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AMD Ryzen 9 7900X Review

In September 2022, AMD launched their latest “Zen 4” CPUs in the form of Ryzen 7000 Series. At the time of the launch, the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X is the top-of-the-line CPU with an MSRP of $699. But with $150 less price and 4 less cores, the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X is an interesting CPU. Being a “enthusiast” series CPU, you expect an excellent gaming and productivity performance from the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X. But how does it perform in real life? In this article, we will review the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X processor and compare its gaming and multi-threading performance against some popular Intel and AMD CPUs.

A Brief Note on AMD Ryzen 9 7900X

The highlights of AMD’s Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs are a completely new architecture, a brand-new socket, support for only DDR5 memory and all the PCIe Lanes from the CPU are only Gen 5. Exciting.

Along with the big boy Ryzen 9 7950X, AMD also launched the Ryzen 9 7900X and the mid-range and budget-friendly Ryzen 7 7700X in September 2022.

With a launch price of $549 and the traditional 12 core 24 thread design, the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X is one of the contenders for the all round gaming and productivity CPU.

Architecture

While Intel and Apple moved on to a hybrid architecture, AMD for their latest Zen 4 CPUs still designed them in the traditional way i.e., all the cores are powerful cores. Specifically, the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X has 12 cores and 24 threads.

Under the hood, things aren’t quite straightforward. AMD is famous for their Chiplet designs. In the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X, the CPU consists of 3 chiplets, two of them are the Core Complex Dies (CCD) with 6 cores each and one Input – Output Die (IOD).

Actually, each CCD consists of 8 CPU Cores. But in case of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X, AMD disables two cores in each CCD. The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X has the same CCDs but utilizes all the 8 CPU Cores per CCD.

Another interesting thing about this Chiplet design is AMD designed the CCDs using TSMC 5 nm process technology and the IOD using the TSMC 6 nm process technology. This way, it could keep the overall cost of the manufacturing down.

AMD completely revamped the architecture with Zen 4 that has 13% better IPC performance. The next biggest change is the CPU socket. AM4 has been a successful platform for both AMD and the consumers. They supported it well beyond their initial promise.

But starting with Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs, AMD moved away from the PGA AM4 socket to the new LGA AM5 socket. That’s right. Now the pins are on the motherboard rather than the CPU.

Memory and Cache

With the new Zen 4 Architecture, AMD completely ditched the support for DDR4 Memory. So, all the Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs support only DDR5 Memory in dual channel configuration.

The maximum frequency of the memory that the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X supports is DDR5-5200.

AMD with their Ryzen Series of processors, changed the scene of CPU cache. Coming to the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X, it has L2 Cache of 1 MB per core. So, this makes the total L2 Cache of AMD Ryzen 9 7900X at 12 MB (12 * 1 MB).

Coming to the L3 Cache, AMD divided this into two sections based on the Core Complex Dies i.e., each CCD Module gets 32 MB of L3 Cache. So, the total L3 Cache of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X is 64 MB (1 * 32 MB).

As there is no support for DDR4 and the fact that you need a new AM5 Motherboard means, you need to make a significant upfront investment with the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X CPU (or any Zen 4 AMD Ryzen 7000 Series CPU).

But the industry is moving towards DDR5 and the cost of DDR5 RAM kits is slowly coming down.

PCIe and Power

The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X processor has 28 PCIe lanes from the CPU and the impressive thing here is that all these lanes are PCIe 5.0.

Of these, 24 PCIe Gen 5 Lanes are available for Motherboard Manufacturers to use with GPU, Storage etc. and the remaining 4 are reserved for communicating with the Chipset. The final configuration of the PCIe lanes will depend on the motherboard you select and the corresponding chipset.

AMD is still announcing only the TDP of their processors. The TDP of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X is 170W. In addition to this, AMD also mentioned the maximum power draw of the CPU, which is 230W.

Specifications of AMD Ryzen 9 7900X

Specifications of AMD Ryzen 9 7900X
Cores (Threads) 12 (24)
Base Clock Rate 4.7 GHz
Turbo Clock Rate 5.6 GHz
Cache L2 12 MB (1 MB per Core)
L3 64 MB (32 MB per CCD)
Power TDP 170 W
Process Technology Core Complex Die TSMC 5 nm
Input Output Die TSMC 6 nm
Socket AM5 (LGA)
Code Name (Architecture) Zen 4
PCIe Lanes Total 28 PCIe 5.0 Lanes

of which 24 are available for Motherboard Manufacturers and 4 are reserved for Chipset

Memory Support DDR4
DDR5 Up to DDR5 5200 MT/s
Integrated Graphics AMD RDNA2 GPU

(Base Clock 0.4 GHz and Boost Clock 2.2 GHz)

Price MSRP $549

AMD Ryzen 9 7900X Review

Now that we have seen some basic information about the 7900X, let us proceed with the review of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X processor. We will see the benchmark results for synthetic applications, mainstream applications, and games. We will also see some numbers regarding the thermals and power consumption.

Test System

We will be testing the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X CPU against similar tier processors from both Intel and AMD. Before we begin, here is a quick look at our Intel and AMD test systems.

AMD DDR5 Test System
CPUs AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X (Main)
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X
Motherboard GIGABYTE X670E AORUS Master
Memory G.Skill Trident Z5 (AMD EXPO) 32GB (2 × 16GB) DDR5 6000 CL30
AMD DDR4 Test System
CPUs AMD Ryzen 9 5950X
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D
Motherboard ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Hero
Memory G.Skill Trident Z 32GB (2 × 16GB) DDR4 3600 CL16
Intel Test System
CPUs Intel Core i9 13900K
Intel Core i7 13700K
Intel Core i9 12900K
Intel Core i7 12700K
Motherboard MSI PRO Z790-A Wi-Fi
Memory G.Skill Trident Z5 (Intel XMP) 32GB (2 × 16GB) DDR5 6000 CL30
Common to All Test Systems
SSD SAMSUNG 980 PRO SSD 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe
CPU Cooler Corsair iCUE H150i RGB Elite Liquid CPU Cooler
Power Supply Seasonic PRIME 1300 Platinum
Graphic Card MSI Gaming GeForce RTX 3090 Ti 24GB
Software Windows 11 21H2
Nvidia 526.47

Application Benchmarks

Cinebench R23 Multi-Core (Higher is Better)

Let us start with the most popular benchmark tool, the Cinebench R23. After the 10-minute multicore loop test, the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X got a score of just over 29000 points. If we compare this with the Intel Core i7 13700K, then the performance is very similar albeit slightly low.

But if you compare the performance of Intel Core i9 13900K and the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X, then the former boasts a 32% performance improvement. But against Intel Core i9 12900K, the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X has an 8% better performance.

Intel Core i9 13900K 39275
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 38129
Intel Core i7 13700K 29973
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 29040
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 28169
Intel Core i9 12900K 26992
Intel Core i7 12700K 23014
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 22989
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 20072
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 14443

Cinebench R23 Single-Core (Higher is Better)

Coming to the single core performance in the Cinebench R23, the story is the same. The single-core performance of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X falls just shy of the Intel Core i7 13700K and the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X.

The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X shows only a 1% improvement over Intel Core i9 12900K.

Intel Core i9 13900K 2224
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 2049
Intel Core i7 13700K 2045
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 2010
Intel Core i9 12900K 1992
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 1980
Intel Core i7 12700K 1947
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 1638
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 1594
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 1477

PassMark’s CPUMARK 10.2 Multi-Threaded/Overall (Higher is Better)

Next, we have another popular benchmark tool from PassMark, the CPU Mark. The following results show the overall or multi-threaded CPU Mark Score of all the processors in this test.

While the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X shows a lot of improvement over the Intel Core i9 12900K and the Intel Core i7 13700K, it falls short in front of the Intel Core i9 13900K.

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 65569
Intel Core i9 13900K 62457
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 52989
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 50123
Intel Core i7 13700K 49443
Intel Core i9 12900K 44236
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 41297
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 37548
Intel Core i7 12700K 37023
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 29776

PassMark’s CPUMARK 10.2 Single-Threaded (Higher is Better)

Coming to the single threaded performance in CPU Mark, the story reverses as both the Intel Core i9 13900K and the Intel Core i7 13700K beats the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X. Unsurprisingly, the AMD Ryzen 7950X and the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X also offers a very similar performance as that of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and the Intel Core i9 12900K.

Intel Core i9 13900K 4699
Intel Core i7 13700K 4443
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 4369
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 4323
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 4301
Intel Core i9 12900K 4300
AMD Ryzen 5 7600X 4249
Intel Core i5 13600K 4237
Intel Core i7 12700K 3995
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 3615
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 3402

Blender Open Data Render Time (Lower is Better)

Another popular open-source tool is Blender. For the next couple of tests, we will see the render times and number of samples per minute in Blender version 3.4. The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X took 30 seconds over 7 minutes. While this is significantly better than the Intel Core i9 12900K (which tool just over 9 minutes), it ultimately falls short in front of the Intel Core i9 13900K (which tool a whole minute less).

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 5 min 38 sec
Intel Core i9 13900K 6 min 20 sec
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 7 min 30 sec
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 7 min 55 sec
Intel Core i7 13700K 8 min 10 sec
Intel Core i9 12900K 9 min 1 sec
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 9 min 59 sec
Intel Core i7 12700K 10 min 50 sec
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 11 min 5 sec
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 14 min 50 sec

Blender Samples Per Minute (Higher is Better)

The results for number of samples in a minute for Blender Render is also very similar to the render time results where the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X has a good lead over the Intel Core i9 12900K. Here you can see the samples per minute score across the three test scenes: monster, junkshop, and classroom.

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 620.9
Intel Core i9 13900K 590.2
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 461.3
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 459.6
Intel Core i7 13700K 450.2
Intel Core i9 12900K 400.9
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 340.7
Intel Core i7 12700K 327.3
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 310.5
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 225.9

Adobe Photoshop 2022 Puget System Benchmark (Higher is Better)

The Adobe suite has a couple of important tools that many creators and artists use. We will start with the Adobe Photoshop 2022. It has a built-in Puget System Standard Benchmark.

If you look at the overall scores, the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X has a similar performance as the Intel Core i7 13700K. Surprisingly, the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X performs better than the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X.

Intel Core i9 13900K 1601
Intel Core i7 13700K 1546
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 1543
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 1520
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 1460
Intel Core i9 12900K 1395
Intel Core i7 12700K 1375
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 1243
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 1235
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 1199

Adobe Premier Pro 2022 Puget System Benchmark (Higher is Better)

Next application in the Adobe suite is the Premier Pro 2022. The results in this test are also very similar to the previous test from Adobe. Both AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and Intel Core i7 13700K go neck-on-neck with a 5% better performance than the Intel Core i9 12900K.

Intel Core i9 13900K 1253
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 1240
Intel Core i7 13700K 1189
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 1181
Intel Core i9 12900K 1132
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 1110
Intel Core i7 12700K 1013
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 1001
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 999
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 902

7-Zip File Manager Compression (Higher is Better)

One of the popular and widely used open-source applications is the 7-Zip File Manager. It helps in archiving files. For this test, we are performing the built-in benchmark feature. Here is the result in million instructions per second (MIPS) for compressing using a standards 32 MB dictionary size and 10 passes.

Intel Core i9 13900K 176439
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 158989
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 133215
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 104598
Intel Core i7 13700K 144443
Intel Core i9 12900K 127986
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 123969
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 115469
Intel Core i7 12700K 125763
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 90058

7-Zip File Manager Decompression (Higher is Better)

In decompression, the AMD Ryzen CPUs dominate the charts with AMD Ryzen 9 7950X and Ryzen 9 5950X comfortably beating the Intel Core i9 13900K. The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X loses to the Intel Core i9 13900K by 7%.

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 263569
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 217996
Intel Core i9 13900K 215543
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 201247
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 165689
Intel Core i7 13700K 159468
Intel Core i9 12900K 139987
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 135879
Intel Core i7 12700K 115896
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 111026

Chromium Code Compilation Time (Lower is Better)

Developers working on large projects need a stable multi-threaded system with a powerful CPU. So, we tested the code compilation performance by taking the open-source Chromium project code.

The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X took a snag in this test as the Intel Core i9 12900K beats it by a whole minute.

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 41 min 25 sec
Intel Core i9 13900K 48 min 10 sec
Intel Core i9 12900K 51 min 26 sec
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 51 min 55 sec
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 52 min 38 sec
Intel Core i7 13700K 54 min 29 sec
Intel Core i7 12700K 59 min 58 sec
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 62 min 32 sec
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 68 min 26 sec
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 92 min 43 sec

Corona 1.3 Render Time (Lower is Better)

The last “application” benchmark is the Corona 1.3, which is a high-quality shading engine for production rendering. Let us now see the rendering time of different Intel and AMD CPUs.

Both Intel Core i7 13700K and AMD Ryzen 9 7900X rendered in 50 seconds.

Intel Core i9 13900K 38 sec
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 38 sec
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 45 sec
Intel Core i7 13700K 50 sec
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 50 sec
Intel Core i9 12900K 55 sec
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 60 sec
Intel Core i7 12700K 68 sec
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 75 sec
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 88 sec

Gaming Benchmarks

Let us move to some gaming performance. We tested some popular titles at a resolution of 1920 × 1080 (1080p) as anything beyond, the GPU will dominate the performance. We are running all the games in DirectX 12 with Ray Tracing and DLSS off.

Far Cry 6

  • Resolution: 1920 × 1080
  • DirectX 12
  • Game Setting: Ultra
  • DirectX Raytracing: Off

The first game is Far Cry 6. Here, the 13th Gen Intel CPUs show their dominance by pushing over 160 fps.  Surprisingly, the AMD Ryzen 9 5800X3D and the Core i5 13600K perform better than the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X. Here are the rounded off average frames and also 1% low fps.

CPU Average FPS 1% Low FPS (Min FPS)
Intel Core i9 13900K 172 123
Intel Core i7 13700K 163 118
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 156 104
Intel Core i5 13600K 148 105
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 147 102
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 147 101
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 145 85
Intel Core i9 12900K 144 98
Intel Core i7 12700K 138 97
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 125 98
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 119 73

Cyberpunk 2077

  • Resolution: 1920 × 1080
  • DirectX 12
  • Game Setting: Ultra
  • Texture: High
  • Ray Tracing: Off
  • DLSS: Off

Next, we have another popular title, Cyberpunk 2077. The story is the same, where current gen Intel CPUs can pump over 140 fps on average while the Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs struggle to push past 130 fps.

CPU Average FPS 1% Low FPS (Min FPS)
Intel Core i9 13900K 150 125
Intel Core i7 13700K 148 123
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 126 111
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 126 111
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 126 110
Intel Core i9 12900K 124 111
Intel Core i7 12700K 123 108
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 123 108
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 122 102
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 122 102

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

  • Resolution: 1920 × 1080
  • DirectX 12
  • Game Setting: High
  • DLSS: Off

Last but not least, we tested the Shadow of the Tomb Raider. The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X continues against the Intel Core i7 13700K, which could go past 250 fps while the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X could only manage 235 fps.

What surprised in this game is the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D beating all the current gen Intel and AMD flagships. Based on this result, we are very excited to get our hands on the upcoming Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs with 3D V-Cache.

CPU Average FPS 1% Low FPS (Min FPS)
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 280 178
Intel Core i9 13900K 265 173
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 248 145
Intel Core i7 13700K 254 161
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 235 145
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 233 145
Intel Core i9 12900K 229 158
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 207 128
Intel Core i7 12700K 213 148
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 200 121

Clock Speed

We ran the AIDA64 Stress Test for 10 minutes and here are the maximum frequency and average frequency of all cores.

CPU Maximum Frequency All-Core Average Frequency
Intel
Intel Core i9 13900K 5.8 GHz 5.4 GHz
Intel Core i7 13700K 5.4 GHz 5.3 GHz
Intel Core i9 12900K 5.2 GHz 4.9 GHz
Intel Core i7 12700K 5 GHz 4.6 GHz
AMD
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 5.7 GHz 5.2 GHz
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 5.6 GHz 5.2 GHz
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 5.5 GHz 5.3 GHz
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 5 GHz 4.4 GHz
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 4.9 GHz 4.3 GHz
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 4.5 GHz 4.3 GHz

CPU Temperature

During the same AIDA64 Stress Test, we monitored the CPU Temperatures with Corsair iCUE H150i RGB Elite Liquid CPU Cooler. Here are the CPU temps for your reference.

CPU Max Temp Average Temp
Intel
Intel Core i9 13900K 100°C 83°C
Intel Core i7 13700K 92°C 69°C
Intel Core i9 12900K 100°C 82°C
Intel Core i7 12700K 87°C 75°C
AMD
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 95°C 87°C
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 87°C 84°C
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 87°C 84°C
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 79°C 76°C
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 86°C 84°C
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 78°C 75°C

Power Consumption

During the Blender render, we measured the CPU Package Power Draw using the HWiNFO tool. The following table consists of the peak CPU Package Power Draw as reported by HWiNFO.

Intel
Intel Core i9 13900K 335 Watts
Intel Core i7 13700K 245 Watts
Intel Core i9 12900K 252 Watts
Intel Core i7 12700K 190 Watts
AMD
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 234 Watts
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 202 Watts
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 143 Watts
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 145 Watts
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 135 Watts
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 116 Watts

Final Verdict

With a retail price of $549 and the performance it offers, the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X while beating the Intel Core i9 12900K, ultimately falls short in front of the Intel Core i7 13700K, a CPU that costs $150 less.

If your workload involves multithreaded applications that need a lot of CPU computational power, then the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X seems like a good choice, but them you have to factor in the cost of CPU, Motherboard, and Memory.

AMD still struggles in the single core performance where the Intel Core i7 13700K and sometimes even the Intel Core i5 13600K are a better choice for gaming.

The good thing about the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X is it runs a lot cooler and consumes less power.

Overall, we are impressed with the performance both in terms of gaming and productivity workloads of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X but only when compared to the Alder Lake Intel Core i9 12900K. Sadly the party ends there for AMD Ryzen 9 7900X as there are other alternatives in the form of AMD Ryzen 9 7950X for heavy multithreaded applications or the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X for gaming.

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