Review Ryzen 7 9700X Reviews

[Heartbreaker]

You should consider their PoV as well, the testing they do is aimed at answering a very particular question for the average consumer: is product X good for gaming and/or productivity? This is where it all begins and ends for them, and even the dialogue they're having with the channel's audience is centered around this simplified way of looking at things. We may not like their answer, but they're probably answering a different question than we think was asked.

I think their testing actually covers most of the home market so there isn't anything wrong with that. IMO they do the best gaming related testing, with the widest swatch of games, and most solid rigor. They are my preferred source by far (and they often mirror the videos with text review on Techspot).

They don't do the deepest technical dives (they aren't trying to be Chips and Cheese), but they often do better practical investigations into anomalies, image quality comparison, etc, as they impact the end user.

They might get around to another SMT investigation when everything settles down but they are basically running all out right now with the 16 core part coming soon.

But even if Zen 5 has a bigger than typical hit with SMT on, the advice likely won't change current advice, which is just to leave it on, and take the lumps where they show up. Or maybe this is something AMD can adjust later in microcode.

Until then though, HUB is under siege for talking bad about Zen 5. Their stance of the SMT subject and everything Zen 5 related is probably defensive at this point.

I'd say a lot the defensiveness is on the fan side searching for an upside/excuse.

In one of their videos they mention that it's like this every time there is a lackluster product: They get inundated with endless tuning request. What about PBO? What about memory tuning? What about undervolting? What about SMT? What about overclocking? What about combining all these? Some fans just can't accept that it might not be a great release.

When you get a 7800Xd, and it has a strong positive review, fans are happy and don't blast them with requests.

 

[coercitiv]

I'd say a lot the defensiveness is on the fan side searching for an upside/excuse.

Yeah, I may have run into a language barrier combined with little time to write my reply. I was talking more about self-defense than deflection.

 

[GaiaHunter]

I'd say a lot the defensiveness is on the fan side searching for an upside/excuse.

The upside is that you don't need to buy one if you are gaming and you have something like a zen2, dropping a 5700x3d is still a great upgrade and if you are considering an am5 platform either go with the 7800x3d or see what zen5x3d can do.

Maybe in a few years we will look back and zen5 will be killing in new games, maybe it won't. I mean go read the zen4 release reviews... and Zen4 had objectively better gaming performance than the non 3d zen3 models and am5 is a more modern platform than am4.

 

[Ranulf]

He's missing the point. The point is not to show the CPU in the best possible light, the point is to analyse how the new front-end behaves in light of Clark's statements. Even if the performance differential is small, it's still worth doing. Comparing it to Zen 2 is false equivalence because Zen 5 is a big departure from previous Zen uarches, it's the same thing in name only.

Very surface-level take from Steve.

Again, this may be true...down the line. Maybe the problem is the windows scheduler, maybe testers should run win10 vs win11 too. How long will it take MS and AMD to get things fixed if that is the issue? 6 months? 2 years? Maybe it is memory I/O chip holding things back. In the now, in the next 3-6 months it isn't worth doing. It may be worth it down the line in 3-5 years. In 3-5 years it will be another case of quad cores losing to 8 thread FX chips in some scenarios. Yay, I won or something... 3-4 years later. However, right now it is horrible price/perf for most consumer uses.

The 7700 chips have been $275-300 since last summer. In the summer sales pre launch the 7700 was down to $245 on Newegg. The 12700k was $260 for almost 6 months in the first half of 2023.

 

[Josh128]

I do as well, but he's wrong about this particular topic. Asking to benchmark SMT on/off is perfectly reasonable given the modern x86 CPU landscape, where Intel are ditching SMT on client and AMD are doing exactly the opposite, dedicating more resources than ever.

edit: Steve's whole niche in PC benchmarking is providing more data points than other reviewers do, he's completely fine with doing 50 GPU benchmark comparison videos. He's essentially asked to milk this launch a little more by his own viewers and he's dismissing the topic as case closed while having no basis whatsoever.

Lrissa, it appears they are on the defensive after some rabid fanatics accused them of being in Intels pocket (which is ridiculous). To refuse to re-test with SMT off is their prerogative, but its kinda stupid considering they would get more views and thats how they make money, after all.

I think they went overboard with their negative review titles / thumbnails in trying to prove they are not "AMDUnboxed" as many Intel fanboys like to accuse them of and its a pretty silly look

 

[ondma]

Let's get this train back on the rails - 8 pack does some overclocking of his own.

Carefully avoids any gaming benchmarks.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Truly I think x64 is in hospice.

Again? x86 has been in and out of the death bed for decades.

 

[gdansk]

Again? x86 has been in and out of the death bed for decades.

Pentium Pro transplanted the guts from a RISC workstation to keep it alive. And the good Dr. Opteron wrote prescription x64 to save it from Itanic delusions. But these were projects financed with mass market volumes.

It isn't looking good this time if both vendors take 2 years to deliver small gains that standard, licensable ARM core exceeds in a single year.

 

[poke01]

Pentium Pro transplanted the guts from a RISC workstation to keep it alive. And the good Dr. Opteron wrote prescription x64 to save it from Itanic delusions. But these were projects financed with mass market volumes.

It isn't looking good this time if both vendors take 2 years to deliver small gains that standard, licensable ARM core exceeds in a single year.

That’s the thing where do people go to on desktop if AMD or Intel falls behind. Your stuck the duopoly.

I doubt ARM is going to be useful on desktop and Qualcomm is not focused on desktop and AMD still has the software advantage of all the games and apps being available on x86.

I do think people are overreacting, Zen 5 X3D will be the king of the hill and everything will go back to normal.

 

[gdansk]

That’s the thing where do people go to on desktop if AMD or Intel falls behind. Your stuck the duopoly.

They stop buying desktop (well this started sometime ago).

I'll say it should be possible for them to get out of the funk with novel construction but there is only one core in the x64 world that seems interesting, new and different.

 

[Ranulf]

Mindfactory reports they sold around 70 ryzen 9000 series chips so far.

Mindfactory Only Sold a Few Dozen AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X

German PC components online retailer Mindfactory is no Amazon, but is meticulously transparent with its sales data to the public, which allows us to gauge consumer interest in products, at least in the European context. AMD last week launched its Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X Socket AM5...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[Rigg]

Lrissa, it appears they are on the defensive after some rabid fanatics accused them of being in Intels pocket (which is ridiculous). To refuse to re-test with SMT off is their prerogative, but its kinda stupid considering they would get more views and thats how they make money, after all.

I think they went overboard with their negative review titles / thumbnails in trying to prove they are not "AMDUnboxed" as many Intel fanboys like to accuse them of and its a pretty silly look

I much appreciate the work that HUB does, and while I understand why Aussie Steve gets a bit defensive in these situations, I also think his defensiveness reflects poorly on him. He can get a bit thin skinned and reactionary at times. I expect he'll relent and eventually do some SMT tests after he gets the R9 reviews out. I'd like to see more testing but only because I'm curious and not because i think it moves the needle.

Again, this may be true...down the line. Maybe the problem is the windows scheduler, maybe testers should run win10 vs win11 too. How long will it take MS and AMD to get things fixed if that is the issue? 6 months? 2 years? Maybe it is memory I/O chip holding things back. In the now, in the next 3-6 months it isn't worth doing. It may be worth it down the line in 3-5 years. In 3-5 years it will be another case of quad cores losing to 8 thread FX chips in some scenarios. Yay, I won or something... 3-4 years later. However, right now it is horrible price/perf for most consumer uses.

The 7700 chips have been $275-300 since last summer. In the summer sales pre launch the 7700 was down to $245 on Newegg. The 12700k was $260 for almost 6 months in the first half of 2023.

Exactly right. I don't think OS scheduling, SMT, memory scaling, or power scaling advantages are going to change the value proposition of these parts.

For your typical DIY desktop user these CPUs just aren't good value right now. It's hard to justify a purchase of one of these given the typical US street pricing of 7700(X) and 7800X3D. Even at MSRP 7700 was $30 cheaper and it comes with a totally decent Wraith Prism RGB cooler.

If you have access to a Micro Center you'd have to be colossally stupid (or painfully unaware of how to shop at MC) to buy one of these right now. You can grab a 7800X3D for $225 or a 7700X for $145 currently with minimal hassle. It's zero hassle if you looking to grab RAM and mobo along with the CPU. You can buy an entire 7600X platform combo for $20 more than a 9600X alone costs from MC.

 

[CakeMonster]

I'd like to see more SMT testing, but just out of curiosity, not because I think they'll find anything worthwhile that would conclude that its wise to turn it off. We pretty much settled this more than 10 years ago when you actually had to think hard about the cost of getting the Intel 4c/4t model or the 4c/8t model. At least in the first generations, the clear answer for value in gaming was the 4c/4t one, not because non-SMT was better but simply price/perf. There were some who experimented with turning off SMT, but the majority view settled very fast on it not being worth tinkering with. I have absolutely no reason to think that has changed.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

GN Steve hits Zen 5 with a steel chair from the top ring rope.

Some are still in the denial stage of grief, but hopefully both Steves have now gotten through to them. For most windows users, and especially gamers, these 2 new SKUs are pointless.

Carefully avoids any gaming benchmarks.

Carefully? I think wisely: it would have been a waste of his time and ours.

 

[H T C]

GN Steve hits Zen 5 with a steel chair from the top ring rope.

Some are still in the denial stage of grief, but hopefully both Steves have now gotten through to them. For most windows users, and especially gamers, these 2 new SKUs are pointless.

Carefully? I think wisely: it would have been a waste of his time and ours.

I asked this, in that video's comments:

Stupid question: could the higher observed voltages in the 9X00X CPUs be a result of "motherboard vendor shenanigans"?

It wouldn't be the 1st time that motherboard vendors use "different specs" to make their products "have an edge over competition": what i'm asking is whether that's what's happening here or not.

It was about 2 minutes ago, so i obviously haven't had any reply, just yet.

 

[Heartbreaker]

GN Steve hits Zen 5 with a steel chair from the top ring rope.

Is it just me, or does he seem extra caffeinated for this one?

Top Comment is from HWUB:

@Hardwareunboxed
"UMMMMM did you test with SMT Disabled? That unlocks Zen 5's gaming performance!!!!!" <- This is BS, just wanted to head off those comments for you Steve, Thanks Steve.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

@H T C

How much difference do you think it would make? Enough to change reviewer opinions?

Is it just me, or does he seem extra caffeinated for this one?

Top Comment is from HWUB:

He has been sleeping in the office all week, so I am guessing he is 1970s American truck driver caffeinated.

 

[H T C]

How much difference do you think it would make? Enough to change reviewer opinions?

I have no idea.

I remember several board makers using "a bit of excessive voltage" for their boards during the launch of SEVERAL CPUs (don't recall if Intel and AMD both, or just one of them).

I was thinking something like that MIGHT be happening here, and i'd like to see reviewers RULE THAT OUT.

 

[IEC]

Out of the box performance is out of the box performance. If AMD failed to give adequate guidance to mobo makers and they are giving it more voltage than necessary that's on AMD.

You might see a slight 1-2% improvement over time if there's some unnecessary safety margin but the vast majority of users will load XMP/EXPO and be done. I don't expect any significant impact for gaming; the few games that benefit >10% point to architectural changes mostly benefiting DC/server use cases, not gaming.

tl;dr - average end user gets a much better bang for the buck with Zen 4 vs Zen 5 especially if near a microcenter. Just like AM4 had some stellar deals after AM5 launched, I expect 7700/X and 7800X3D deals will be the ones to get for gamers.

 

[Heartbreaker]

9950x reviews are out. I was expecting with more power budget things might look better. Nope.

If anything this one looks worse.

HWUB gets 1% faster gaming, and it trades blows with 7950X on power usage.

He points out that on their productivity benches, 7950X was over 50% faster than 5950X, but this time 9950X it's only 3% faster.

 

[moinmoin]

Consumer Zen 5 is really Zen's RDNA3 moment. 💀

 

[gdansk]

Consumer Zen 5 is really Zen's RDNA3 moment. 💀

For gamers it is probably worse because RDNA3 actually improved game performance and Zen 5 doesn't.

But luckily for AMD
1. Intel is no Nvidia.
2. The consumer market isn't the largest market for Zen.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Consumer Zen 5 is really Zen's RDNA3 moment. 💀

I think we are witnessing a combination of AMD's focus on enterprise and mobile and the repercussions of the human malware outbreak. Desktop is only 20% of PC sales so if you are going to phone it in somewhere, it is probably the best place.

 

[Ranulf]

@H T C

How much difference do you think it would make? Enough to change reviewer opinions?


He has been sleeping in the office all week, so I am guessing he is 1970s American truck driver caffeinated.

Yeah, I saw that on the power efficency video I think and it makes more sense now that I'm watching their 9950X review. AMD deciding that you need to setup the xbox game bar thing for these new chips like you had to for the 12/16core 7900x3d cache cpus. Reviewers had to toss out data already done days before review release date.

 

[AnandThenMan]

This is a classic case of hardware ready software not ready.