Gaming Performance
Now we come to the interesting testing we are sure you all can’t wait for, we were also anxious to get to this part and see how it all ends up for gaming performance. We are going to include 1080p, 1440p, and 4K performance to see the overall big picture of performance. That said, you’ll want to focus on the 1080p results primarily to gain a sense of the level of framerate each CPU is able to provide to the GPU, it is the best predictor of potential performance. In addition, we think you’ll see some interesting scaling starting to happen in the 1440p area as well in some games between the CPUs, so look for that.
For testing, we are using an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition video card with driver version 560.70. All games are being run in their “Ultra” game settings, at native resolution, and with no ray tracing. Each graph is first sorted by 1080p performance, and then second by 1440p performance. In this way, you’ll see which is the fastest CPU with a 1080p resolution. For games with a built-in benchmark, the benchmark is used, in games that do not have a benchmark we do a manual run-through.
Horizon Forbidden West
In Horizon Forbidden West the top performing CPU is the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D at 179.7 FPS at 1080p. However, right below that are two CPUs, you’ll find both the Intel Core i7-14700K and the new AMD Ryzen 7 9700X matching performance at 173.9 FPS. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D also has a slight lead in 1440p performance at 149.8 FPS, of which the brand new Ryzen 7 9700X is also trailing very close to the Ryzen 7 7800X3D at 1440p with 148.9 FPS. Both the 14600K and 14700K are below the 9700X even at 1440p.
The new AMD Ryzen 7 9700X provides a 1% performance uplift from the Ryzen 7 7700X, so in this game, the two perform very similarly. At this performance level, the Ryzen 7 9700X is performing 2.4% faster than the Intel Core i5-14600K. We find that the Ryzen 7 9700X is just 3% behind the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. The Ryzen 7 9700X is also 4% faster than the Ryzen 5 9600X.
Alan Wake 2
In Alan Wake 2 the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D leads in performance at 178.7 FPS at 1080p, and then right under it falls the brand new Zen 5 AMD Ryzen 9000 CPUs, with the 9700X and 9600X. Every other CPU, including the 14600K and 14700K falls beneath the new AMD Ryzen 7 9700X on performance.
The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X ends up being 6% faster than the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X at 1080p, and 2% faster than the 14700K and 14600K. The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X is just 3% behind the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. The Ryzen 7 9700X is also within 1% of the Ryzen 5 9600X.
Returnal
In Returnal the fastest CPU is the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D at 215 FPS at 1080p, but then it is immediately followed by the new AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and 9600X in performance, which also matches the 14700K. Then the 14600K falls below that, and the previous generations below that. Interestingly also, the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X has the highest 1440p result.
The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X is 4% faster than the Ryzen 7 7700X and 2.4% faster than the 14600K. The Ryzen 7 9700X falls behind the Ryzen 7 7800X3D by only 1%.
Avatar Frontiers of Pandora
We wanted to include Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora for two reasons, it is an Unreal Engine 5 game which are increasing in number, and we also experienced no performance differences to speak of between the CPUs, even at 1080p. This game utilizes Ray Tracing which is “always on.” In this scenario, even on an RTX 4090 at 1080p no CPU really has a noteworthy advantage. This example is relevant just to show that some games may still be bound by the GPU, even at 1080p and CPU performance differences may not show depending on the game and settings. It’s just an example of how game-dependent CPU performance can end up being, but let’s move to the next page.
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.