AMD Ryzen 7 9700X CPU Review

About the AMD 9700X

Specs wise, both the new and old CPU are packing 8 cores, both sporting 16 threads, and from a first glance, the 4.5GHz base clock of the 7000 series CPU seems wildly more powerful than this shiny new 9700X, so are we expecting AMD to have nerfed us with this new Zen 5 based CPU? Well there are some areas that it comes out on top. Yes, the base frequency comes in at 3.8GHz, a pretty staggering 700MHz slower than its predecessor, but it does come in with a boost clock of up to 5.5GHz, though even then, that’s only 100MHz faster than the 7700X, so it doesn’t sound all that impressive, so hey, what gives? Why, if I’m on Zen 4 should I upgrade to this, and why if I’m on something older, don’t I just upgrade to the 7700X instead? Well aside from the faster 5600MHz JEDEC supported memory speed, and the 65 Watt TDP, compared to 105W on the 7700X, there’s much more going on under the hood.

Firstly, we’re now rocking a 4nm process for the CPU cores, a novel move forward from the 5nm application that we saw on the 7700X, though the I/O is still sporting an older 6nm process, but thanks to that change in terms of fabrication, the transistor count has managed to increase by a pretty astounding 27%, now at 8.315 million, all while keeping the die size essentially the same so much of the same, but also some slight differences, which is where our expected extra performance should come from.

Due to some tweaks under the hood, AMD are claiming a 16% improvement in IPC along with refinements thanks to the new architecture meaning better energy efficiency and better enhancements in terms of AI capabilities. We now also have better and faster EXPO based memory speeds and new motherboards on the way with the new X800 series range launching next month, though that is more about features and less about any extra added performance.