AMD Ryzen 7950X and 7700X Review – Zen 4 – Conclusion

There is no denying that the Ryzen 7000 series processors have many technical improvements over their predecessors. The I/O template has finally received some much-needed upgrades, both in terms of production process and features, which really take the platform a step further. And if we want to believe the communication from AMD about socket AM5 so far, then with this motherboard you are again looking for long-term support for new generations of processors, just like with AM4. However, it is not all roses and sunsets.

AM5 . platform

Years after AM4, this time both a new motherboard and new memory must be purchased in order to use the new generation Ryzen processor. Of course, the AM5 socket with a completely different design than the AM4 means you have to buy a new motherboard, but that’s less easily defendable for working memory. AMD itself chose not to offer DDR4 support with the Ryzen 7000 series and argued that with this choice, it would in fact speed up DDR5 adoption, as the increased demand helps the (incremental) development and affordability of the new memory standard.

There is something to be said about it, although it is clear that at the end of 2022 we will be dealing with AMD completely different than it was at the beginning of AM4. The vulnerable situation that the manufacturer was in has become a thing of the past. Since then, AMD has built a strong brand name with Ryzen, which many users now associate with high performance. For a long time this was accompanied by a relatively competitive price, but with the latest Ryzens the costs of the fully assembled system look very different off the line.

Ryzen 7950X and 7700X

The situation is slightly different for individual processors. The 7700X and 7950X are both more expensive in euros than their predecessors, and therefore more advanced. Of the two models tested, the Ryzen 7 7700X is actually less impressive, although the processor does not show a bad performance. However, the flagship, the Ryzen 9 7950X, is the processor that scores highly. The large number of fast Zen 4 cores with fast clock speeds ensures that the CPU performs excellently in a good number of workloads and in the rare cases where AVX-512 support can be used, the processor takes off strong. In many ways, there’s no need to mourn the Threadripper end for consumers; Ryzen 9 7950X is in a sense a hedt . processor.

When it comes to gaming, the Ryzen 7950X and 7700X aren’t immediately the right choices. It is amazing. AMD itself praises the processors as being very suitable for gaming. Again, we can say that there’s nothing wrong with the gaming performance of the new generation, but Intel’s Alder Lake and AMD’s 5800X3D are more interesting options when it comes to gaming alone. With low-priced DDR4 memory and an affordable motherboard, the 5800X3D is at least as fast as the new Ryzens, and at the bottom, leaves more money for the video card, which is still the most defining factor in a gaming system.

Too hot to handle

AMD’s Ryzen 7000 processors get very hot under full load. This is evidenced by our own tests and this is also what AMD clearly reported to the press. The manufacturer seems to be saying between the lines that the switch should be made for end users: CPU temperatures above 90 degrees are not high, but perfectly normal and well suited for long-term use. Thermal limit is where the Ryzen 7950X and 7700X meet first. That’s really the case with the Stay Quiet Dark Rock Pro 4 cooler and even with our biggest water coolers, we don’t dip below 80 degrees. That’s a big difference from the Ryzen 5000 generation. It’s becoming very clear that the 5nm chiplets in the new Ryzen processors simply deliver so much power on a surface that’s too small to dissipate heat properly with existing coolers.

AMD also chose to provide more power on the AM5 than it did on the AM4, all to boost clock speeds as much as possible. This provides the ultimate in performance in many of the benchmarks we’ve seen from the 7950X and this result is a huge gain over the previous generation.