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 the AM5 platform. The Zen 5 architecture is a new generation architecture that supersedes the previous Zen 4 architecture found in the current lineup of AMD Ryzen 7000 series desktop CPUs.
The Ryzen 9000 series CPUs will be launched in a staggered form, after a short delay that was meant for a July 31st, 2024 release. Now, AMD will be launching the midrange CPUs Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X first, with retail availability on August 8th, 2024. Following these two CPUs AMD will be launching the Ryzen 9 9950X and Ryzen 9 9900X with retail availability on August 15th, 2024.
This is our review of the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X, which has its MSRP announced at $359. The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X (Granite Ridge) directly replaces the previous generation Ryzen 7 7700X which was launched in September of 2022. The AMD Ryzen 7 7700X had a launch MSRP of $399 in 2022.
Therefore, the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X has had an 11% price reduction compared to the previous generation, based on the release MSRP. Note that while the Ryzen 7 7700X has an MSRP of $399, the actual available street pricing in 2024 is around the $300 mark, which changes the perspective a bit. We’ll talk about that more later.
We have previously disclosed a lot of information about the AMD Ryzen 9000 CPUs and the Zen 5 architecture lately, with several different content pieces. We will link all the places you can go to on both our Website, and our YouTube channel to read and watch more information and our thoughts and opinions on the Ryzen 9000 CPU series, we are not going to dive into it too much in this review.
You can start by reading our Computex 2024 announcement coverage article. Then you will want to mosey over to our YouTube channel and catch our detailed Ryzen 9000 CPU coverage with commentary and thoughts. Finally, you will want to check out our YouTube channel for our detailed Ryzen 9000 CPU and Zen 5 architecture coverage with commentary and thoughts as well as our article on our Website on the same topics.
AMD Ryzen 7 9700X
The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X is manufactured from TSMC at 4nm for the CCD and 6nm for the I/O die, and it has 8,315 million transistors on the AM5 socket platform from AMD on the Zen 5 architecture. It is an 8-core/16-thread CPU with a base clock of 3.8GHz and a max boost of 5.5GHz. It has a combined cache of 40MB (32MB L3) and a TDP of just 65W. It officially supports DDR5 5600MT/s JDEC. It supports PCIe 5.0 and has 24 lanes of PCIe.
| Ryzen 7 9700X | Ryzen 7 7700X | |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Zen 5 | Zen 4 |
| Process | 4nm CCD/6nm IOD | 5nm CCD/6nm IOD |
| Cores/Threads | 8/16 | 8/16 |
| Cache (L2+L3) | 40MB (32MB L3) | 40MB (32MB L3) |
| Base Clock | 3.8GHz | 4.5GHz |
| Turbo Clock | 5.5GHz | 5.4GHz |
| TDP | 65W | 105W |
| Launch MSRP | $359 | $399 |
In AMD’s first-party performance graphs, AMD shows the Ryzen 7 9700X providing anywhere between 4%-42% performance gains over the Intel Core i7-14700K in productivity applications. In gaming, it is anywhere from 4% up to 31% depending on the game, over the 14700K.
When compared to the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, AMD shows the Ryzen 7 9700X anywhere from below the 5800X3D on performance, up to 30% faster, but an average of 12% faster geomean. One key feature is also the power efficiency, the Ryzen 7 9700X is a 65W TDP CPU, while the Ryzen 7 7700X was a 105W TDP CPU. Noteworthy as well is that the AM5 platform support has been extended to 2027 or beyond.
AMD Ryzen 7 9700X Pictures
The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X looks identical to the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X and all other Ryzen 7000 and Ryzen 9000 CPUs. It has the familiar design and fits the AM5 socket. The Ryzen 7 9700X does not come with a cooler in the box.
Installation went smoothly into our ROG CROSSHAIR X670E HERO motherboard, and we had no issues with this CPU working on our X670E chipset AM5 motherboard. This CPU worked fine on the latest public official BIOS from ASUS’s website (2124), without needing a special BIOS. That BIOS uses AGESA ComboAM5PI_1200a.
However, AMD did provide a slightly newer BIOS (2201) for the motherboard that includes a “PatchA” to use for testing Ryzen 9000 CPUs. The full AGESA used for our Ryzen 7 9700X CPU was: AGESA ComboAM5PI_1200a PatchA that we used. We asked AMD what the PatchA adds, and AMD responded with this information: “Patch A has some tweaks specific to the 12 and 16c 9000 Series. We recommend using the one we provided, with Patch A, to keep the versions consistent with your upcoming 12+16c review.” So that is no problem, the newer PatchA BIOS was used for all Ryzen 9000 CPUs.
Discussion (19 replies)
Join Discussion →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!
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?
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.
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.
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.
Yeah idk, it feels like techtubers are missing the mark on this one and people are just being dense.
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..
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.... =)
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)
@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.
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.