM5 mount that comes with a 65W heat shield. Thanks to an advanced manufacturing process of 5 nanometers at the TSMC factory and a hybrid combination of different silicons for controller and processing cores, AMD was able to reach a situation where it continues to stretch the power of the hardware it releases under limited heat envelopes.
The operating frequencies of the Ryzen 9 7900 are considered to be quite aggressive with a maximum of 5.4GHz in an effort for short periods of time or as long as the cooling allows it. When we measured it during rendering, the frequency usually ranges between 4.9GHz and 5.0GHz. For 12 cores at less than 90W of actual power consumption? We have nothing to complain about. Intel has no equivalent product. More on actual power consumption later.
Ryzen 7 7700 is the mainstream of the mainstream. It is a processor with 8 cores and 16 filaments with a frequency that is set to reach 5.3GHz with effort as long as the cooling allows it. With a price tag of $329 with cooling included, we think it will become a popular choice among those looking to purchase a new AM5 platform-based PC system this generation.
We can totally understand why AMD’s octa-core processors have a successful history. It ranges from the reluctance of users to take a processor with an amount of cores that may limit them in heavy operations, and a degree that may seem a bit excessive and wasted with 12 cores.
Intel’s tough competition and the market situation
Currently the most powerful processor in the AM5 socket is the 16-core Ryzen 9 7950X and it is also the most expensive with a market price of $570. For a price of $429, The Ryzen 9 7900 is the direct competitor of the Core i7 13700K which is also sold today for about 415 dollars. The Ryzen 7 7700 will cost $329 and at a slightly lower price than that you will find the Core i5 13600K.
The Ryzen 5 7600 hits the market at a price of $229 which is expected to be a similar price to the recently announced Core i5 13500.
More with X processors was not easy for AMD. The prices today in the market only a few months since they were launched are tens of percent lower than their launch price due to the competition. When the flagship drops from $700 to $570 so quickly, you realize that AMD has no choice. The Core i9 13900K is very, very tough.
What AMD has that Intel doesn’t is overclocking capability for its new chips. Although, with a price tag that mostly resembles Intel’s K-suffix processors, we can’t help but wonder what this feature means on AMD’s side.
The examination system and the performance tests
For the examination of the new processors, we have started our examination system. We removed some of the old tests and introduced new tests. The performance tests are divided into two, with half of them dealing with content creation and general calculation operations, and the other half dealing with gaming with an advanced graphics card.
Our test system includes Microsoft’s Windows 11 operating system with the latest update as of this writing. The rest of the system components specification includes:
- Memory: Kingston Fury DDR5-5200 CL40 16GBx2 for general processing tests
- Memory: G.Skill Trident Z5 DDR5-6000 CL30 16GBx2 for gaming exams
- Power Supply: ASUS Thor 1200W Platinum
- Graphics Card: GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4090 Gaming OC 24GB
- CPU cooling: ASUS Ryujin 360 II
- storage: Kingston Fury Renegade NVMe 2TB PCIe 4.0 M.2
- Motherboard: ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Hero for Intel
- Motherboard: ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Hero for AMD
A new record of graphic power has been launched into the world of hardware and we are harnessing its power in order to present the performance of the various processors in games. In games, we tested the processors at three resolutions together with the GeForce RTX 4090. 1080p results are shown in green, 1440p results are shown in blue and 4K results are shown in orange. This performance represents average frames per second. Let’s start with the general processing exams.
In the general rendering ability of Cinebench, the performance of the non-X processors is close to the bottom of their big brothers. It is evident that the performance of the single core also does not reach the frequencies of the X processors, simply because they are not configured to reach these frequencies alone. To do this – manual overclocking is required. All in all, not bad, but Intel’s competition is very stubborn and the Core i5 13600KF is significantly ahead of the Ryzen 7 7700 here.
In compression and deployment using 7ZIP, the dependency is mainly in the cache memory and memory traffic, and here we see similar results between using X and non-X processors. In this software, the Ryzen 9 7900 leads over the Core i7 13700K and this is a noteworthy victory. The Ryzen 7 7700 is a bit behind the 12900K.
In the Photoshop and Lightroom tests there is a division according to which the Intel processors in the market segment are usually a little more powerful in Photoshop but a little less in Lightroom. This story continues here as the Ryzen 9 7900 demonstrates excellent Lightroom performance, as strong as that of the Core i7 13700K but in Photoshop significantly less. The Ryzen 5 7600X is the most efficient and cheapest processor for Lightroom at the top of the table.
For Photoshop – if it’s not Ryzen 9 7950X, it’s better to be Intel.
Intensive rendering in V-RAY shows us the balance of power when it comes to full utilization of cores for multi-length rendering needs. In this situation, the Ryzen 7 7900 does not reach 13700K performance, but the X model compares power with the Intel processor. This is good news for anyone who likes overclocking on the AMD side.
The Ryzen 7 7700 and 7700X performed quite well, probably due to thermal limitations. This pair of processors finished a little behind the Core i7 12700F and this is not really good news for anyone who wants a processor purely for rendering speed. The more powerful Core i5 13600KF only increases this gap.
In terms of rendering speed in the Blender software, the Ryzen 7 7900 and 7900X are behind and ahead of the Core i7 13700K, respectively. You can call it a draw in this market segment. The Ryzen 7 7700 is not in a particularly happy place compared to the Core i5 13600KF but is significantly faster than the Core i5 12600K.
In Handbrake’s video conversion test AMD processors deliver a rather lukewarm performance with even the Ryzen 9 7900 being behind the Core i5 13600KF.
In Overwatch 2, the balance of power is built mainly on high frequency, a little more than on the number of cores. While the importance is lower at 1080p, we see that even at resolutions more graphic card dependent the three new AMD processors are not particularly alert, not even at 4K. We tested them multiple times to verify these results.
In Horizon Zero Dawn everything is good, everything is excellent even with AMD when the new 65W processors are in a healthy place and even before Intel when there is a partial dependence on the processor speed.
In Borderlands 3 AMD processors bring quite satisfactory results, there is no lack of performance here at all.
In Forza 5 the 65W CPU mode shows the disadvantages of the tough thermal envelope when the mode is at the CPU limit. The amount of production of their maximum frames per second is not very successful and reminds of mid-market processors of the previous generation. Although, as soon as you switch to video card dependent mode (the optimal mode), the performance aligns with that of the fastest processors. In practice, there is no need to worry about their performance in this title, at least not right now.
Power consumption, heat and overclocking
Here’s a part worth AMD showing off. You can always talk about performance that is not competitive, or at a price that could benefit from a discount, but there is one thing that is indisputable – the new AMD processors in a 65W heat envelope are super-efficient processors. We see sticking to the maximum power consumption of just under 90W for all three new models.
It is important to put some order in the terms in order to clear your head. A heat envelope of 65W means that the heatsink that will fit these processors is one that is configured to handle 65W. The actual power consumption or PPT is set to a maximum of 88W on the three new processors. 88W is the power that reaches the bracket.
There is always the option to cancel the power limits and this is how it looks when trying to use the Noctua NH-D15S heatsink with an ambient temperature of 22 degrees Celsius. We are getting close to 95 degrees Celsius, which is the temperature at which the processor frequency dropped, but we don’t get there. Of course, with a more realistic ambient temperature for cases of 30 degrees and more, we will reach a situation similar to the situation in the X processors where we are “stuck” at 95 degrees with an effort and frequency that decreases accordingly without allowing it to increase from there.
This is what it looked like when we turned on the PBO switch in the Ryzen Master software for the top pair of 65W Ryzen processors.
The effect of enabling PBO is that multi-core performance equaled and even slightly surpassed that of the X processors in the same series. Single-core performance remained slightly lower, simply because the maximum single-core frequency for the X processors is set higher. PBO operation does not mean reaching the highest possible frequency, but simply the one possible without power consumption limitations.
Those interested in more advanced overclocking can always do so through the BIOS or Ryzen Master. There is always room for further performance improvement.
In the heat department – AMD’s Wraith Prism coolers do a good job at all. With both Ryzen 7 7700 and Ryzen 9 7900 using the Wraith Prism we did not reach 95 degrees Celsius as long as the CPUs remained at default settings. With the Ryzen 9 7900 we finished just under 80 degrees Celsius and with the Ryzen 7 7700 a little above (however, a single core group vs. two with better heat dissipation).
We live in a time when advanced air coolers can cost less than NIS 100 for personal import – it’s worth investing in, in any case.
Summary – AMD’s challenge requires accessibility
The three new AMD processors are a respectable addition to the company’s product line. It was requested that more accessible processors join its four X processors at lower prices when the 16-core class does not receive an electrically efficient version, probably to maintain its premium status.
It is important to look at the performance tests, not only ours, but from as many sources as possible and form an opinion about the performance of the new processors against the user’s main uses.
In general, with a price tag that does not break the market, processors such as the Ryzen 9 7900 need to reach a market that is still mostly bought by Intel and change the minds of consumers, and when the competition in the form of the Core i7 13700K looks the way it does, it is a very difficult task, even if it is an electrically efficient processor The size of a whole generation ahead.
The Ryzen 7 7700 has an even tougher task. The cheaper Core i5 13600KF makes a mess of the 7700X model. The Ryzen 7 7700 model comes at a similar price tag with lesser performance and has to compete for the hearts of users.
There are bright spots with the three new processors. First thing – lower price tags and an included heatsink is a nice bonus, second thing – overclocking should never be niche and special. Have you purchased processors from the new series and do you want performance like the X model? All that separates you from this is a proper heat sink, and it doesn’t have to be a fancy water cooling kit. A few clicks to enable PBO in BIOS or Ryzen Master software is all that is needed. The processor will take care of the rest, including frequency regulation if you reach a high temperature.
The entry card for the AM5 socket remains very stiff, and this is an issue that AMD must address. Even if you chose one of the cheaper processors such as Ryzen 5 7600 or Ryzen 7 7700, the price of the cheapest motherboards for the AM5 mount still ranges between NIS 850-1000. Compared to Intel’s B660-based motherboards that can cost hundreds of shekels less, this is a situation that is far from optimal.
Several months after the launch of the AM5 bracket and its four chipsets, it doesn’t look like the state of the entry-level market will improve significantly. It is possible that a new discounted chipset for the AM5 socket will arrive soon, but there is also a high chance that it will arrive with limited or eliminated overclocking options, which will erase a good consumer advantage that exists in the new Ryzen processors.
We’ll continue to give AMD full credit for the majority of motherboards for its bracket supporting overclocking, and for the entire line of processors without exception supporting overclocking. It’s a consumer-friendly move and friendly to the aspirant who wants to get more for his money.
We really like the ambitious overclocking side of the new processors. We’ve always admired the ability to take a cheap product and make it better with a little work, and that enjoyment from AMD processors Intel can’t take away in this generation. Although, the order of priorities is such that absolute performance should be prioritized over functions that in the end still will not lead us to a significant change in actual results.
“Okay, what would you recommend changing?” – In the world of computers where the world of CPU coolers is as developed as it is? It’s time to get rid of packaged coolers and renovate the price a little. $399, $299 and $199 respectively for the three new processors, without cooling in the package, combined with all the existing overclocking capabilities is something that will create significantly desirable products. Easy PBO activation is already included, and we are glad that such a thing exists. If we have to bet on it, we might be seeing those price tags not too long from now anyway.
It will be interesting to see how the price dynamics of the new processors combined with the motherboards will look in the local market. We hope for competitive prices so that AMD can demonstrate its well-known and strong side, the one that provides a lot of processing power at an accessible price. There are no slow processors in this generation, there are only less fast processors.