AMD Ryzen 9 7900X Review | Is this the Best CPU for Productivity?

In September 2022, AMD launched their latest “Zen 4” CPUs in the form of Ryzen 7000 Series. At the time of the launch, the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X is the top-of-the-line CPU with an MSRP of $699. But with $150 less price and 4 less cores, the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X is an interesting CPU. Being a “enthusiast” series CPU, you expect an excellent gaming and productivity performance from the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X. But how does it perform in real life? Let us find out in this AMD Ryzen 9 7900X Review.

In this article, we will compare the gaming and multi-threading performance of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X processor against some popular Intel and AMD CPUs.

A Brief Note on AMD Ryzen 9 7900X

The highlights of AMD’s Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs are a completely new architecture, a brand-new socket, support for only DDR5 memory and all the PCIe Lanes from the CPU are only Gen 5. Exciting. Along with the big boy Ryzen 9 7950X, AMD also launched the Ryzen 9 7900X and the mid-range and budget-friendly Ryzen 7 7700X in September 2022.

With a launch price of $549 and the traditional 12 core 24 thread design, the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X is one of the contenders for the all round gaming and productivity CPU.

Architecture

While Intel and Apple moved on to a hybrid architecture, AMD for their latest Zen 4 CPUs still designed them in the traditional way i.e., all the cores are powerful cores. Specifically, the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X has 12 cores and 24 threads.

Under the hood, things aren’t quite straightforward. AMD is famous for their Chiplet designs. In the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X, the CPU consists of 3 chiplets, two of them are the Core Complex Dies (CCD) with 6 cores each and one Input – Output Die (IOD).

Actually, each CCD consists of 8 CPU Cores. But in case of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X, AMD disables two cores in each CCD. The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X has the same CCDs but utilizes all the 8 CPU Cores per CCD.

Another interesting thing about this Chiplet design is AMD designed the CCDs using TSMC 5 nm process technology and the IOD using the TSMC 6 nm process technology. This way, it could keep the overall cost of the manufacturing down.

AMD completely revamped the architecture with Zen 4 that has 13% better IPC performance. The next biggest change is the CPU socket. AM4 has been a successful platform for both AMD and the consumers. They supported it well beyond their initial promise.

But starting with Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs, AMD moved away from the PGA AM4 socket to the new LGA AM5 socket. That’s right. Now the pins are on the motherboard rather than the CPU.

Memory and Cache

With the new Zen 4 Architecture, AMD completely ditched the support for DDR4 Memory. So, all the Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs support only DDR5 Memory in dual channel configuration. The maximum frequency of the memory that the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X supports is DDR5-5200.

AMD with their Ryzen Series of processors, changed the scene of CPU cache. Coming to the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X, it has L2 Cache of 1 MB per core. So, this makes the total L2 Cache of AMD Ryzen 9 7900X at 12 MB (12 * 1 MB).

Coming to the L3 Cache, AMD divided this into two sections based on the Core Complex Dies i.e., each CCD Module gets 32 MB of L3 Cache. So, the total L3 Cache of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X is 64 MB (1 * 32 MB).

As there is no support for DDR4 and the fact that you need a new AM5 Motherboard means, you need to make a significant upfront investment with the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X CPU (or any Zen 4 AMD Ryzen 7000 Series CPU).

But the industry is moving towards DDR5 and the cost of DDR5 RAM kits is slowly coming down.

PCIe and Power

The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X processor has 28 PCIe lanes from the CPU and the impressive thing here is that all these lanes are PCIe 5.0.

Of these, 24 PCIe Gen 5 Lanes are available for Motherboard Manufacturers to use with GPU, Storage etc. and the remaining 4 are reserved for communicating with the Chipset. The final configuration of the PCIe lanes will depend on the motherboard you select and the corresponding chipset.

AMD is still announcing only the TDP of their processors. The TDP of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X is 170W. In addition to this, AMD also mentioned the maximum power draw of the CPU, which is 230W.

Specifications of AMD Ryzen 9 7900X

Specifications of AMD Ryzen 9 7900X
Cores (Threads)		12 (24)
Base Clock Rate		4.7 GHz
Turbo Clock Rate		5.6 GHz
Cache	L2	12 MB (1 MB per Core)
	L3	64 MB (32 MB per CCD)
Power		TDP 170 W
Process Technology	Core Complex Die	TSMC 5 nm
	Input Output Die	TSMC 6 nm
Socket		AM5 (LGA)
Code Name (Architecture)		Zen 4
PCIe Lanes		Total 28 PCIe 5.0 Lanes of which 24 are available for Motherboard Manufacturers and 4 are reserved for Chipset
Memory Support	DDR4	—
	DDR5	Up to DDR5 5200 MT/s
Integrated Graphics		AMD RDNA2 GPU (Base Clock 0.4 GHz and Boost Clock 2.2 GHz)
Price		MSRP $549

AMD Ryzen 9 7900X Review

Now that we have seen some basic information about the 7900X, let us proceed with the review of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X processor. We will see the benchmark results for synthetic applications, mainstream applications, and games. We will also see some numbers regarding the thermals and power consumption.

Test System

We will be testing the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X CPU against similar tier processors from both Intel and AMD. Before we begin, here is a quick look at our Intel and AMD test systems.

Application Benchmarks

Cinebench R23 Multi-Core (Higher is Better)

Let us start with the most popular benchmark tool, the Cinebench R23. After the 10-minute multicore loop test, the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X got a score of just over 29000 points. If we compare this with the Intel Core i7 13700K, then the performance is very similar albeit slightly low.

But if you compare the performance of Intel Core i9 13900K and the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X, then the former boasts a 32% performance improvement. But against Intel Core i9 12900K, the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X has an 8% better performance.

Cinebench R23 Single-Core (Higher is Better)

Coming to the single core performance in the Cinebench R23, the story is the same. The single-core performance of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X falls just shy of the Intel Core i7 13700K and the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X.

The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X shows only a 1% improvement over Intel Core i9 12900K.

PassMark’s CPUMARK 10.2 Multi-Threaded/Overall (Higher is Better)

Next, we have another popular benchmark tool from PassMark, the CPU Mark. The following results show the overall or multi-threaded CPU Mark Score of all the processors in this test.

While the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X shows a lot of improvement over the Intel Core i9 12900K and the Intel Core i7 13700K, it falls short in front of the Intel Core i9 13900K.

PassMark’s CPUMARK 10.2 Single-Threaded (Higher is Better)

Coming to the single threaded performance in CPU Mark, the story reverses as both the Intel Core i9 13900K and the Intel Core i7 13700K beats the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X. Unsurprisingly, the AMD Ryzen 7950X and the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X also offers a very similar performance as that of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and the Intel Core i9 12900K.

Blender Open Data Render Time (Lower is Better)

Another popular open-source tool is Blender. For the next couple of tests, we will see the render times and number of samples per minute in Blender version 3.4. The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X took 30 seconds over 7 minutes. While this is significantly better than the Intel Core i9 12900K (which tool just over 9 minutes), it ultimately falls short in front of the Intel Core i9 13900K (which tool a whole minute less).

Blender Samples Per Minute (Higher is Better)

The results for number of samples in a minute for Blender Render is also very similar to the render time results where the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X has a good lead over the Intel Core i9 12900K. Here you can see the samples per minute score across the three test scenes: monster, junkshop, and classroom.

Adobe Photoshop 2022 Puget System Benchmark (Higher is Better)

The Adobe suite has a couple of important tools that many creators and artists use. We will start with the Adobe Photoshop 2022. It has a built-in Puget System Standard Benchmark.

If you look at the overall scores, the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X has a similar performance as the Intel Core i7 13700K. Surprisingly, the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X performs better than the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X.

Adobe Premier Pro 2022 Puget System Benchmark (Higher is Better)

Next application in the Adobe suite is the Premier Pro 2022. The results in this test are also very similar to the previous test from Adobe. Both AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and Intel Core i7 13700K go neck-on-neck with a 5% better performance than the Intel Core i9 12900K.

7-Zip File Manager Compression (Higher is Better)

One of the popular and widely used open-source applications is the 7-Zip File Manager. It helps in archiving files. For this test, we are performing the built-in benchmark feature. Here is the result in million instructions per second (MIPS) for compressing using a standards 32 MB dictionary size and 10 passes.

7-Zip File Manager Decompression (Higher is Better)

In decompression, the AMD Ryzen CPUs dominate the charts with AMD Ryzen 9 7950X and Ryzen 9 5950X comfortably beating the Intel Core i9 13900K. The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X loses to the Intel Core i9 13900K by 7%.

Chromium Code Compilation Time (Lower is Better)

Developers working on large projects need a stable multi-threaded system with a powerful CPU. So, we tested the code compilation performance by taking the open-source Chromium project code.

The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X took a snag in this test as the Intel Core i9 12900K beats it by a whole minute.

Corona 1.3 Render Time (Lower is Better)

The last “application” benchmark is the Corona 1.3, which is a high-quality shading engine for production rendering. Let us now see the rendering time of different Intel and AMD CPUs.

Both Intel Core i7 13700K and AMD Ryzen 9 7900X rendered in 50 seconds.

Gaming Benchmarks

Let us move to some gaming performance. We tested some popular titles at a resolution of 1920 × 1080 (1080p) as anything beyond, the GPU will dominate the performance. We are running all the games in DirectX 12 with Ray Tracing and DLSS off.

Far Cry 6

• Resolution: 1920 × 1080
• DirectX 12
• Game Setting: Ultra
• DirectX Raytracing: Off

The first game is Far Cry 6. Here, the 13^th Gen Intel CPUs show their dominance by pushing over 160 fps.  Surprisingly, the AMD Ryzen 9 5800X3D and the Core i5 13600K perform better than the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X. Here are the rounded off average frames and also 1% low fps.

Cyberpunk 2077

• Resolution: 1920 × 1080
• DirectX 12
• Game Setting: Ultra
• Texture: High
• Ray Tracing: Off
• DLSS: Off

Next, we have another popular title, Cyberpunk 2077. The story is the same, where current gen Intel CPUs can pump over 140 fps on average while the Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs struggle to push past 130 fps.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

• Resolution: 1920 × 1080
• DirectX 12
• Game Setting: High
• DLSS: Off

Last but not least, we tested the Shadow of the Tomb Raider. The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X continues against the Intel Core i7 13700K, which could go past 250 fps while the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X could only manage 235 fps.

What surprised in this game is the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D beating all the current gen Intel and AMD flagships. Based on this result, we are very excited to get our hands on the upcoming Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs with 3D V-Cache.

Clock Speed

We ran the AIDA64 Stress Test for 10 minutes and here are the maximum frequency and average frequency of all cores.

CPU Temperature

During the same AIDA64 Stress Test, we monitored the CPU Temperatures with Corsair iCUE H150i RGB Elite Liquid CPU Cooler. Here are the CPU temps for your reference.

Power Consumption

During the Blender render, we measured the CPU Package Power Draw using the HWiNFO tool. The following table consists of the peak CPU Package Power Draw as reported by HWiNFO.

Final Verdict

With a retail price of $549 and the performance it offers, the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X while beating the Intel Core i9 12900K, ultimately falls short in front of the Intel Core i7 13700K, a CPU that costs $150 less.

If your workload involves multithreaded applications that need a lot of CPU computational power, then the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X seems like a good choice, but them you have to factor in the cost of CPU, Motherboard, and Memory.

AMD still struggles in the single core performance where the Intel Core i7 13700K and sometimes even the Intel Core i5 13600K are a better choice for gaming.

The good thing about the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X is it runs a lot cooler and consumes less power.

Overall, we are impressed with the performance both in terms of gaming and productivity workloads of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X but only when compared to the Alder Lake Intel Core i9 12900K. Sadly the party ends there for AMD Ryzen 9 7900X as there are other alternatives in the form of AMD Ryzen 9 7950X for heavy multithreaded applications or the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X for gaming.