AMD Ryzen 9000 Series Review – 9600X & 9700X
Conclusion
Conclusion
Often when there is a new CPU on the market we also get a ton of motherboards along with them. Due to the way AMD ensure that you get the longest lifespan from your purchases, currently the AM5 motherboards are just a BIOS update away from supporting these new Ryzen 9000 series processors. This has meant that there is less of a rush to get the 800 series chipsets to market. They’ll be with us really soon, but they don’t need to be here today to get the most from these CPUs.
Similarly new hardware usually arrives in our office as the flagship model first, with the ones that we can all actually afford following on later. AMD have reversed this trend too, bring us the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X first and foremost, and the beefy Ryzen 9s currently in the hands of a courier. It allows us to really focus in on what the 9000 Series is bringing to the party. The headline elements are as follows;
Firstly, that AMD have trimmed the TDP from the 105W of the previous models to 65W without compromising performance at all. That’s almost unheard of. We know efficiency is a key focus for all the big manufacturers, and AMD have laid down a marker. If you want to save a little money on your cooler you can get Ryzen 7 7700X equivalent performance at much lower temperatures. Should, however, you want to push the boat out then the lower TDP, and thus cooler temperatures, bring massive headroom. Our 360mm AIO saw excellent temperatures as you saw a couple of pages ago. Indeed we ended up with 30°C of thermal headroom before the processor would hit TJMax. Overclockers, get to your starting positions.
Secondly, the pricing is decently competitive. The Ryzen 5 9600X is probably the least exciting at £269.99. That fits in above the Intel Core i5-14500 which boasts 14 cores and 20 threads whilst still having a 65W TDP. On the other hand the Ryzen 7 9700X has an expected retail price of £339.99. That’s 8 Cores, 16 Threads, 65W TDP. By comparison the nearest priced Intel option is the Core i5-14600K which is around £320 for 14 Cores and 20 Threads, but at 125W TDP.
Thirdly, and perhaps most interestingly, is AMDs reinforcement of an existing strength. They’ve always had fantastic memory performance, and the new CPUs go above and beyond. We managed to push our G.Skill Trident kit on the MSI MEG Ace to 8000MHz without needing to tweak anything at all. Just install it, pick the speed, done. If you’ve been working with high speed DDR5, or seen our recent memory reviews, you’ll know this isn’t exactly commonplace. Kudos to AMD for not resting on their laurels.
Whilst raw performance might be very close to the 7000 series Ryzen CPUs we currently have available, the promise of the 800 chipsets, more efficient performance and insane memory speeds make the Ryzen 9000 Series processors an attractive proposition. Especially if you’re on the 5000 or earlier ones. Thus they win our OC3D Performance Award.
