AMD Ryzen 5 9600X And Ryzen 7 9700X Review: Finally Time To Upgrade?

After a week’s delay, the Ryzen 9000 series desktop processors and Zen 5 architecture are finally here, starting with the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X, which will have retail availability from 8th August, followed by the Ryzen 9 9900X and Ryzen 9 9950X on 15th August. Today we’ll be comparing the new CPUs to various current and older models to see if you should upgrade your PC and just how fast they are.

AMD Ryzen 9000 specifications

At launch AMD is offering four new models and two we’re reviewing today – the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X. All have the same core counts as the previous three generations, starting with six cores with the Ryzen 5 9600X, eight cores with the Ryzen 7 9700X, 12 cores with the Ryzen 9 9900X and 16 cores with the Ryzen 9 9950X.

Frequencies are roughly the same as the Ryzen 7000 series, for example with the Ryzen 9 9950X featuring the same peak boost frequency as the Ryzen 9 7950X of 5.7GHz, while others see modest increases such as the 100MHz boost the Ryzen 5 9600X enjoys over the Ryzen 5 7600X. You can see my video review of the new CPUs below.

AMD Ryzen 9000 pricing

AMD has officially released pricing for the Ryzen 5 9600X ($279) and Ryzen 7 9700X ($359) today, which appears to be identical to the leaked pricing last week at Newegg and BestBuy, which is great news because it pointed at reduced prices for all four CPUs. The pricing in the table above is official for the Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7, but the two Ryzen 9 models use the leaked pricing that appears to be accurate, but for now treat it as unofficial.

What’s The difference between Ryzen 7000’s Zen 4 and Ryzen 9000’s Zen 5 architecture?

With cores and frequencies being roughly the same as the Ryzen 7000 series, AMD is pinning its hopes on the new Zen 5 architecture for performance improvements. The obvious change, which has been a key feature of AMD launches since Ryzen landed in 2017, is a shrinking of the manufacturing process. Ryzen 7000 CPUs were built using a 5nm process – Zen 5 will transition to 4nm bringing with it lower power requirements that are a feature of a smaller process.

It’s other refinements that contribute to a claimed 16 percent boost to the instructions per cycle (IPC), though, which is how fast a processor is clock for clock compared to previous generations. Frequency increases performance, but the amount of work a processor does during each clock cycle is just as important for performance and it’s that which has increased by a claimed 16 percent with Zen 5.

This is thanks to tweaks such as improved data prefetching, doubling of the L1 cache bandwidth and a 16-way rather than 8-way associative L2 cache design. So, even though core counts and frequencies remain similar, the CPUs do more work per cycle and are more efficient.

The Best cooler for Ryzen 9000?

Socket AM4 coolers are compatible with the new Socket AM5, so long as they don’t require the use of the custom backplate, which the vast majority don’t, so the good news is you can probably reuse your old cooler if it’s compatible with Socket AM4.

AMD has improved the thermal interface between the CPU and heatspreader, which is claims results in a 7°C drop in temperatures with the same TDP (power rating). I saw a peak temperature of 55°C with a liquid cooling system but even modest air coolers should cope with the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X, which have TDP’s of only 65W. This is good news since Ryzen 7000 CPUs were known to run hot out out of the box, although could be made to run cooler by tweaking and undervolting.

What memory do you need for Ryzen 9000?

AMD decided not to support DDR4 memory on its new Socket AM5 platform. Initially prices of DDR5 memory were high resulting in high entry costs to the new platform as enthusiasts had to invest not just in new motherboards and CPUs, but expensive DDR5 memory too. Thankfully prices are now not much above the price of DDR4 memory.

The new CPUs will support higher memory speeds of up to DDR5 8000/ 8000MT/s. However, you’ll see diminishing returns above DDR5 6400 as this is still the sweet spot for Zen 5 CPUs as it was for Zen 4. Memory prices are come down a lot since Socket AM5 launched and DDR6000 kits can be found for less than $100, while DDR6400 costs a little more at around $105 for the cheapest kits. It’s also worth opting for an AMD EXPO-enabled kit too. This will ensure the memory is optimised for your AMD system.

Ryzen 9000 test system

I used an Asus ROG Strix X670E-E Gaming WiFi, 32GB of Kingston DDR5 6000 memory and an Nvidia RTX4090 graphics card to test the AMD CPUs, with a fresh install of Windows 11 with the latest updates and drivers. My test system uses a liquid cooling loop and I used a be quiet! Dark Power 12 1000W power supply.

AMD Ryzen 9000 Cyberpunk 2077 Performance

The Ryzen 7 9700X performed brilliantly in Cyberpunk 2077, even managing to outstrip the Intel Core i9-14900K. However, the Ryzen X3D CPUs sat at the top of the graph a way out in front so it’s clear they still offer the best gaming performance in certain titles. The Ryzen 5 9600X meanwhile performed well, but older CPUs and those with fewer than eight cores seem to struggle here, but it did manage to match the Core i7-14700K even if it wasn’t much ahead of the Ryzen 5 7600X with a similar situation at 1440p. It should also be noted that we enabled ray tracing and DLSS in this game as it can be tough to get playable frame rates without it.

AMD Ryzen 9000 Counter Strike 2 performance

As a high pace twitch FPS game, every frame counts in Counter Strike 2, and while the Ryzen 7 9700X wasn’t a big upgrade from the Ryzen 7 7700X, only AMD X3D models managed noticeably higher frame rates and even Intel’s Core i9-14900K wasn’t much faster. The Ryzen 5 9600X was well ahead of the Ryzen 5 7600X and a match for the Core i5-14600K too. Stepping up to 1440p generally sees less of a load on the CPU, but for some reason this favored the two new Ryzen 9000 CPUs which placed third and fourth – a fantastic result and likely due to their excellent lightly-threaded performance that we’ll look at in a minute.

AMD Ryzen 9000 Assassin’s Creed: Mirage performance

At both 1080p and 1440p both the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X offered small gains over their predecessors while leapfrogging several more powerful CPUs from previous generations. It’s clear the CPU has reduced impact at 1440p but again the only CPU at 1080p that offered a significant advantage over the Ryzen 7 9700X was the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, while the Ryzen 5 9600X sat well above its price tag.

AMD Ryzen 9000 Microsoft Flight Simulator

Another game that responded well to the Ryzen 9000 CPUs, Flight Simulator again saw the Ryzen 7 9700X only bettered by the Ryzen 7 7800X3D at both resolutions with a stunning third place in the graph, while the Ryzen 5 9600X actually had a slightly higher average frame rate at 1080p, although the test can be a little inconsistent. Still it was a great result for both CPUs.

AMD Ryzen 9000 Photoshop performance

In Photoshop, the Ryzen 9000 CPUs came top in an fantastic result, with this test often preferring AMD CPUs and the Zen 5 architecture capitalizing on this with the best results of any CPUs.

AMD Ryzen 9000 Davinci Resolve performance

If you’re a Davinci Resolve fan rather than Premiere Pro, then Ryzen 9000 doesn;t really offer much more than an incremental benefit compared to the Ryzen 7000 series and in this software more cores are king, meaning that Intel has an advantage.

AMD Ryzen 9000 Premiere Pro performance

A similar result to Davinci, Premiere Pro saw incremental gains generation on generation and Intel again has an advantage in performance, but at significantly higher power levels as we’ll see in a minute.

AMD Ryzen 9000 Lightroom and Photoshop performance

A combined Lightroom and Photoshop test, once again we have the two Ryzen 9000 CPUs outperforming everything else, proving beyond doubt the Zen 5 architecture’s prowess in photo editing applications.

AMD Ryzen 9000 Cinebench performance

It’s raw multi-threaded performance that sees AMD struggling but that’s to be expected when relying on architectural improvements to boost performance rather than core count increases. Still, there were resonable gains over the previous generation, but again Intel’s extra cores help it to an advantage.

However, below we can see the single-core test that reveals the reason behind the lightly-threaded prowess of the Zen architecture with the Ryzen 9000 CPUs sitting at the top of the graph.

AMD Ryzen 9000 HandBrake performance

Another multi-threaded test, HandBrake saw a similar result to the video editing tests with small gains and higher core count CPUs faring better.

AMD Ryzen 9000 power consumption

Now remembering the advantage Intel had thanks to higher core counts, the issue there is its CPUs’ massive power consumption compared to Ryzen 9000. Both the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X are extremely power frugal and efficient, drawing a huge amount less power than the Ryzen 7000 series and a vast amount less than Intel’s similarly priced CPUs. The Core i5-14600K for example drew nearly 150W more than the Ryzen 7 9700X, which outperformed it in most tests outside multi-threaded workloads. The Core i7-14700K added another 75W to that figure and was also matched or bettered by the Ryzen 7 9700X in some tests.

AMD Ryzen 9000 Conclusions

It’s clear that the Zen 5 architecture is efficient, power frugal and sports decent IPC gains over the previous generation that manifest themselves most in lightly-threaded workloads and games. The Ryzen 5 9600X is a vastly more attractive offering than the Ryzen 5 7600X was at launch and that’s before we factor in the lower launch price.

Ryzen 9000 doesn’t have things all its own way, though, as Intel is still better in multi-threaded workloads for similar cost, albeit with much higher power consumption. It also has the issue that AMD’s 3D V-Cache CPUs are generally faster in games despite using the older Zen 4 architecture, which will no doubt see potential buyers of the Ryzen 7 9700X either opt for a reduced price Ryzen 7 7800X3D or waiting for Ryzen 9000 to get some 3D V-Cache treatment later this year.

Overall, though, combined with cheaper DDR5 memory and AMD motherboard pricing, Socket AM5 and Ryzen 9000’s meagre cooling requirements and lower launch pricing mean it’s a tempting upgrade, especially for owners of older AMD and Intel platforms.