Power Temperature and Frequency
On this page, we are going to investigate the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X power draw, temperature, and frequency. This is a stress test, which means we are pushing each CPU to its maximum potential in all-core load in the Cinebench R23 multi-core test for 10 minutes.
Power
We use HWiNFO64 sensor data to record the results. We report on the sensor data for “Package Power” in Wattage.
Honestly, this graph speaks for itself. The TDP of the new AMD Ryzen 7 9700X is 65W, but of course, TDP is not power draw, but rather the thermal capacity it is rated for. As we can see, in testing the Package Power the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X hits 88W at maximum Package Power Wattage. This is a whopping 38% lower power draw than the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X, that’s right, a 38% savings in power, yet more performance in our testing. Its power draw is equal to the Ryzen 7 7800X3D on all-core, full-load, which actually is a higher 120W TDP CPU.
If we compare this then to the competition, the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X draws 51% less power than the Intel Core i5-14600K and 65% less power than the Intel Core i7-14700K. Note that the Intel Core i7-14700K is locked at PL1/PL2 of 253W with this BIOS, and not unlocked or allowed to exceed that power, which it would if it were not locked to Intel Defaults.
Simply put, power efficiency is a key point of the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X, and Ryzen 5 9600X CPUs. It is real, and it is effective.
Temperature
We use HWiNFO64 sensor data to record the results. We report on the sensor data for “Tcidle” in Celsius.
Again, this graph speaks for itself. Note that the same AIO was used for all temperature testing, an MSI MEG Coreliquid S360 360mm AIO, which honestly is overkill for the new Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X. As we experienced above, the Package Power was only 88W.
The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X runs at a cool 57.2c temperature, and we triple-checked this, with different versions of HWiNFO64 as well, using the latest Beta available. We even reached out to AMD for a sanity check. AMD tells us this is expected behavior, and the reason is down to the all-core/full-load CPU frequency the CPU runs at. The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X has more cores spread out, that operate within the same power budget and therefore boost lower in clock frequency compared to the Ryzen 5 9600X, this accounts for the temperature differences. The Ryzen 5 9600X has fewer cores, and within this power budget runs at a faster frequency, thus heating up a bit more.
At this temperature of 57.2c, the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X is running 40% cooler than the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X. It is also 32% cooler than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, 30% cooler than the Intel Core i5-14600K, and 13% cooler than the Ryzen 5 9600X.
Frequency
The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X has a base clock of 3.8GHz and a boost frequency of up to 5.5GHz. In our testing, we experienced the all-core/full-load hitting 4.4GHz on all cores, with some cores getting up to 4.45GHz or 4.5GHz at times briefly, and this is pushing all cores at once. In the single-core/single-thread testing, we found that the CPU would boost up to 5.525GHz on a single-core performance load, therefore it was boosting up to its rated frequency.
From this, we can see one reason why the temperatures are lower at all-core/full-load, the cores are running around 4.4GHz with all of them active. If we compare this, to say, the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X we found that the CPU runs at 5.175-5.2GHz on all cores active at once due to the higher power draw and allowed temperature. Therefore, the AMD Ryzen 9 9700X is running about 15% lower core frequencies on all-core/full-load with all cores active at once compared to the 7700X. Now, when you consider that it’s faster on performance than the Ryzen 7 7700X, this starts to look very impressive for the 9700X.
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.