AMD Ryzen 7 9700X Review

Zen 5 has finally made its way to the desktop. We saw how it works with six cores in our AMD Ryzen 5 9600X review . Now it’s time to see what a difference two more cores, four more threads, and a slightly higher clock speed make — yes, our Ryzen 7 9700X review .

AMD stuck to the same basic plan for the 9700X as it did with the last-generation 7700X and Zen 3-based 5700X. Underneath the heatspreader are two chiplets: one CCD (Core Complex Die), which houses all the processing cores and cache, and one IOD (Input/Output Die), which houses the diminutive integrated GPU, PCIe and USB hubs, and RAM controllers.

While the 9600X has two cores disabled in the CCD chip, the 9700X uses a fully functional eight-core chiplet and a slightly higher boost clock (5.5 versus 5.4 GHz).

That 8.3 billion CCD is of course AMD’s latest Zen 5 architecture, with a larger L1 cache, more internal bandwidth, better floating-point support, a fancier branch prediction unit, and more. The changes are pretty extensive, with AMD claiming that Zen 5 has an average IPC (instructions per clock) boost of 16% over Zen 4, though not every application will see such an boost.

I won’t repeat all the motherboard swapping and BIOS shenanigans I went through while testing the 9600X in this review, but it’s worth noting that they had the same effect on the Ryzen 7 9700X. Essentially, the AM5 motherboard I was using (the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero) was feeding the chip a bit too much power at idle, resulting in slightly elevated temperatures — not something unique to Asus boards, but not every setup will have this issue.

As said, at idle the 9700X ran slightly cooler than the 9600X I tested, at around 45°C, even though it had a slightly lower base clock speed (3.7 vs. 3.8GHz).

The power issues also meant the chip wasn’t able to reach its full performance when running multi-threaded apps like Cinebench and Blender. I have no doubt these will be fixed over time, and possibly soon, but if you want a Zen 5 chip for demanding content creation work, you may want to hold off until all the issues are ironed out.

Another thing the Ryzen 7 9700X shares with its six-core sibling is a 65W TDP (88W max power limit). That’s significantly better than the Zen 4 7700X’s 105W TDP — it’s also half of what Intel’s Core i5 14600K and Core i7 14700K have — and like the 9600X, I couldn’t get above 75°C no matter what I threw at the processor. With an Asus ROG Strix LC III 360 AIO liquid cooler, it ran at 65°C without a hitch during gaming tests in a scorching office.

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Not that you need that much cooling. I tried a budget-friendly dual 120mm air system and the 9700X ran at around 72°C, with very little heat being pushed out of the test bench. For anyone used to a up-to-date Intel gaming PC, that’s a very pleasant surprise, I assure you.

But this is a review, and we’re here to see the benchmarks, so let’s get to them.

We’ve updated our CPU test suite to modernize various aspects of it, and you’ve got a wide range of tests to look at and ponder the results. We’ve also switched from using a GeForce RTX 3080 to an RTX 4070 graphics card to make the results more meaningful in the real world.

Since most games don’t fully utilize eight or more cores when it comes to in-engine CPU load, it’s not surprising that the Ryzen 7 9700X is only slightly faster than the 9600X in some of our gaming tests. It runs very close to the Core i5 14600K in Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldur’s Gate 3 — close enough that it doesn’t really matter — and is on par or better in the rest.

The slightly higher boost clock means this processor will process updates in Factorio only slightly faster than its six-core counterpart, but the 3D V-cache in the Ryzen 7 5700X3D means it will always come in second place behind this type of chip.

If we take all the results into account, I can confidently say that the Ryzen 7 9700X is the winner of our gaming tests.

In terms of performance and content creation tests, this is by far the fastest 16-threaded chip we’ve tested. We were hoping for the Ryzen 7 7700X results for this review, but that processor refused to cooperate, and only a full wipe of the SSD and a fresh install of the OS got it to behave itself – unfortunately, a bit too delayed to give full numbers today! However, based on the results of the Ryzen 7 7900 and Ryzen 5 7600X, it’s clear that it will fall behind the 9700X.

The biggest reveal was the photo editing benchmark. If that’s the kind of work you’ll be doing regularly on your processor, it’s obvious which one to choose, and it’s the Ryzen 7 9700X. And like the 9600X, it does all of this on a max power budget of 88W.

This means that not only is it easier to keep chilly, but it’s also cheaper to run and won’t flood your office space with a ton of heat. Compared to Intel’s chips, it’s an absolute win.

While I was a bit disappointed with the Ryzen 5 9600X, I have to say I’m more impressed with the Ryzen 7 9700X. It’s not just that it’s very good at gaming – it’s by far the best overall out of all the CPUs tested in this review – but that those two extra cores with four extra threads make the 9700X a much better all-around processor.

Zen 5 also has a lot of potential, and it may be too early to tell how good it can be, but what it already has is certainly worth a look.

If you’ve been holding off on upgrading your PC to see what Zen 5 would be like, then I’d say you should consider the Ryzen 7 9700X and a solid B650 motherboard (I also tested it in the Asus ROG Strix B650-A Gaming and it performed just as well as it did in the X670E). Pair that with a decent set of dual-channel DDR5-6000 RAM and you’ve got yourself an excellent all-round PC.

What you don’t get, however, is outstanding value for money. The 9700X’s retail price of $359 is ideal for this kind of overall performance, and is pleasantly lower than the previous-generation 7700X’s starting price of $399. However, it’s no longer being sold at that price, and you can get it for $287 on AmazonIn fact, you can get the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, the best gaming processor right now, for 374 PLN While it won’t be as good for productivity and content creation apps, it’s absolutely amazing in terms of frame rates.

And that’s AMD’s problem when it comes to PC gaming. All those enthusiasts are now only interested in X3D models, and for good reason, so if you want a novel Zen 5 chip Just for gaming, you’re better off skipping the 9700X and waiting for the inevitable 9800X3D. But if you want a really solid all-around processor, the Ryzen 7 9700X will do the trick — once you get all the power issues sorted out.