Ryzen 9 7900, Ryzen 7 7700 and Ryzen 5 7600: Zen 4 CPUs with 65W TDP tested

After four Ryzen 7000 “X” CPUs with TDPs of 170W and 105W, AMD expand the family witha trio of CPUs characterized by a 65W TDP to occupy lower price and performance ranges.Ryzen 9 7900, Ryzen 7 7700 and Ryzen 5 7600are based onZen architecture 4 and, as such, continue to offer PCI Express 5.0 connectivity, DDR5 memory support, RDNA 2 integrated graphics, and more.

Compared to the CPUs that have already been on the market for a few months, the substantial change is represented by the lower frequencies and the positioning on lower price ranges. Even these models remain “unlocked”, therefore overclockable by those who want it both on X670/E and B650/E motherboards. No more talk, let’s see what are the specifications of these new CPUs.

The Ryzen 9 7900 provides 12 cores and 24 threads76 MB of overall cache (L2+L3) and a clock of 3.8 / 5.4GHz. The sale price is $429. Compared to the 7900X, the clear decrease in the base clock is evident (3.8 against 4.7 GHz), while the boost clock is “only” 200 MHz lower. The list price, on the other hand, is 120 dollars lower than the 549 dollars indicated at the debut for the X model.

Template	Core	Threads	Base clock	Boost clocks	L2+L3 cache	iGPU	TDP	Price launch
Ryzen 9 7950X	16	32	4.5GHz	5.7GHz	80MB	St	170W	$699
Ryzen 9 7900X	12	24	4.7GHz	5.6GHz	76MB	St	170W	$549
Ryzen 9 7900	12	24	3.8GHz	5.4GHz	76MB	St	65W	$429
Ryzen 7 7700X	8	16	4.5GHz	5.4GHz	40MB	St	105W	$399
Ryzen 7 7700	8	16	3.8GHz	5.3GHz	40MB	St	65W	$329
Ryzen 5 7600X	6	12	4.7GHz	5.3GHz	38MB	St	105W	$299
Ryzen 5 7600	6	12	3.8GHz	5.1GHz	38MB	St	65W	$229

The Ryzen 7 7000 provides 8 cores and 16 threads40MB cache and it works at 3.8 / 5.3GHz. Compared to the 7700X model we see a drop in the base clock of 700 MHz and a lower boost clock of 100 MHz. The price of $329 is $70 lower than the launch price of the 7700X. Finally, here is the Ryzen 5 7600 with 6 cores and 12 threadsthe “usual” base clock of 3.8GHz and a boost clock of 5.1GHz (-200 MHz vs 7600X): This CPU is priced at $229, down from the 7600X’s $299 launch price.

it is good to underline that in these price lists also including a bundled heatsink in the case of the 7900 and 7700 models a Wraith Prism with RGB LEDs, while for the 7600 a Wraith Stealth. There isn’t much to say about these solutions which, like the others, are compatible with the AM5 socket, so let’s go straight to the tests.

Test setup

The following are the components used for testing these processors.

• Operating system: Windows 11 Pro Italian
• M.2 SSD: Samsung SSD 980 Pro 2TB
• Memory amount: 2x16GB
• Video Card: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080Ti Founders Edition
• Power Supply:Cooler Master V850 Platinum
• Video Driver: NVIDIA GeForce 516.94 WHQL

AMD Ryzen 5000 platform

• ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Extreme motherboard
• Memory: G.Skill DDR4-3600 16-19-19-19-39 1T

AMD Ryzen 7000 platform

• ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Hero motherboard
• Memory: G.Skill Trident Z5 DDR5-6000 30-38-38-38-96

Intel Core 11000 platform

• Asus ROG Maximus XIII Hero Wi-Fi motherboard
• Memory: G.Skill Trident Z DDR4-320015-15-15-36 1T

Intel Core 12000 platform

• MSI MPG Z690 Carbon WiFi motherboard
• Memory: Corsair Vengeance DDR5-5200 38-38-38-84

Intel Core 13000 platform

• ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 Extreme motherboard
• Memory: Corsair Vengeance DDR5-5600 30-38-38-38-96

Below are the different applications used in the evaluation of processors:

• Povray 3.7.0
• Cinebench 23
• Blender 3.3
• Corona Benchmark 1.3
• Indigo benchmark v4.4.15
• KeyShot Viewer 11.2.1
• 3DF Zephyr Lite
• Agisoft Metashape
• V-Ray 5 benchmarks
• 7-Zip 22.01
• Winrar 6.11
• Handbrake 1.5.1 – 64bit
• Davinci Resolve 18.0.3
• Procyon
• PCMark 10

Games, resolution: 1920×1080 and 2560×1440

• Shadows of the Tomb Raider – DX 12 high quality, TAA
• F1 2022 DX12 – high quality, TAA anti aliasing, 16x anisotropic, Monaco, Heavy Rain
• Far Cry 6 – High Quality – Anti Aliasing TA
• Metro Exodus – high quality setting
• Dirt 5 – high quality, select all 3 resolutions fixed, RTX off, dynamic resolution off
• Borderlands 3 – high setting
• Hitman 3 – extra setting, variable rate shading off, HDR off, Ray tracing off, DLSS quality

You consume

The consumption measured upstream of the power supply shows us a slightly high demand from AMD’s new 65W CPUs at idle, while under load the situation highlights the clear decrease in consumption between the 7900X and the 7900.

Ryzen 9 7900, Ryzen 7 7700 and Ryzen 5 7600 performance

Calculation

The first part of this performance analysis of the three processors starts from pure computing applications, those that most of all make the most of the availability of a large number of cores operating in parallel.

The first two tests, Cinebench and Povray, can also be run in single thread mode so as to highlight the specific processing power of each processor at the single core level. The three new Ryzen, by virtue of a lower base frequency than the X counterparts, leave some performance by the wayside: the 7600 close to the 12600K and the 7700 to the previous generation 12700K.

Moving on to the multi-core environment, we notice a scenario similar to the single-core environment, where the operating frequencies in the particular juncture affect the overall performance, with lower results for the non-X models. The gaps are growing, with the models equipped more cores that show how the TDP limited to 65W impacts a lot, especially compared to 170W solutions.

Even with the other pure computing applications the above is confirmed, with the latest proposals from AMD and Intel fighting and exchanging positions depending on the test.

Compression and decompression

With applications related to file compression and decompression, a high number of cores is always well exploited, but even a high clock frequency can tangibly affect the final result.

The AMD Ryzen 7000 series CPUs perform very well in this application area, and in particular we observe how the 7700 performs quite unexpectedly exceptionally well compared to its 7700X counterpart.

Multimedia

Multimedia applications are generally very dependent on the number of cores available, although not as markedly as those related to pure computing; they also scale their performance very well with increasing clock frequency, especially when not all cores can be exploited in parallel.

The lower base frequency and slightly lower boost value take a toll on the performance of these 65W CPUs which, while remaining solid, are seen leapfrogged in some tests by other processors that the X versions leave behind.

Personal productivity

With the two personal productivity packages we observe the new 65W CPUs always behind the X counterparts, but not so much: in this situation the combination of advanced architecture and sufficiently high frequencies mean that these models guarantee a fast and reactive system.

Games

In the analysis with the games we used an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition video card at resolutions of 1920×1080 and 2560×1440 pixels, selecting high quality settings but not pushed to the maximum so as to make sure that the generated frames per second depended more on the power of calculation of the matched processor and less from the video card. For this reason we excluded testing at 4K resolution, as this is typically limited by the computing power of the GPU and only marginally affected by the processor chosen.

The three new CPUs from AMD offer excellent gaming performance, in many games not so different from those of their counterparts already on the market: the lower price and lower consumption make them excellent proposals for those who aspire to have a handy PC but without spend excessively.

Conclusions

Ryzen 9 7900, Ryzen 7 7700 and Ryzen 5 7600 they keep the same number of cores and threads of their X counterparts but due to the limited 65W TDP they operate at generally lower frequencies, particularly in heavy load scenarios. With lighter loads, however, the peak frequencies above 5 GHz are not too different from the solutions and this allows us to offer solid performance on the gaming front.

If you look at the summary graphs below, you can see how there is actually a pronounced gap between the 7900X and the 7900, while for the other two models and their respective older brothers they are separated, but less. In gaming, the differences are negligible, which argues in favor of the new proposals, perhaps in combination with a not too expensive motherboard with a B650 chipset.

As for prices, AMD has communicated to us a SEP price list of 275 euros for the Ryzen 5 7600, 395 euros for the Ryzen 7 7700 and 515 euros for the Ryzen 9 7900. These are price lists that clash with the prices of the not too much X models higher and sometimes even lower: however, it must be taken into account that the proposals already on the market for months have come out of a period of strong Christmas discounts and good availability, while the new models, as always, will have to have a few weeks of running-in to settle on prices that will inevitably have to be inferior to more powerful counterparts. Also, we’ll have to see how these new solutions compare to Intel’s Core 13000 65W PBP offerings, just announced by Intel at CES 2023.

What we can conclude is that these CPUs offer good performance in various areas and can satisfy both gamers and content creators because they do not make any sacrifices, except in terms of frequencies.

However, the advice is to always opt for third-party heatsinks (high-end air or liquid), especially for the Ryzen 7 7900 with 12 cores, although the bundled heatsinks still guarantee their use, even if not with a profile ideal of performance and noise.