Announcements of CPU processors are inclined to concentrate on larger, higher, quicker—which normally means concentrated consideration on the flagship chip. But again in August, when AMD lastly spilled particulars about Ryzen 7000, probably the most startling information wasn’t concerning the top-of-the-line, beefy Ryzen 9 7950X. Instead, Team Red shocked everybody by saying that the standard Ryzen 5 7600X might beat Intel’s flagship Core i9-12900Okay.

Now that the 7600X is right here, it’s clear that AMD wasn’t exaggerating. This 6-core, 12-thread chip is beastly in gaming, in a position to go to toe-to-toe with rivals far above its weight class. And it might achieve this in a number of titles.

We’d name it a transparent win for AMD—besides the chip is dragged down by the very advances that assist its siblings shine.

Ryzen 7000, recapped

You can learn our initial write-up about Ryzen 7000 for the total technical particulars of AMD’s first Zen 4 chips. (Alternatively, you may zip via the condensed summary in case you’re quick on time.) But in a nutshell, the launch chips sport substantial enhancements in clock pace and efficiency over Ryzen 5000, their predecessor.

These developments are the results of a number of firsts for AMD. Ryzen 7000 chips are the primary on 5nm, first to make use of Zen 4 structure, and the primary suitable with the corporate’s new AM5 socket. AM5 affords a few main developments over the long-lived, much-beloved socket AM4 platform—particularly, help for lightning-fast PCIe 5 parts and DDR5 reminiscence, plus a shift to an LGA design that helps increased energy use (and ends the period of bent CPU pins, as LGA strikes pins to the motherboard socket as an alternative).

Adam Patrick Murray / IDG

And Ryzen 7000 undoubtedly stretches into that increased vitality draw. For the 7600X, you’re an anticipated wattage of 105 watts drawn beneath load. If the chip attracts extra energy whereas boosting, its cap as offered by its AM5 socket is 230W. The 5600X was rated at 65W, with a restrict of 142W via its AM4 socket.

Ryzen 7000’s different main new function is built-in graphics, which is able to make it simpler to troubleshoot issues along with your PC—you received’t must have a devoted graphics card plugged in to get a video sign. And when funds chips ultimately launch, it can save you money by skipping the added expense of a discrete card for basic-use PCs.

Performance

As a 6-core, 12-thread chip, the Ryzen 5 7600X is ostensibly branded as a extra reasonably priced mid-tier choice—a processor meant for targeted use in gaming and productiveness (Microsoft Office, internet shopping, picture enhancing, and so on.) But this CPU can usually flex its muscle mass as onerous as larger, badder processors in these areas, if not tougher. Let’s dive into the numbers.

A word about our knowledge: The benchmark scores on this assessment had been generously offered to us by our colleague Sebastian Schenzinger from our sister web site, PC Welt. (You can learn his Ryzen 7600X review in German.) For detailed information on the check machines utilized in his benchmarks, bounce to finish of this text.

Gaming

We’ll begin with the surprising battle between the Ryzen 5 7600X and Intel Core i9-12900Okay. It’s a riveting showdown—at 1080p (the most popular resolution for gaming), AMD’s 7600X edges out Team Blue’s flagship half in 5 of the 12 video games in PC Welt’s benchmark suite.

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The dimension of the wins are uneven, nonetheless, with the Ryzen 5 7600X taking a transparent lead in Shadow of the Tomb Raider and the 12900Okay punching tougher in Cyberpunk 2077. In different video games, the distinction is way smaller—simply naked proportion factors. Regardless, you may nonetheless see that AMD’s claims weren’t simply rigorously curated advertising. Its 6-core, 12-thread processor can maintain its personal towards Intel’s $589 20-core, 24-thread flagship CPU. Sure, the story can be extra unimaginable if the 7600X received in each single benchmark, however this final result remains to be a feat.

Also attention-grabbing is the 7600X’s efficiency in comparison with Ryzen 5000’s gaming demon, the incredible Ryzen 7 5800X3D. The latter (and its fancy 3D V-Cache tech) stole the gaming crown from Intel upon launch again in April, however regardless of being outmoded by Ryzen 7000, it nonetheless has loads of pep in its step. On the entire, the 5800X3D outperforms the 7600X throughout the board—an attention-grabbing truth to remember, given sale costs for the 5800X3D have dropped it into the mid-$300s as of late.

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Not satisfied of the Ryzen 5 7600X’s accomplishments? We can drop all the way down to 720p. It’s not a typical gaming decision, however lowering the variety of pixels offers a much less diluted measurement of CPU efficiency. Because the GPU has the simpler job at decrease resolutions, it’s on the CPU to maintain up.

Like at 1080p, you’ll see comparable tendencies in chip efficiency between the 7600X and the 12900Okay (together with the identical uneven variance between particular person video games), although the share variations widen. The similar holds true for the 7600X and 5800X3D.

Production

Outside of gaming, you’ll mostly use a processor just like the Ryzen 5 7600X for gentle picture enhancing and rare encoding of recreation captures or a crunched-down house video. Impressively, the Ryzen 5 7600X sings in Adobe Photoshop—it even bests the Core i9-12900Okay by a tiny quantity.

Sebastian Schenzinger / PC Welt

Move into duties like video enhancing, encoding, and rendering, and the Core i9-12900Okay surges forward, as you’d count on—these multithreaded duties take full benefit of the 12900Okay’s better variety of cores and threads, which make it fitted to heavy workloads.

Sebastian Schenzinger / PC Welt

Sebastian Schenzinger / PC Welt

The extra honest head-to-head is towards the Intel Core i5-12600Okay, the 7600X’s comparable rival. You can count on comparable efficiency in packages like Davinci Resolve, Premiere Pro, and Handbrake, although the chips commerce the highest spot relying on this system. Incidentally, in Premiere Pro, the 12600Okay could also be extra of the true winner, regardless that the 7600X wins on uncooked efficiency. Because Adobe makes use of Intel’s QuickSync expertise, which faucets the chips’ built-in graphics to hurry issues up, it may give Team Blue a large benefit in efficiency. If you have a look at our Ryzen 9 7950X review, the 7950X will get overwhelmed by the 12900Okay in Premiere by nearly 20 %. If for some motive you find yourself working in Premiere Pro, the time saved with an Intel chip can materially have an effect on how a lot you will get accomplished in at some point—particularly while you’re engaged on a aspect venture or labor of affection.

Sebastian Schenzinger / PC Welt

Sebastian Schenzinger / PC Welt

In these sorts of duties, the 7600X additionally usually comes very shut efficiency to the Ryzen 7 5800X and 5800X3D. It’s significantly spectacular, provided that these chips launched at a lot increased listing costs ($150 extra) than the 7600X.

Final ideas

AMD’s Ryzen 5 7600X is clearly an excellent processor. But it has one main drawback, and that’s value.

Everything is dearer nowadays, together with CPUs. Two generations in the past, the 3600X was $250, whereas the 8-core, 16-thread 3700X got here in at $329. With the 7600X, you’re nonetheless paying extra for fewer cores. 

Some people, like my colleague Gordon Mah Ung, would argue that’s the entry charge to badass new tech—particularly since AMD affords such top-notch efficiency. (Just because it did for Ryzen 5000.) That’s a good level, however different core parts are nonetheless pricier, too. DDR5 reminiscence remains to be about twice as costly as DDR4 reminiscence, and an AM5 motherboard with full PCIe 5 help for graphics playing cards and storage carry a premium. Those options assist the 7950X and 7900X scream in benchmarks, and assist future-proof the AM5 motherboard platform, however in addition they add to the required funds for a mid-range gaming construct.

MSI

Of course, you don’t have to go to an excessive with future-proofing on a mid-tier system. And because it’s unlikely you received’t—there’s not a lot stopping you from contemplating affordable options.

Take the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. As we noticed earlier, it outperforms the 7600X in video games. You can discover loads of reasonably priced choices for DDR4 reminiscence and AM4 motherboards, too. With the 5800X3D occurring sale semi-regularly as of late, it comes out to roughly the identical outlay as with a 7600X. (At the time of this writing, you may get a 5800X3D for $365 on sale at Newegg.) Depending in your preferences and improve plans, getting increased framerates might justify sticking with the now-stagnant AM4 platform, and its lack of PCIe 5 and DDR5 help.

Intel

There’s additionally Intel’s 13th-gen Raptor Lake to contemplate, which is coming October 20th. Team Blue says its upcoming chips will likely be as much as 24 % quicker than 12th-gen Alder Lake in video games. A $319 Core i5-13600Okay might find yourself supplanting the 7600X as one of the best mid-tier gaming CPU. For added enchantment, the corporate additionally renewed its help for each DDR4 or DDR5 reminiscence, making it nonetheless doable to purchase a DDR4 motherboard for lower-cost RAM.

And for folks with an extended horizon, extra Ryzen 7000 processors ought to ultimately arrive. Though AMD has not introduced their future plans for Ryzen 7000, a more cost effective Ryzen 5 7600 or equally priced Ryzen 7 7700 will probably be a part of the lineup down the street. DDR5 reminiscence will proceed to drop in worth too.

The wanting it’s, the Ryzen 5 7600X screams, however isn’t fairly a must-buy chip for mid-range gaming builds simply but. Budgets and worth matter—much more so than unimaginable efficiency.

Ryzen 5 7600X check machine information

PCWorld

PCWorld