AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X review: Impressive performance and amazing power efficiency

Note: This review was first published on 7 August 2024.

Finally, AMD’s next generation Ryzen 9000 series processors are ready to roll out after a minor delay. The company would not say what caused it but instead of a full launch on 31 July, it decided to stagger the launch to two dates. The entry-to-mid tiers Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X processors that we are reviewing today were pushed back to 8 August, while the flagships Ryzen 9 9900X and 9950X will follow on 15 August.

On specifications alone, you might think that the Ryzen 9000 series seem like a relatively modest upgrade over the previous generation Ryzen 7000 series, yet there are some genuine generational beneath-the-hood advancements that create healthy uplifts with regards to real-world performance. To learn more about the Zen 5 architecture that powers the Ryzen 9000 series processors, I highly recommend you first read my deep-dive feature here. It also explains how AMD has made the new Ryzen its most power efficient CPUs yet.

Comparing gen-to-gen, the new 9600X and 9700X also have a lower launch price than their 7000 series counterparts. This makes either processor an enticing upgrade just based on pricing along, especially for those who have been holding up since the days of the Ryzen 5000 series or older processors, although you’ll need an AMD motherboard with an AM5 socket.

Speaking of AM5, the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X are physically similar to their Ryzen 7000 series predecessors. The Core Complex Dies (or CCDs) are still made up of eight cores (each core having 1MB L2 cache) with a shared 32MB of L3 cache each and are manufactured with TSMC’s 4nm process. The 9600X and 9700X come with just one CCD, and only six cores are operational on the 9600X. The flagships Ryzen 9 9900X and 9590X on the other hand, come with two CCDs. Now you know how the 9950X gets a combined 80MB cache. All chips include a separate I/O die that is fabricated using TSMC’s 6nm process, which is unchanged from Zen 4’s Ryzen 7000 series.

All Ryzen 9000 series processors will also be compatible with existing X670 and B650 motherboards, as well as the upcoming X870 and B850 motherboards. The latter will come with better bells and whistles, including USB 4, Wi-Fi 7 and faster PCIe 5 lanes.

Now let’s look at the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X performances.

Performance benchmarks

Our CPU test rig comes with the following specifications, with motherboards used being the only different components used.

• ROG Crosshair X670E Hero (AMD) / ROG Strix Z790-F Gaming WiFi II motherboard (Intel)
• Samsung 980 Pro 1TB SSD
• Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 memory
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition
• Windows 11 OS

For the Intel processors, bear in mind that we benchmarked them using the latest motherboard firmware that has placed a power limit on the CPU. Due to the ongoing 13th and 14th Gen “elevated operating voltage” issue, this is a necessary precaution but also impacts the processor’s performance (you can read about it here).

Gaming performance

The Ryzen 7 7800X3D is still the top dog when it comes to pure gaming performance, especially with cache-loving games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, thanks to its 3D V-Cache technology, besting even the last-gen flagship Ryzen 9 7950X3D (there’s a technical reason why AMD made the 7800X3D better than the 7950X3D when it comes to gaming; read here). But what’s more incredible here is how both the 9600X and 9700X are clearly ahead of the rest of the Ryzen 7000 series processors – not bad for a budget and mid-tier processor, eh?

As for Intel’s processors, it’s a stark reminder to just how bad the current voltage issue that is plaguing the 13th and 14th Gen processors are. Even Team Blue’s flagship i9-14900K loses out to AMD’s slowest processor – the Ryzen 7 7700X – in this list.

However, it is essential to keep in mind that your CPU is not the sole determinant of gaming performance. At higher resolutions, the choice of graphics card has a more significant impact on frame rates. While the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X are the fastest non-X3D AMD processors we've tested, its performances will diminish at higher resolutions like 1440p, and more so at 4K, where performances of all the top-end CPUs in my tests are almost on par – separated only by very marginal differences.

Productivity and Content Creation performance

Unlike its poor performance in gaming, both Intel’s Core i9-13900K and i9-14900K reigned supreme in Handbrake, where it encoded a 4.5GB video the fastest. That said, AMD’s own last-gen flagship Ryzen 9 7950X isn’t that far off, and it’s a fair assumption that the upcoming Ryzen 9 9950X will very likely surpasses the i9-14900K. But it is surprising to see that the 9600X and 9700X weren't even that close to the i5-14900K. 

I like SYSmark 30 as it measures and compares system performance using real-world applications and workloads – such as office suite-style applications, tasks like web browsing, file compression, and application installation, and photo and video editing applications, including multitasking.

And it’s here that the 9600X and 9700X show remarkable generational uplift in performance compared to its Ryzen 7000 series predecessors. Apart from Office Applications, it also came very close to or even best the i9-14900K. The huge performance gap in the Advanced Content Creation test between the AMD and Intel processors is very likely due to the new power limitation safety mentioned earlier, which is a shame for Intel. Really.

Power and thermal efficiency

It’s no secret that the 13th and 14th Gen are power-hungry processors as compared to their Ryzen 7000 and 9000 series counterparts. AMD having the 9600X and 9700X made by TSMC’s smaller 4nm process is a huge advantage, bestowing on these processors with more power efficiency and speed, than the by-now outdated 10nm process used by Intel to make its current 13th and 14th Gen processors.

It’s also worth noting that a processor’s TDP isn’t a set value, and it could ramp up depending on the workload. As we can see in the charts above, where I measured the power and temperature of each processor while running Cinebench R23 (Multi Core) and the game Metro: Exodus, the 9600X and 9700X’s power shot up to a maximum of 88W – its PPT (Package Power Tracking) limit. It’s not that far off from its 65W TDP, which is very impressive, and both processors are running at a very cool temperature too. I reckon the overclocking potential for the 9600X and 9700X is very high since they are unlocked, and it’s a test I will do for a separate article once the 9900X and 9950X arrive in my hands.

All in all, it's quite amazing how AMD has engineered the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X – and by extension the rest of the Ryzen 9000 series processors – to be so great at power efficiency. The Ryzen 7000 series were already pretty good at that, especially when compared to Intel’s processors. But the Ryzen 9000 series takes it to the next level.

Final thoughts

AMD has done it again. In my opinion, the 9600X and 9700X are two of the best processors for gaming, light content creation workloads and office productivity. On the surface, both processors don’t seem to stand out when compared to their Ryzen 7000 series predecessors. But looks and specifications can be deceiving, and our benchmarks have shown just how far the Zen 5 architecture is ahead of not only the Zen 4, but Intel as well, in terms of power efficiency and performance. That said, owners of a similar-class Zen 3-based Ryzen 5 5600X or Ryzen 7 5700X processor will have more incentives to upgrade to the 9600X or 9700X as they not only get the most uplift in performance and power efficiency, but also a more future-proof AM5 platform (AMD is committed to supporting the AM5 socket through 2027) that comes with better tech and features.

As for Intel users, now is as good a time as any to consider jumping ship to AMD. 

For my money, the Ryzen 5 9600X is automatically the recommended processor for gaming at US$279. It’s not that great when it comes to content creation workloads, but there’s where the US$359 Ryzen 7 9700X comes in – rightly positioned as the mid-tier choice in the Ryzen 9000 series. Even if video encoding performance seems to be a tad poor. For that and everything else, there’s the soon-to-launched flagships Ryzen 9 9900X and 9950X. If the performance trajectories of the Ryzen 9 7900X and 7950X, and now the 9600X and 9700X, are anything to go by, we may not have seen the best of the Ryzen 9000 series yet.

Well done, Team Red.

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