AMD Ryzen 5 7600X Review

The Ryzen 7000 series are here, and while the majority of you will want to see how the high-end Ryzen 9 parts do in terms of performance, the average consumer is still going to end up buying a mainstream part, like the Ryzen 5 series of processors. If history has taught us anything, the Ryzen 5 3600X and Ryzen 5 5600X were extremely popular, so it makes sense that the new Ryzen 5 7600X will follow that trend, but before we get into that, here’s a quick word from this video’s sponsor. Now a quick caveat before we delve into the Ryzen 5 7600X, but we do have other content available on the other skus that are being released so definitely check them out on both eTeknix.com in written form, or on our channel. Now, the 7600X from a core and thread standpoint, when compared to its predecessor, has seen nothing change, but as we drill down a little further, the changes become a bit more evident. Not only have we seen a huge increase in base clock speed from 3.7GHz up to 4.7Ghz, the boost clock has also taken a healthy increase too, from 4.6GHz on the 5600X, to 5.3GHz on the 7600X showing us that even the lesser high-end parts, have not been forgotten about and at least on paper, mean business. It doesn’t just stop there, as we also see the L2 cache now doubled from 3MB to 6MB, Radeon graphics embedded directly into the chip, though it’s more aimed at desktop graphics opposed to gaming and support for both DDR5 and PCI-Express 5, not that we have any devices on the market, just yet. All of this is thanks to the new TSMC 5nm process node that the core is made from which also sees IPC improvements by up to 13%, which all sounds well and good. There is however, a less favorable update, shall we say, where we see the default TDP of the 7600X being increased from 65 Watts on the Ryzen 5 5600X to 105 Watts. What that means in terms of temperatures and efficiency, we’ll be finding out later on because while the performance should in theory be better, we have to ask, if that’s worth sacrificing in other areas, like thermals for instance. Now, at this point, you’ve probably see tons of images and videos of the processors design, but it’s still worth commenting on, as this is the first time we’ve seen a completely new IHS design from AMD since 2003, and while I did fear that thermal paste getting into the grooves would be an issue, after testing, I found that to be a completely non-issue, so hopefully that at least puts your mind at ease, if that was some cause for concern. Now one area that, at least in my eyes was a cause for concern, came down to the pricing. When the Ryzen 5 3600X launched back in 2019, it did so with a MSRP price of $249. The next generation 5600X launched at a slightly higher $299, but it offered a very large jump in performance that warranted the extra cost. My fear now, is that with the Ryzen 5 7600X coming in at the same $299 price tag, how much extra performance are we really going to see? Video Review If you want to see our full video review of the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X, you can do so below. How We Test We continue to update our testing methods around once per year. As such, we re-test older hardware to reflect changes over time. These can be driver updates, Windows updates, game patches, and more; all of which have an impact on performance figures. Furthermore, we update our test benches to newer and more relevant hardware. This means that our new reviews aren’t always comparable to those of older reviews, so please compare the testing methodology on older reviews should you be trying to compare them with newer ones. Replicate Our Results When it comes to our benchmarks in our reviews, the benchmarks are pretty self-explanatory and are kept as simple as possible, although there are a few exceptions. Remember that your choice of a graphics card, CPU, the silicon lottery, and other factors can yield different numbers, and there’s always a margin for error when using any software. Links are provided below, as well as the settings we use. We encourage you to not just look at how one product compares to any other, but how it compares to your own. If you’re looking to build a new system, you should benchmark your current PC using the benchmarks available to you. You should then look at the percentage improvement from your current hardware to the hardware tested here to give you a ballpark figure of how much of an upgrade this will provide you with. Processor Test Systems Test System (AM5) Motherboard Changes Per Review Processor AMD Ryzen 9 7950X Review Buy Now GPU Zotac RTX 3090 Trinity Review Buy Now RAM Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR5 32GB 5200MHz Review Buy Now CPU Cooler NZXT Kraken Z73 RGB Buy Now Power Supply NZXT C1000 Gold Review Buy Now Storage Seagate FIRECUDA 530 1TB Review Buy Now Chassis NZXT H7 Flow Review Buy Now OS Windows 11 Pro Version 21H2 Drivers Graphics: 516.94 Test System (AM4) Motherboard Changes Per Review Processor AMD Ryzen 9 5950X Review Buy Now GPU Zotac RTX 3090 Trinity Review Buy Now RAM Kingston Fury Renegade DDR4 32GB 3600MHz Review Buy Now CPU Cooler NZXT Kraken Z73 RGB Buy Now Power Supply NZXT C1000 Gold Review Buy Now Storage Seagate FIRECUDA 530 1TB Review Buy Now Chassis NZXT H7 Flow Review Buy Now OS Windows 11 Pro Version 21H2 Drivers Graphics: 516.94 Test System (Z690) Motherboard MSI Z690 UnifyBIOS Version 7D28v17 Processor Changes Per Review Review Buy Now GPU Zotac RTX 3090 Trinity Review Buy Now RAM Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR5 32GB 5200MHz Review Buy Now CPU Cooler NZXT Kraken Z73 RGB Buy Now Power Supply NZXT C1000 Gold Review Buy Now Storage Seagate FIRECUDA 530 1TB Review Buy Now Chassis NZXT H7 Flow Review Buy Now OS Windows 11 Pro Version 21H2 Drivers Graphics: 516.94 Test System (Z590) Motherboard ASUS Maximus XIII HeroBIOS Version 1402 Review Buy Now Processor Changes Per Review GPU Zotac RTX 3090 Trinity Review Buy Now RAM Kingston Fury Renegade DDR4 32GB 3600MHz Review Buy Now CPU Cooler NZXT Kraken Z73 RGB Buy Now Power Supply NZXT C1000 Gold Review Buy Now Storage Seagate FIRECUDA 530 1TB Review Buy Now Chassis NZXT H7 Flow Review Buy Now OS Windows 11 Pro Version 21H2 Drivers Graphics: 516.94 Additional Hardware ElmorLabs PMD-USB Power Measurement Device With USB Software We use a variety of software from different developers to assist in our testing and to give us the most consistent results possible. Some applications are specifically used for testing, while others are simply used for monitoring and to aid us in making sure that our results are as accurate as possible. Software Used 3DMark FireStrike & TimeSpy (download)7-Zip (download)AIDA64 (download)Blender 3.3.0 (download)CapFrameX 1.6.9 (download)Cinebench R23 (download)Corona 1.3 (download)CPU-Z (download)Geekbench 5 (download)Google Octane 2.0 (link)GPU-Z (download)HWMonitor (download)Keyshot Viewer 11.2.1 (download)Mozilla Kraken 1.1 (link)PCMark 10 Express (download)Super PI 2.1 WP (download)V-Ray 5.00.20 (download)WebXPRT 4 (link)WPrime 2.11 (download) Gaming To gauge performance levels which are easily reproduced time after time, by both ourselves and our readers, we now stick strictly to games default profiles. Given how powerful most modern cards are getting, we've began using more demanding profiles for most games, but will otherwise state on a per game basis if we use other profiles beyond High, Ultra, Maximum or their respective equivalent at all resolutions. V-Sync is always disabled in our testing, and all FPS caps that can be removed are. We also enable XMP and Resizable bar technology across all platforms to keep things as fair as possible. Games While we test a lot of games, it's not possible to display all of the data on the website or in our videos. Instead, we include access to all of our testing data for our Patreon members (link), where members get a ton of other benefits as well. What we do, however, is display charts for averages across all game titles to give a better picture of performance across all titles tested. Assassin's Creed ValhallaCyberpunk 2077F1 22Far Cry 6Forza Horizon 5Horizon Zero DawnMicrosoft Flight Simulator 2020Red Dead Redemption 2Shadow Of The Tomb RaiderWatch Dogs: Legion Resolutions 1080p (Full HD) Some tests will also include features such as NVIDIA DLSS and Ray Tracing. However, these will be clearly labelled and may only appear in reviews for graphics cards that support those features. Power Consumption Not being content on simply reading total system power draw at both idle, we now have the ability thanks to the ElmorLabs PMD-USB device that allows us to measure power draw directly through the EPS power connectors. We test at idle, during gaming load, of which we measure drawing a run of Cyberpunk 2077 and during Cinebench R23 at load too. Temperatures We take temperature readings after 10 minutes of desktop idle with no background programs running, then take the recorded maximum delivered during the same runs as when we measure power consumption, being during our Cyberpunk 2033 run, and during Cinebench R23 at load too. Super PI 2.1 WP Super PI is a single-threaded benchmark that calculates pi to a specific number of digits. It uses the Gauss-Legendre algorithm and is a Windows port of a program used by Yasumasa Kanada in 1995 to compute pi to 232 digits Available now on Super PI. Starting things off with Super PI and straight away, we can see that the 7600X in comparison to its predecessor, the 5600X has seen just over a minute shaved off of the total calculation time. Compared to the 12600K from Intel, the 7600X has now further cemented its lead, as the 5600X was already a few seconds quicker to start with. What is interesting here is that the 7600X is now the fastest CPU we've tested in Super PI. wPrime 2.11 wPrime is a leading multithreaded benchmark for x86 processors that tests your processor performance by calculating square roots with a recursive call of Newton's method for estimating functions, with f(x)=x2-k, where k is the number we're sqrting, until Sgn(f(x)/f'(x)) does not equal that of the previous iteration, starting with an estimation of k/2. It then uses an iterative calling of the estimation method a set amount of times to increase the accuracy of the results. It then confirms that n(k)2=k to ensure the calculation was correct. It repeats this for all numbers from 1 to the requested maximum. Available now on wPrime. In wPrime, we again see some healthy gains in the 32M calculation test over both the 5600X and 12600K, and this is further confirmed in the 1024M test where we see a dramatic difference in the calculation time that actually sees the 7600X faster than the likes of the 5800X3D. 7-Zip 7-Zip is a free and open-source file archiver, a utility used to place groups of files within compressed containers known as "archives". It is developed by Igor Pavlov and was first released in 1999. 7-Zip has its own archive format called 7z, but can read and write several others. Available now on 7-Zip. Taking a look at compression and in the 7-Zip benchmark we again see some pretty strong results compared to the 12600K and its previous generation part, the 5600X. In fact, the compression result here is only just behind the 5800X3D and we find very similar results in the decompression tests too, only being beaten by much higher SKU parts. AIDA64 AIDA64 is a system information, diagnostics, and auditing application developed by FinalWire Ltd that runs on Windows, Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Tizen, Chrome OS and Sailfish OS operating systems. It displays detailed information on the components of a computer. Available now on AIDA64. Due to the fact that AM5 uses DDR5, the only real basis we have is compared to other AM5 based processors that we've tested, and Intel's Alder Lake based products along with seeing what kind of uplift we have over AM4's DDR4 performance. Straight away we do see a performance uplift in terms of bandwidth over AM4 of 14% when comparing the 5600X to the 7600X and while this is welcomed, Intel definitely still hold the upper hand. When looking at the write speeds, and though we tested multiple times, it seems that some of the 3000 and 5000 series processors have a theoretical maximum throughput on the memory controller, hence identical results, and due to this, we see a huge 140% gain in performance when moving to the 7600X, though lower-end processors like the 12100F from Intel still manage to push ahead by around 6%. In the copy portion of the test, we again see a strong performance gain, this time of just over 25% when comparing like for like on the 5600X to the 7600X. Again, Intel push ahead more and show that bandwidth is big business for the 12th generation of CPUs. When we look at the latency, this is where things get a bit closer between the AMD 7600X and Intel's 12th generation with some slightly stronger numbers in favour of AMD as the Intel 12600K is around 6% slower overall. Due to the fact that the 5600X is on AM4 which only supports DDR4, of course we see some better numbers compared to the 7600X but a faster memory kit may make a difference here instead. Blender 3.3.0 Blender Open Data is a platform to collect, display and query the results of hardware and software performance tests - provided by the Blender community. Available now on Blender. Moving over to rendering performance and in Blender we see a pretty solid 38% lead over the 5600X, though performance on the 7600X does sit just below the 12600K but also shows a decent uplift over higher core count processors from the previous generation like the 5800X3D. Cinebench R23 Cinebench is a real-world cross-platform test suite that evaluates your computer's hardware capabilities. Improvements to Cinebench Release 23 reflect the overall advancements to CPU and rendering technology in recent years, providing a more accurate measurement of Cinema 4D's ability to take advantage of multiple CPU cores and modern processor features available to the average user. Best of all: It's free. Available now on Maxon. Within Cinebench R23 single core performance we see a strong uplift in performance over the previous generation 5600X of around 27%. When compared to the 12600K from Intel, the 7600X does come out on top but only by around 2%. In terms of multi-core performance, we see slightly stronger performance with a 35% lead over the 5600X, though the 12600K still has stellar performance over the new sku with a 14% lead. Corona 1.3 Test and compare the performance of your CPU using this free benchmark application, which is built upon Corona Renderer 1.3. Available now on Corona In Corona, the 7600X shows some strong gains compared to the 5600X by coming in 24 seconds faster to render, though does still sit around 5 seconds slower than the Intel 12600K. Looking at rays per second, and we can see a clear 25% improvement in performance moving from the 5600X to the 7600X but the 12600K from Intel does still manage to push ahead by 5% overall. Keyshot Viewer 11.2.1 KeyShot Viewer is a free, stand-alone desktop application that enables secure sharing of KeyShot scenes for interactive, photo-realistic 3D model viewing, presentation and configuration, using the same real-time ray tracing render engine as KeyShot to produce amazing visuals with speed and quality. Available now on KeyShot. In Keyshot Viewer, where performance is based on multiples of render time on their reference system, the 7600X ends up taking a sizeable lead of 29% over the 5600X. but sadly it's not enough as again, the 12600K just manages to push ahead by around 5% over the 7600X. V-Ray 5.00.20 V-Ray® Benchmark is a free standalone application to test how fast your system renders. It’s simple, fast and includes three render engine test. Available now on Chaos. In the last of our render based tests V-Ray showed a nice performance leap of 37% from the 7600X when comparing it against its predecessor, the 5600X, though again, the 12600K from Intel proves to be too strong and pushes ahead, albeit by 1.7%. 3DMark Firestrike 3DMark tests your system's GPU and CPU performance by rendering extremely demanding game-like scenes in real-time. The faster the benchmark runs, the better your score. Now your quest begins. What can you do to get a better score? 3DMark is available on Steam here. In 3DMark Firestrike we see a similar increase in performance that we've been continuously seeing with the 7600X pushing around 8.5% ahead of the 5600X which was already slightly ahead of the 12600K from Intel to start with. 3DMark Timespy Time Spy is a DirectX 12 benchmark test for gaming PCs running Windows 10 and above only. With its pure DirectX 12 engine, built from the ground up to support the latest API features like asynchronous compute, explicit multi-adapter, and multi-threading, Time Spy is the ideal benchmark for testing the DirectX 12 performance of modern graphics cards and is typically a good benchmark for mid-to-high-end hardware. Furthermore, Timespy Extreme is designed for 4K performance testing. 3DMark is available on Steam here. In 3DMark Timespy the 12600K is near the top of our chart and pushes ahead of the new Ryzen processor by 7%. We do still see an uplift from the 5600X of 4% but it's not really enough to push closer to Intel's Alder Lake equivalent. Geekbench 5 Geekbench 5 is a cross-platform benchmark that measures your system's performance with the press of a button. How will your mobile device or desktop computer perform when push comes to crunch? How will it compare to the newest devices on the market? Find out today with Geekbench 5. Available now on Geekbench. When looking at single core performance in Geekbench, the 7900X shows some impressive performance over the 5600X of 31% and a lower, but still impressive 10.8% over the 12900K. With such a strong emphasis on single core performance in games, could this be a sign of what's to come in our gaming testing? We'll find out soon. Moving onto multi-core performance and we see a huge leap of over 40% when comparing the uplift from the 5600X to the 7600X though performance does fall slightly behind the 12600K with it taking a 9.2% lead over the new Ryzen processor. PCMark 10 PCMark 10 features a comprehensive set of tests that cover the wide variety of tasks performed in the modern workplace. With a range of performance tests, custom run options, Battery Life Profile, and new Storage benchmarks, PCMark 10 is the complete PC benchmark for the modern office. Available now on Steam. In PCMark 10 Express, we again see the 7600X with a decent uplift over the 5600X, by 16.8% and compared to the 12600K, we see a healthy 12% lead from the 7600X but that's not the big news here. What we actually find is the sheer clock speed of the 7600X and 7900X for that fact topping our charts where it really matters for this test. Google Octane 2.0 Octane 2.0 is a benchmark that measures a JavaScript engine’s performance by running a suite of tests representative of certain use cases in JavaScript applications. Google Octane now on Google Developers. Taking a look at web browser performance, and kicking things off with Google Octane, and we see similar gains to what we've already seen so far with a 26% lead over the 5600X. In terms of relative performance to the 12600K, we do see the 7600X push ahead by just under 5% overall as well and while the 12900K does beat the 7600X, it's only by less than 2%. Mozilla Kraken 1.1 Kraken is a JavaScript performance benchmark created by Mozilla that measures the speed of several different test cases extracted from real-world applications and libraries. Mozilla Kraken now on Github. In Mozilla Kraken, the 7600X comes in at 375.6 milliseconds which is around 21% faster than what we saw from the 5600X and around 10% faster than the 12600K. In fact, the 7600X did so good here that it was actually just under 5% faster than the Core i9 12900K flagship from Intel and only fell just behind the beefier 7900X. WebXPRT 4 WebXPRT 4 is a browser benchmark that compares the performance of almost any web-enabled device. It contains HTML5, JavaScript, and WebAssembly-based scenarios created to mirror the tasks you do every day: Photo Enhancement, Organize Album Using AI, Stock Option Pricing, Encrypt Notes and OCR Scan using WASM, Sales Graphs, and Online Homework. Use WebXPRT to see exactly how well different devices handle real-world tasks. Mozilla Kraken now on Principled Technologies. In WebXPRT, we again see some really strong performance from the new Ryzen 7000 series, with the 7600X sitting near the top of our chart, only being beaten by the 7900X. while it could be argued margin of error, the 7600X comes in just ahead of the 12900K but does sit 7% ahead of the 12600K and 21% ahead of the 5600X. Assassin's Creed Valhalla Assassin's Creed Valhalla is a 2020 action role-playing video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the twelfth major instalment in the Assassin's Creed series and the successor to 2018's Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Principally set in the years 872–878 AD, the game recounts a fictional story during the Viking expansions into the British Isles. Players control Eivor Varinsdottir, a Viking raider who becomes embroiled in the centuries-old conflict between the Assassin Brotherhood, who fight for peace and liberty, and the Templar Order, who desire peace through control. The modern-day portion of the story is set in the 21st century and follows Layla Hassan, an Assassin who relives Eivor's memories so as to find a way to save the Earth from destruction. Available now on UPlay. As we know, Assassin's Creed Valhalla doesn't really make a huge difference in the average FPS and that's why we only see less than a 1% improvement over the 5600X which could be argued margin of error, though we do see a 7% uplift in performance when looking at the 1% lows which will provide a better and more fluid gaming experience overall. Cyberpunk 2077 Cyberpunk 2077 is an open-world, action-adventure RPG set in the megalopolis of Night City, where you play as a cyberpunk mercenary wrapped up in a do-or-die fight for survival. Improved and featuring all-new free additional content, customize your character and playstyle as you take on jobs, build a reputation, and unlock upgrades. The relationships you forge and the choices you make will shape the story and the world around you. Legends are made here. What will yours be? Available now on Steam. In Cyberpunk we see a 21% improvement generation on generation and also see around a 22% uplift in the 1% lows and while it's impressive, it's still not enough to overthrow the 12600K from Intel which pushes ahead by just under 2% compared to the 7600X. F1 22 Enter the new era of Formula 1® in EA SPORTS™ F1® 22, the official video game of the 2022 FIA Formula One World Championship™. Take your seat for a new season as redesigned cars and overhauled rules redefine race day, test your skills around the new Miami International Autodrome, and get a taste of the glitz and glamour in F1® Life. Race the stunning, new cars of the Formula 1® 2022 season with the authentic lineup of all 20 drivers and 10 teams, and take control of your race experience with new immersive or broadcast race sequences. Create a team and take them to the front of the grid with new depth in the acclaimed My Team career mode, race head-to-head in split-screen or multiplayer, or change the pace by taking supercars from some of the sport’s biggest names to the track in our all-new Pirelli Hot Laps feature. The official video game of the 2022 FIA Formula One World Championship™: Available now on Steam. F1 22 sees a 6% performance improvement over the 5600X which while it's nice to see, it's not enough to even get close to the 12600K from Intel which ends up 8% ahead of the 7600X, though does suffer slightly in the 1% lows in comparison. Far Cry 6 Welcome to Yara, a tropical paradise frozen in time. As the dictator of Yara, Antón Castillo is intent on restoring his nation back to its former glory by any means, with his son, Diego, following in his bloody footsteps. Their oppressive rule has ignited a revolution. Available now on Ubisoft Connect. Far Cry 6 seems another healthy gain in performance when comparing the 5600X to the 7600X with a 17% increase in performance at 1080p. Compared to the 12600K, the 7600X does come out on top, though there is only 1% in it, so it could be argued as margin of error. Forza Horizon 5 Your Ultimate Horizon Adventure awaits! Explore the vibrant and ever-evolving open world landscapes of Mexico with limitless, fun driving action in hundreds of the world’s greatest cars. This is Your Horizon Adventure Lead breathtaking expeditions across the vibrant and ever-evolving open world landscapes of Mexico with limitless, fun driving action in hundreds of the world’s greatest cars. This is a Diverse Open World Explore a world of striking contrast and beauty. Discover living deserts, lush jungles, historic cities, hidden ruins, pristine beaches, vast canyons and a towering snow-capped volcano. This is an dventurous Open World Immerse yourself in a deep campaign with hundreds of challenges that reward you for engaging in the activities you love. Meet new characters and choose the outcomes of their Horizon Story missions. Available now on Steam. Forza shows similar gains with the 7600X pushing ahead by 17% again generation to generation and while the 12600K does draw closer, the 7600X is still ahead by 7.6%. Horizon Zero Dawn Experience Aloy’s entire legendary quest to unravel the mysteries of a world ruled by deadly Machines. An outcast from her tribe, the young hunter fights to uncover her past, discover her destiny… and stop a catastrophic threat to the future. Unleash devastating, tactical attacks against unique Machines and rival tribes as you explore an open world teeming with wildlife and danger. Horizon Zero Dawn is a multi-award-winning action role-playing game – and this Complete Edition for PC includes the huge expansion The Frozen Wilds, featuring new lands, skills, weapons and Machines. Available now on Steam. Horizon Zero Dawn doesn't show anywhere near the same improvements where the 7600X only increases performance over its predecessor by 1.6% and a much smaller 0.4% over the 12600K though at 245FPS, it's not something you're going to notice when playing a title like this. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 The Microsoft Flight Simulator Game of the Year (GOTY) Edition celebrates all the positive feedback, reviews and awards garnered, but it is also a “Thank You” to our fans – new and old – that have made Microsoft Flight Simulator such a phenomenon. Best of all, the Microsoft Flight Simulator Game of the Year Edition will be available as a free update for existing players on PC. Available now on Steam. Microsoft Flight Sim really loves that stacked cache of the 5800X3D which sees it fly to the top of our charts followed behind by the 7600X, which comes in higher than the 7900X by 4% and a whopping 20.5% higher than the 12600K. Red Dead Redemption 2 With all new graphical and technical enhancements for deeper immersion, Red Dead Redemption 2 for PC takes full advantage of the power of the PC to bring every corner of this massive, rich and detailed world to life including increased draw distances; higher quality global illumination and ambient occlusion for improved day and night lighting; improved reflections and deeper, higher resolution shadows at all distances; tessellated tree textures and improved grass and fur textures for added realism in every plant and animal. Available now on Steam. When it comes to the average FPS in Red Dead Redemption, there isn't much to talk about as the increase in performance over the 5600X and 12600K is negligible but what is interesting is where we see the 1% lows push forward giving us a much smoother gameplay experience and less dips overall. Shadow of the Tomb Raider Experience Lara Croft’s defining moment as she becomes the Tomb Raider. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Lara must master a deadly jungle, overcome terrifying tombs, and persevere through her darkest hour. As she races to save the world from a Maya apocalypse, Lara will ultimately be forged into the Tomb Raider she is destined to be. Available now on Steam. Much like with our 7900X content, we noticed a slight anomaly in Shadow Of The Tomb Raider where the Ryzen 7000 series processors underperform what we'd expect, and we're hopeful that this will be fixed in an update from the developer. Watch Dogs: Legion Build a resistance from virtually anyone you see as you hack, infiltrate, and fight to take back a near-future London that is facing its downfall. Welcome to the Resistance. Recruit and play as anyone in the city. Everyone you see has a unique backstory, personality, and skill set. Hack armed drones, deploy spider-bots and take down enemies using an Augmented Reality Cloak. Explore a massive urban open world featuring London’s many iconic landmarks and fun side activities. Take your recruits online and team up with your friends as you complete missions and challenging endgame content. Available now on UPlay. Finally in Watch Dogs: Legion we continue to see the trend with a 20% improvement over the 5600X though the uplift isn't enough to fend off the 12600K as it sits just 1 FPS behind in both average FPS and the 1% lows. Overall Game Average FPS Testing a variety of games allows you to see how a particular piece of hardware performs in that title, but with the ability to look at overall game averages and how they perform across all titles, we can extrapolate positioning of that hardware compared to similar hardware on the market. So with all the games tested, the easiest way to look at gaming performance is to look at the overall average FPS and I'll be honest. I never expected it to be this close with the 7600X and 12600K nigh on identical, albeit with the 7600X coming in 1FPS better in the 1% lows. The key metric that we have to look at here is the increase in performance moving from the 5600X to the 7600X where it leads by just over 8% which is nothing to grumble about, but I was just expecting something more. Cost Per Frame Looking at the cost per frame allows us to see where a particular product is positioned relative to the competition and previous generation products. By taking the price of the product and dividing it by the overall game average FPS, we have a simple formula that allows us to see if a product offers superior value for money. US Dollars (USD) With any new product, you're always going to be expected to pay a premium as a new adopter and that's pretty evident here for the most part, where we see the 7600X costing around $2.03 per frame which is slightly above the 12600K which performed basically the same. The older but lesser performing 5600X comes in quite a bit cheaper at $1.49 per frame, so I guess it all comes down to personal choice. British Pound (GBP) In the UK, it's a similar story, though we see more alignment between the 7600X and 12600K coming in with the same cost per frame overall. Intel and AMD's higher-end still come in more expensive, while the mid-range 5600X comes in with a pretty reasonable £1.09 per frame, but the 12100F still offers the best value for money at 59 pence per frame. Power Consumption Power consumption is measured at idle, during a Cinebench R23 run and during a gaming benchmark run of Cyberpunk 2077, which is a very CPU intensive game. By getting 3 performance metrics, it allows us to see a better picture of the average user and what they are typically going to see in terms of power draw for just the processor itself. Taking a look at power consumption and while the 7600X does improve at idle in comparison to the 5600X, it actually uses more power during gaming and during our Cinebench run as well. The saving grace is while performance across our benchmarks was very similar to the 12600K, it actually uses significantly less power during workload related tasks, but the Intel CPU still beats it during gaming. Operating Costs With the cost of living increasing across the world, especially when it comes to the cost of electricity, it's worth looking at the cost of running a processor and how it compares to similar products on the market. By taking the average cost per kWh, we can calculate a rough running cost at idle, during a simulated workload test (Cinebench R23), to give us worst-case scenario costs, as well as gaming costs during a run of Cinebench R23. US Dollars (USD) With an average cost of 15.42¢/kWh in the US, the 7600X comes in slightly cheaper at idle to run per hour than the 5600X but falls a little behind in both gaming and workload related tasks. Obviously this isn't a huge amount when looking at the difference, but still a point that needs raising overall. The other point to focus on is that during workload related tasks like Cinebench, we do find the 7600X costing less to run than the 12600K from Intel. British Pound (GBP) In the UK where electricity costs are much higher with an average of £0.34p/kWh, we see a similar trend, with the 7600X costing less to run at idle, but more in both gaming and workload tasks when compared to its predecessor. Idle aside due to the E-Cores from Intel, we see the 12600K and 7600X both winning this battle in one area each. Temperatures Thermals are a key point to any processor, as it allows it to boost for a prolonged amount of time and depending on the task that's being performed, thermals can be either higher or lower. To get the best possible picture, we have recorded thermals for idle, during a simulated Cinebench R23 load test, and during a typical gameplay benchmark run of Cyberpunk 2077. So performance is one thing but temperatures play a big factor too, especially with the 7000 series getting a lot of bad press regarding how high they can go and it was no exception for the 7600X. At idle, along with the 7900X it was one of the hottest chips we've tested, and the same can be said for our gaming load test too. The big one however was during our Cinebench R23 load test where we saw the temperature rise up to 93.6 degrees which was 18% higher than that of the 12600K, though Intel's 12900K still took the crown here at 100 degrees during gaming load. So as always, a ton of stuff to talk about and a lot of data to chew through and also some information on what's next for our Ryzen 7000 series coverage. Now when I first caught wind of the Ryzen 7000 series of processors, much like anyone, I was keen to see what the high-end 7900X and 7950X were going to be like, but for the most part, like the average consumer out there, I wanted to see what was going on at the mainstream end of the spectrum. It's a much harder market to crack when variance between products is so small. What I'm trying to say is that you can only put so much focus on performance before the product starts pushing into a higher bracket of pricing, so I guess AMD had to be careful with trying to beat the 12600K and obviously improving on the 5600X without going a bit too far. Otherwise, the likes of the 7700X would be deemed redundant. So I guess out of all of the new line-up in the Zen 4 range, the 7600X probably has it the toughest, as it has to win in so many areas, and sadly, it falls short in some. How Much Does It Cost? Now I mentioned that pricing was a big one for me, as it's coming in with exactly the same price as the 5900X did when that launched and at $299, while it's not a bad price based on performance, and does offer up a decent amount of uplift in performance over the 5900X, I was just expecting a little more in certain areas whereas other areas, it actually did extremely well. I mean, productivity-wise, I have no qualms about it. For the most part, it was either neck and neck with the 12600K or slightly behind, and I'm ok with that because it's in the same ballpark and that makes it at least at face value, competitive. When it came to gaming, it was a real interesting one, where depending on the title, we see it either decimating the 12600K, and in some cases, coming very close or beating the higher end 12900K, or we see it falling short, behind the 12600K making it a real frustrating situation for me to judge purely based on a value for money aspect. Overview The best way of drilling down performance, at least from a gaming perspective, is to look at the overall average FPS and that just makes it even more difficult because it performed exactly the same as the 12600K, albeit with a 1FPS better 1% low score over the average of 10 games. The saving grace is that compared to the 12900K, it's also very similar in performance with the 12900K only sitting around 1.5% ahead of it, but obviously costing a lot more money. At the end of it all, the 12600K is the slightly better value chip, but it's been out a lot longer too, so it's had a chance for pricing to stabilise, and at the time of making this content, the US Dollar rate is all over the place, so that goes against AMD right now. The biggest issue that AMD have with the 7600X is that it performs the same as the 12600K for the most part, and costs around the same, albeit, coming in around $10 or £10 more expensive, so it's already on the backfoot, and we all know that Intel's 13th generation of processors are right around the corner, and I feel that's going to hurt the 7600X quite badly, depending on its performance and pricing. AMD just needed to do a little more in my opinion, and now it's too late. Should I Buy One? So, don't get me wrong. The 7600X is a great chip. It gives you great performance across productivity and workload related tasks, and of course, during gaming. The big issue right now is that it's a new platform, it means buying a new chip, new board and new memory to get it functioning and that comes at a premium and for a similar premium, you could go Intel. Now there is one thing that's extremely in AMD's favour, and that comes down to the platform. Once you buy a 7600X, you're good to go for years to come, whereas the 12600K is about to be obsolete in one sense of the word. The 13th generation of processors are coming, and will likely be better, and will likely cost more money whereas AM5 as a platform will accept newer processors beyond that in the future so it all comes down to if you're buying for the here and now, or if you're buying for the future as well. A bittersweet conclusion for the 7600X and while I'm trying to find a slightly brighter silver lining, that's all I've pretty much got. Is it enough to sway me? Maybe just, and if the price comes down slightly, like we saw on the 5600X, then definitely, it could go down as one of the greatest processors in the lineup, but for now, it just has too many factors against it, bringing it down, even if it does offer extreme performance.