AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X Review: Zen 5 brings upgraded gaming performance (Updated)

AMD Ryzen 5 9600X Power Consumption and Efficiency 

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AMD's power reductions for the Zen 5 processors are simply outstanding. For instance, the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X deliver excellent performance in the Pi-BBP AVX-512 benchmark yet sip power compared to the Intel processors.

In the Prime95 stress test with AVX instructions enabled, we recorded 257W from the stock Core i7-14700K and 182W from the Core i5-14600K, but the Ryzen models both topped out at a mere 88W at stock settings and only ~150W with PBO enabled. Thus, even when overclocked, AMD's new processors use quite a bit less power than Intel's stock-clocked 14th Gen counterparts.

Zen 5's incredible power consumption characteristics are reflected across the board in our measurements, and our HandBrake power efficiency metrics underline the advantages of the more efficient TSMC process node coupled with the Zen 5 microarchitecture.

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The final image takes a slightly different look at power consumption by calculating the cumulative energy required to execute an x264 and x265 HandBrake workload. We plot this 'task energy' value in Kilojoules on the left side of the chart, with time taken on the x-axis.

These workloads consist of a fixed amount of work, so we can plot the task energy against the time required to finish the job (bottom axis), thus generating a really useful power chart. Faster compute times and lower task energy requirements are ideal. That means processors that fall the closest to the bottom left corner of the chart are the best.

These charts speak volumes to Zen 5's power efficiency — the Ryzen 9000 processors consume far less power per unit of work than the Intel comparables. The 9600X and 9700X both land in the bottom-left area, and while Intel's 14600K and 14700K take less time, they use significantly more power to get there. This is reflected by their top-left positioning.

Zen 5 Ryzen 9000 Thermals

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Naturally, lower power consumption equates to lower heat generation, and often more sustained boost residency. As you can see in the images above, we ran through a spate of standard heavily threaded applications (Corona, AVX-heavy y-cruncher, HandBrake, POV-Ray, Cinebench, and Blender) to measure power and thermals in multi-threaded work, and then another series of lightly-threaded apps to check performance in lighter fare (POV-Ray sT, LAME, Cinebench sT, Geekbench 6, y-cruncher sT).

The Ryzen 5 9600X never exceeded 69C during the multi-threaded test and peaked at 88W of power consumption. The chip also easily reached its rated boost of 5.4 GHz during the lightly threaded tests.

AMD Ryzen 5 9600X Overclocking, and Test Setup

• Ryzen 5 9600X: Default power limits, DDR5-5600
• Ryzen 5 9600X PBO: Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) — advanced motherboard, 10X scalar, +200 MHz CPU clock, -20 Curve Optimizer, DDR5-6000 EXPO profile (fabric 2000 MHz, mclk/uclk 1:1)
• Ryzen 7 9700X: Default power limits, DDR5-5600
• Ryzen 7 9700X PBO: Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) — advanced motherboard, 10X scalar, +200 MHz CPU clock, -20 Curve Optimizer, DDR5-6000 EXPO profile (fabric 2000 MHz, mclk/uclk 1:1)

We tested the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X in standard stock trim and with overclocked memory coupled with the auto-overclocking Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) feature. We used the DDR5-6000 EXPO profile for the Ryzen 5 7600X PBO configuration. We also used Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) with the advanced 'motherboard' power presets. We then enabled a 10X scalar, a 200 MHz extra boost for the CPU, and a -20 undervolt using the Curve Optimizer for the CPU cores.

As noted in the introduction, Intel’s instability issue can potentially impact all its 65W and higher CPUs, and an unknown percentage of the processors experience the issues. Intel plans to deliver a microcode patch to address the issue within a few weeks. It has also extended its warranty for the impacted product lines by two additional years. For now, the company recommends using conservative power settings to help reduce the odds of errors occurring. Those recommendations are reflected in our testing, effectively giving the Intel chips a haircut in our performance benchmarks. Intel has also advised motherboard vendors to alter several settings on an ongoing basis, like eTVB, CEP, and ICCMAX, so it's unclear how much performance will be gained when the stringent new power limits are removed. [EDIT: We have now added testing with the new microcode fix.]

Microsoft has advised gamers to turn off several security features to boost gaming performance. For maximum performance, we disabled secure boot, virtualization support, and fTPM/PTT on all systems. The table below provides further hardware details.

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