When AMD announced its Ryzen 9000-series processors at Computex, one particular detail caught my attention. The 8-core Ryzen 7 9700X received a very respectable TDP of 65 W. This is well below the TDPs of 105 W and 120 W of the Ryzen 7 7700X and Ryzen 7 7800X3D, respectively.
A modern rumor suggests that AMD may have responded on this matter, at least when it comes to gaming performance. Donny Woligroski, senior technical marketing manager for consumer processors at AMD, confirmed that the 9700X won’t have the audacity to beat the 7800X3D in gaming, even if it’s stronger in non-gaming applications.
According to information provided WccftechAMD is considering a very behind schedule spec change for the 9700X, giving it a 120W TDP instead of the previously announced 65W. It’s not a particularly welcome change, but if the gaming performance differences between it and the 7800X3D are close, the raise in power will allow the 9700X to achieve higher base clocks and boost, which should give it enough performance to get through the line.
Unless this change has been in place for some time, my guess is that it’s too behind schedule to make such a dramatic change. Even if 9000-series processors with more cores have higher TDPs, this kind of change takes time to test and validate, and if the chips are already shipping as expected, I would lean more towards AMD board partners bringing something like a chip to 120W gaming. A mode that can be enabled via the BIOS or the AMD Ryzen Master application.
We won’t have to wait long as AMD has confirmed that the processors will be launched in July, probably at the end of July.
Why would AMD go this route so close to launch? It’s all marketing. AMD will want to claim that the 9000 series chips are the best gaming processors. You won’t want to stand on the podium and suggest that gamers should stick to the previous generation processor.
The 7800X3D has also been the subject of significant discounts recently. The cheaper and faster 7800X3D isn’t the best advertisement for the 9000-series chips, even if gaming is just one of many performance metrics.
Of course, we know that AMD will eventually release 9000-series X3D chips, and if the 5800X3D and 7800X3D are good choices, we know that they will be very good options for gaming thanks to their immense cache. AMD will keep them in the works as Intel launches its competing Arrow Lake family of desktop processors in the coming months.
