AMD Ryzen 7 9700X CPU Review: 8-Core Zen 5 at $359

Brent_Justice

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Introduction AMD’s Ryzen 9000 series CPUs based on the new Zen 5 architecture are launching and will be available in retail soon on store shelves and online retailers. Announced at Computex 2024, the AMD Ryzen 9000 series CPUs and Zen 5 architecture launch a new generation from AMD on the client, desktop PC segment for […]

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I'm sorry. LESS Power draw, Slower Clock. But so much IPC gain that it out performs it's previous generation.

I can not WAIT to see the 9950 and 9900 reviews!!! (Especially when you get the new gen of motherboard chipsets!)
 
So all we get basically this go-around is better power-efficiency.. I mean, that's all well and good but this was AMD's chance to put their foot on Intel's throat and they missed the mark...

Thank you Brent for a thorough review as always!
 
Space_Ranger said:
So all we get basically this go-around is better power-efficiency.. I mean, that's all well and good but this was AMD's chance to put their foot on Intel's throat and they missed the mark...

Thank you Brent for a thorough review as always!
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How do you figure they missed the mark? the 9700x is out performing in many cases systems with more threads from Intel.

Maybe if the 9900x is loosing to the 14700k you will have a point.

But an 8 core processor trading blows with 20 and more thread CPU's from the competitor is impressive. And for FAR less power?! AND lower GHZ rating. That's an IPC and Power improvement on an impressive scale.

Missed the mark... do you work for intel marketing? Or did you just misread the article?
 
Grimlakin said:
Missed the mark... do you work for intel marketing? Or did you just misread the article?
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Nah, think @Space_Ranger may have not realized that these are basically i5 competitors, but also are falling between 14th gen and whatever comes next from Intel. Weird place to be.

Space_Ranger said:
I mean, that's all well and good but this was AMD's chance to put their foot on Intel's throat and they missed the mark...
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Intel was barely holding on to any 'marks' up to this point. 7800X3D erased really any reason to go Intel purely for gaming aside from cost or wanting something that is only available on the Intel platform.

Space_Ranger said:
So all we get basically this go-around is better power-efficiency
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Higher IPC, efficiency, and lower temperatures. There's still overclocking to consider, could be plenty of headroom above 88W stock, and the thermal improvement bodes well for overclocking as well as for the eventual X3D releases.
 
Grimlakin said:
How do you figure they missed the mark? the 9700x is out performing in many cases systems with more threads from Intel.

Maybe if the 9900x is loosing to the 14700k you will have a point.

But an 8 core processor trading blows with 20 and more thread CPU's from the competitor is impressive. And for FAR less power?! AND lower GHZ rating. That's an IPC and Power improvement on an impressive scale.

Missed the mark... do you work for intel marketing? Or did you just misread the article?
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Yeah idk, it feels like techtubers are missing the mark on this one and people are just being dense.
 
Grimlakin said:
How do you figure they missed the mark? the 9700x is out performing in many cases systems with more threads from Intel.

Maybe if the 9900x is loosing to the 14700k you will have a point.

But an 8 core processor trading blows with 20 and more thread CPU's from the competitor is impressive. And for FAR less power?! AND lower GHZ rating. That's an IPC and Power improvement on an impressive scale.

Missed the mark... do you work for intel marketing? Or did you just misread the article?
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I didn't misread the article. I did take other reviews into my OPINION on the matter. If having an opinion you don't like placing me in "Intel Marketing" territory, then so be it..
 
Space_Ranger said:
I didn't misread the article. I did take other reviews into my OPINION on the matter. If having an opinion you don't like placing me in "Intel Marketing" territory, then so be it..
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No it just seems way off the mark of the review. And others in have seen this far. To be fair inhacent hunted for ones either.

Personally excited for the 9900x and the 9950x
 
Thanks, @Brent_Justice for the thorough review. Glad to see the single-threaded performance gains and improved power efficiency. I'll probably be holding out for a bit longer but still keeping track of AM5 progress and happy to see CPUs like this making their strides.
 
@Brent_Justice
Yeah I would like to echo Peters comment, that was a great review.
The title picture is a bit cheeky tho.... =)
 
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I did not see it mentioned but I have not read everything, how is RAM and/or system stability? I seen techtubers having lot's of issues with RAM speeds and crashing of benchmarks.

I need to see this improved b4 I will consider these CPU's (the 3D variants anyways)
 
Denpepe said:
I did not see it mentioned but I have not read everything, how is RAM and/or system stability? I seen techtubers having lot's of issues with RAM speeds and crashing of benchmarks.

I need to see this improved b4 I will consider these CPU's (the 3D variants anyways)
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@Brent_Justice can probably expand more on this...

1. We haven't had stability issues with our systems.
2. We're using AMD's suggested configuration, which is essentially the X670E board and EXPO ram kit that they shipped for the Zen 4 launch reviews. We haven't dabbled with various configurations.
3. We're using a very new bios for the board that AMD sent us (that is not released yet to my knowledge).
4. The motherboard/bios combination is what is setting FCLK in EXPO mode. Our board is setting it to 2100MHz - different boards will set it to different values, however, AMD says that if you're not stable at 2100MHz (as it's going to depend on CPU quality and board), to drop the FCLK manually to 2000MHz (in non EXPO mode it runs even lower than this). I suspect this could be part of what the TechTubers are running into is having a board/CPU combo that doesn't like the board's selected FCLK.
 
I will echo what David said. So far, I have only seen 1 TechTuber report stability issues, but I haven't watched a ton of videos yet. I do not know if stability problems are a widespread issue. For my testing, I had absolutely no stability problems with the 9700X and 9600X. I actually tried 2 different BIOS's on the ROG CROSSHAIR X670E HERO I'm using, first, the official public BIOS from ASUS prior to the launch, which was version 2124 dated 7/19, this BIOS is based on AGESA Combo AM5 PI 1.2.0.0a. I had no problems at all with the 9700X on this BIOS. Second, I updated to BIOS 2201 provided by AMD, it is still based on Combo AM5 PI 1.2.0.0a but adds a PatchA for improvements with 12c and 16c Zen 5 CPUs, that's the only difference in that BIOS, but I also had no problems with that. Right now, ASUS has an even newer one on their website, 2204, but I have not used it yet, it only became available on the 5th, and it says the exact same Combo AM5 PI 1.2.0.0a PatchA version as the one AMD sent.

David hit the nail on the head with FCLK. It is possible some might experience issues on certain CPUs/RAM/Mobo combos with a higher 2100MHz (or higher) FCLK (Infinity Fabric). The "sweet spot/safe spot" for stability is 2000MHz. In the one video I saw, of the tech tuber having stability issues, they did manually set it to 2000MHz. So beyond that, I don't know what else would case stability issues. But, surely you may see some differences in both performance benchmarks, and stability, based on the motherboard/RAM a reviewer is using for reviews, so as I stated in our YouTube video, make sure to always check the Test Setup page for any review you read online, to see what they are running.

For me, and the hardware I'm using, this launch was super smooth. The only thing that I questioned was the performance I experienced, I felt it to be below expectations, therefore I exchanged a lot of messages back and forth with AMD to share my concerns, and experiences and compare benchmarking performance. AMD actually re-ran several benchmarks in their labs, of what I was using, so we could compare notes and validate performance. There was a good interaction there with AMD, and AMD was very tentative about my experiences in regards to the performance that I experienced.
 
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Great review. I sat out the last round, still on AM4 5700x. I hope the AM5 mobos that are in the wild will at least boot and allow a firmware update, if I end up buying a Microcenter bundle or whatever.
 
I'm going to wait on the new chipset because I'll ride that combo for a least a couple years.
 
AM4, one for the history books for sure. Nothing really wrong with AM5 and some nice features for sure but AM4 has stood the test of time for just getting the job done.

Just checked, coming up on its 8-year anniversary in September.
 
Peter_Brosdahl said:
AM4, one for the history books for sure. Nothing really wrong with AM5 and some nice features for sure but AM4 has stood the test of time for just getting the job done.

Just checked, coming up on its 8-year anniversary in September.
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Absolutely.. AMD did good on their promise of making AM4 last for 5+ years.. One reason why I have stuck with their CPU products of late. When the next generation of motherboards come out, is when I foresee my home system getting its much warranted upgrade.
 
Peter_Brosdahl said:
AM4, one for the history books for sure. Nothing really wrong with AM5 and some nice features for sure but AM4 has stood the test of time for just getting the job done.

Just checked, coming up on its 8-year anniversary in September.
Click to expand...

I agree and also disagree.

The long term support is nice and on one side I'm all for it, but this makes it hard for them to keep supporting it, leads to some annoying sideeeffects making it also a pita, they had to lend CPU's to people to flash their bios so the CPU they bought would actually work with their mobo.

Also their first series of Eyzen motherboards were basic as hell as none of the big brands seemed to have faith in them succeeding leading to too small bios chips for all the CPU's is would need to support etc.

And if you require up to date features you had to upgrade the mobo anyways
 
Peter_Brosdahl said:
AM4, one for the history books for sure. Nothing really wrong with AM5 and some nice features for sure but AM4 has stood the test of time for just getting the job done.

Just checked, coming up on its 8-year anniversary in September.
Click to expand...

I was gonna say socket 7 / super 7 but after some googling those were done by 99 when slot-1 came out for the P2
 
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