Ryzen 7000 Non-X Review: This Is Some Serious Efficiency

It wasn’t that long ago that we took a look at the AMD Ryzen 7000 series. But here we are with yet more! This time, we’re taking a look at the Ryzen 5 7600 as well as the Ryzen 9 7900. Both of which are rated at just a mere 65W. The results? They sit just right below their X counterparts, which is honestly both surprising and unsurprising.

First up, let’s quickly get the specs out of the way for these two CPUs that we have here.

Specs

The Ryzen 5 7600 has 6 cores and 12 threads while the Ryzen 9 7900 has 12 cores and 24 threads. Pretty much exactly the same as their X counterparts.

Now at the point of filming this review, we actually do not have access to the full suite of information that AMD is to provide us. That’s simply because we’re actually filming this just before the year ends and this announcement, which you might already know, is or rather has been announced during CES 2023. So if there’s any further information unveiled from CES, we will make sure to add it in the description down below.

But regardless, we at least do know a few major differences between the X SKU and the non-X SKU and it has everything to do with the rated TDP, the base and boost clocks as well being shipped with AMD CPU Coolers. So unlike the Ryzen 5 7600X which has a TDP of 105W and the Ryzen 9 7900X with a TDP of 170W, both the Ryzen 5 7600 and the Ryzen 9 7900 have a TDP of just 65W.

Additionally, the non-X SKU will come with the AMD Wraith CPU Coolers. The Ryzen 5 7600 gets the Wraith STEALTH while the Ryzen 9 7900 gets the Wraith PRISM.

As such, we've actually done our testing with the provided coolers so as to provide you with the out of the box experience as it’s very likely that you, as a customer, would probably just use the provided coolers since you’ve specifically chosen to get the non-X SKU.

But here’s one word of advice. The Wraith PRISM performs great as it’s known to be, no issues on this front but the Wraith Stealth on the other hand, does leave much to be desired, which we’ll cover upon during our benchmarks in just a bit.

As for our test bench, not much has changed from our previous tests with Ryzen, Radeon and Intel. The only thing that differs would be the RAM speed, for we were somehow unable to push the EXPO profile on the X670E Aorus Master motherboard. So here, we have it at the default 4,800MHz which might impact performance just a little bit. Do take note.

With that said, we’ll jump right into the benchmarks and as much as possible, we’ll be comparing these two non-X CPUs to their X counterparts.

Benchmarks

First up, we have Cinebench R20 and we’re just going to keep things simple here.

Do note that the X CPUs were tested with a 360mm AiO Liquid Cooler while the non-X CPUs are tested with their respective coolers, respectively. It might not be an apples to apples comparison but it should still provide a good enough comparison.

The Ryzen 5 7600 performs pretty much as expected, just right below the Ryzen 5 7600X. We’re looking at just about a 7% difference in Single-Core and a 10% difference in Multi-Core. The situation is relatively similar for the Ryzen 9 7900 as well, at about a 5% difference for Single-Core and a 12% difference for Multi-Core.

In short, the non-X SKUs are simply positioned right below their X counterparts, as they should be. But perhaps the most interesting thing to take away here is that these two CPUs have just a 65W TDP instead of the 105W and 170W of their X counterparts. To be able to get so close in performance despite the vast difference in wattage does say a thing or two about efficiency.

Moving on to Cinebench R23 and the same holds true. The Ryzen 5 7600 performs just right below the Ryzen 5 7600X while the Ryzen 9 7900 performs very similarly in Single-Core while taking a slightly larger hit for Multi-Core.

As for our Blender tests with BMW and Classroom, the exact same trend can be observed here as well. The Ryzen 5 7600 completed the tests at 171 seconds and 381 seconds respectively while the Ryzen 5 7600X completed the tests at 159 seconds and 349 seconds respectively. The Classroom scene is certainly the more demanding scene here, thus the large difference in seconds but the % difference remains fairly similar. Looking at the Ryzen 9(s), the Ryzen 9 7900 completed it in 95 seconds and 204 seconds respectively while the Ryzen 9 7900X completed them in 81 seconds and 175 seconds respectively. Again, it’s a similar trend and percentage.

Now we did also test 3D Mark Firestrike but do take the results with a slight grain of salt as many other factors affect the overall score for Firestrike. However, the trend still largely remains the same and both the non-X SKUs are positioned just below their X counterparts, as they should be.

Gaming Benchmark

We then move on to some gaming and to keep things similar to our previous setup and cut straight to the point, we’re just testing 3 titles here, namely CS:GO, Apex Legends and Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

In all honesty, we’re looking at pretty much the same performance throughout. There might be slight differences here and there but we’re talking just about 1-2% at best. 1080P is of no issues at all for any of the CPUs and is 1440P. Either of these two resolutions are a piece of cake for these CPUs to handle.

At 4K, differences are still negligible. But we do want to point out that it will be heavily dependent on the games you play as well. Overall however, given that all these CPUs are based off the same architecture and are of the same generation of family, if you’re looking for more performance in your games, you’ll benefit more from upgrading your GPU rather than your CPU.

So in the end, what really is the point for having the Ryzen 5 7600 and the Ryzen 9 7900 given how closely they perform to their X counterparts and with the fact that AMD has Eco-Mode in the first place where you can limit the TDP on your Ryzen 5 7600X or Ryzen 9 7900X and match that to these two non-X chips.

Price

Well it would come down to just one thing basically and that’s price. Both the Ryzen 5 7600 and the Ryzen 9 7900 will be more affordable than the Ryzen 5 7600X and Ryzen 9 7900X respectively while also providing you with a compatible CPU Cooler right out of the box.

The Ryzen 5 7600 retails for US$229 while the Ryzen 9 7900 retails for US$429. This serves as an easier entrypoint for newcomers into the PC space and helps you save a few bucks at that.

Wraith STEALTH Is Not Good Enough

However, we do have to point out one thing regarding the Wraith coolers. The Wraith PRISM that comes with the Ryzen 9 7900 is of no issues at all and it performs well, fully capable of handling the Ryzen 9 7900 at full load even with synthetic benchmarks like Cinebench and Blender. The Ryzen 9 7900 never really got past 70C in all our testing.

The Wraith Stealth on the other hand however, leaves much to be desired. If you’re planning on just gaming and gaming alone, this will still hold up fine with average temperatures in the mid 70s under gaming load. However, should you also want to use this for professional or creative applications, this small little cooler is simply not enough. Be it Cinebench, Blender, Adobe or Resolve or anything else. Anything which pushes 100% on the CPU for an extended period of time, like a render, will see temperatures max out at 95C.

Now it does push as much GHz as it can at that maximum temperature, thus resulting in just about a 10% performance difference with the Ryzen 5 7600X but 95C is definitely quite toasty and we would highly recommend to swap this out for something much more chonky like a Cooler Master Hyper 212.

In our opinion however, we do wish that AMD had provided the Wraith SPIRE which has the copper core. Would’ve been a much better fit for the Ryzen 5 7600.

It's Just Really Efficient

But honestly, that’s really just about our one complaint with these new Ryzen 7000 non-X series. Overall, they are just great performers and they boast incredible efficiency. If you’re looking to build an ITX setup and you’re looking to just play games, the Ryzen 5 7600 is honestly something to consider. Or if you’re looking to have a compact workstation, that’s where the Ryzen 9 7900 comes in as well.

If you, however, want a good all round system that can do both gaming and professional work at a decent price, the Intel Core i5-13600K is still too hard to pass up. That’s honestly just a crazy good chip at the tier that it’s supposed to be. Kind of insane actually.

And if you have the budget to spare, you can also just go for the X versions instead and you can just use Eco-Mode to bring the TDP down.

In any case, we hope that we were able to provide a little bit of insight and yes, we understand that our testing and benchmarking practices aren’t the most complete as compared to most other established reviewers. But we promise to do much more in the future and grow this segment.