AMD Ryzen 9 7900X Review

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 per hour 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 the average cost of 15.42¢/kWh in the US, the 7900X comes in as costing $0.005 per hour at idle, which is the same as the 5900X and slightly cheaper then the 5950X, but with this one, we have to give it to Intel’s 12900K with its efficiency cores really stealing the show.

During gaming, the 7900X then steals the show compared to the 5900X, 5950X and 12900K, albeit by a small margin, and during our Cinebench load test, the 7900X falls down the stack only being beaten by the 12900K which would end up costing around 1.3¢/kWh more to run.

British Pound (GBP)

Sadly electricity prices in the UK are somewhat more expensive at £0.34p/kWh due to the Energy Price Guarantee, and with this, we still see the 7900X coming in cheaper than every CPU apart from again, the 12900K due to its efficiency cores.

During gaming, the 7900X is slightly more expensive to run than the 5800X3D but does come in cheaper than the 5900X, 5950X and Intel’s 12900K which is the most expensive CPU we tested today.

Then in our Cinebench R23 run, we see the 7900X costing around £0.06p to run for an hour, compared to the £0.087p of the 12900k, while the 5950X and 5900X both come in significantly cheaper.