A few days ago, AMD announced a trio of cheaper Ryzen 7000 CPUs at its CES 2023 showcase, with more modest 65W TDPs, bundled air coolers, and a January 10 release date. One of the CPUs, the Ryzen 5 7600, has arrived at DF HQ, where we’ve put it through our full test suite for the most processor-intensive games. Is this a cheaper entry point into the Ryzen 7000 series with virtually zero compromises, like the Ryzen 5 5600, or are there some reasons you’d consider the more expensive Ryzen 5 7600X?
After all, the Ryzen 7000 “X” processors we’ve tested so far have shown greater-than-average generation-to-generation improvements, a result not only of the new Zen 4 architecture, but also of the switch to the AM5 socket As a result, more power can be delivered – up to 230W. One of the reasons the Ryzen 5600 is so powerful compared to the Ryzen 5600X is that it runs at the same 65W TDP, with the same overclocking tools and Precision Boost 2 algorithm to maximize performance. Here, though, we’re going from the 7600X’s 105W TDP down to the 7600’s 65W TDP – so it’s conceivable a performance difference beyond what the 200MHz drop in boost clock would suggest.
You can see this in the full Ryzen 7000 spec sheet below. As a reminder, each of these Zen 4 designs benefited from a range of improvements over their Zen 3 counterparts, citing a 13% increase in instructions per clock (IPC) as well as more internal improvements such as an improved execution engine and Better branch predictors. There’s also DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 support, with 5nm CCD and 6nm I/O die, and the new AM5 socket we mentioned earlier – which unlocks extra power and performance, but also requires a new motherboard and possibly New cooling unit.
| CPU design | Promote | according to | L3 cache | thermal design plan | Suggested retail price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryzen 9 7950X3D | Zen 4 16C/32T | 5.7GHz | 4.2GHz | 128MB | 170W | to be determined |
| Ryzen 9 7950X | Zen 4 16C/32T | 5.7GHz | 4.5GHz | 64MB | 170W | $699/£739 |
| Ryzen 9 7900X3D | Zen 4 12C/24T | 5.6GHz | 4.4GHz | 132MB | 120W | to be determined |
| Ryzen 9 7900X | Zen 4 12C/24T | 5.6GHz | 4.7GHz | 64MB | 170W | $549/£579 |
| Ryzen 9 7900 | Zen 4 12C/24T | 5.3GHz | 3.7GHz | 64MB | 65W | $429 |
| Ryzen 7 7800X3D | Zen 4 8C/16T | 5GHz | 4.XGHz | 96MB | 120W | to be determined |
| Ryzen 7 7700X | Zen 4 8C/16T | 5.4GHz | 4.5GHz | 32MB | 105W | $399/£419 |
| Ryzen 7 7700 | Zen 4 8C/16T | 5.3GHz | 3.8GHz | 32MB | 65W | $329 |
| Ryzen 5 7600X | Zen 4 6C/12T | 5.3GHz | 4.7GHz | 32MB | 105W | $299/£319 |
| Ryzen 5 7600 | Zen 4 6C/12T | 5.1GHz | 3.8GHz | 32MB | 65W | $229 |
For our testing, we use the same setup as in last week’s 7700X and 7950X reviews. That means our graphics card requires an ASRock X670E Taichi motherboard, a G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo DDR5-6000 CL30 RAM, and an RTX 3090 Strix OC from Asus. Cooling is provided by a 240mm Alphacool Eisbaer Aurora AiO, which is compatible with the new AM5 socket.
For storage, we use three PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs to hold all our games – a 4TB Kingston KC3000, a 1TB PNY XLR8 CS3140, and a 1TB Crucial P5 Plus. Our rig came with a 1000W Corsair RM1000x power supply.
As before, we are using a version of Windows 11 prior to 22H2, as this seems to provide the best performance for Ryzen 7000 processors. We also used the latest BIOS, version 1.14.AS06, on an ASRock X670E Taichi motherboard while conducting our tests.
To test other platforms, we use the ASUS ROG Crosshair 8 Hero for the Ryzen 5000 test, the ASUS ROG Maximus Z590 Hero for the 11th Gen Intel test, the ASUS ROG Z690 Maximus Hero for the 12th Gen test, and the Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Master 13th Gen Tested; all of these are high-end boards for their respective platforms. DDR4 motherboards use G.Skill 3600MT/s CL16 memory, which is the best choice for DDR4, while DDR5 motherboards use DDR5-6000 CL30, as mentioned earlier.
Before we get into the gaming benchmarks that make up pages two through five, let’s set up some quick content creation benchmark scenarios: Cinebench R20 3D rendering and Handbrake video transcoding.
We can immediately see a clear difference between the 105W 7600X and the 65W 7600, with the Cinebench R20 score being 6% to 8% higher, depending on whether you’re looking at single-core or multi-core results. However, the 7600 still performs significantly better than the previous generation 5600X in both areas, with a 17% increase in single-core and a 25% increase in multi-core – so we’re still getting a significantly faster processor here, it’s only half-way behind the 7600X.
Our Handbrake video transcoding test results were similar, with the 7600’s lower TDP and 200MHz lower nominal boost clock giving the 7600X an 8% performance advantage over the 7600 for h.264 and h.265 (HEVC) encoding. Again, we’re still comfortably ahead of the fastest six-core Ryzen 5000 segment, with performance closest to the eight-core Ryzen 7 5800X3D or Ryzen 7 5800X models.
| Expo R20 1T | CBRE R20 Metric Ton | Harvard h.264 | High-quality HEVC | HEVC power usage | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryzen 9 7950X | 798 | 14837 | 105.15 frames per second | 45.10fps | 368W |
| Ryzen 9 7900X | 791 | 11324 | 79.38 frames per second | 33.77 frames per second | 288W |
| Ryzen 7 7700X | 768 | 7894 | 56.69 frames per second | 25.95 frames per second | 266W |
| Ryzen 5 7600X | 750 | 6063 | 44.35 frames per second | 20.28 frames per second | 236W |
| Ryzen 5 7600 | 706 | 5632 | 41.09 frames per second | 18.72fps | 196W |
| Ryzen 9 5950X | 637 | 10165 | 70.28 frames per second | 30.14 frames per second | 237W |
| Ryzen 7 5800X3D | 546 | 5746 | 42.71fps | 19.10fps | 221W |
| Ryzen 7 5800X | 596 | 6118 | 44.18 frames per second | 19.50fps | 229W |
| Ryzen 5 5600X | 601 | 4502 | 31.75 frames per second | 14.43 frames per second | 160W |
| Core i9 13900K | 873 | 15570 | 104.67 frames per second | 41.20fps | 473W |
| Core i5 13600K | 767 | 9267 | 62.37 frames per second | 26.44 frames per second | 254W |
| Core i9 12900K | 760 | 10416 | 70.82 frames per second | 29.26 frames per second | 373W |
| Core i7 12700K | 729 | 8683 | 57.64 frames per second | 25.67 frames per second | 318W |
| Core i5 12600K | 716 | 6598 | 44.27 frames per second | 19.99 frames per second | 223W |
| Core i5 12400F | 652 | 4736 | 31.77 frames per second | 14.70fps | 190W |
| Core i9 11900K | 588 | 5902 | 41.01 frames/second | 18.46 frames per second | 321W |
| Core i5 11600K | 541 | 4086 | 29.00 frames per second | 13.12 frames per second | 250W |
Note that power consumption measured on the wall does drop compared to the 7600X – we see a peak power consumption of 196W during h.265 encoding compared to 236W for the 7600X. That translates to roughly a 20% reduction in total system power for the 65W chip, which isn’t bad — and we’ll presumably see more power savings in the 7700 vs. 7700X and 7900 vs. 7900X.
Now, let’s get into the fun stuff – games. We’ve tested a range of titles, so choose your favorite from the links below, or simply hit the next page button to continue the journey.
