AMD Ryzen 9 7900X Review: Zen 4 Has a Pricing Problem

High-priced chip meets expensive motherboards and DDR5

AMD Ryzen 9 7900X
(Image: © Tom's Hardware)

Tom's Hardware Verdict

AMD’s Ryzen 9 7900X delivers impressive performance gains that beat Alder Lake in most types of workloads, including gaming. However, the chip, motherboard, and memory pricing conspire to make it a poor value.

Pros

  • +

    Strong performance in single- and multi-thread

  • +

    Higher boost frequencies

  • +

    Overclockable

  • +

    DDR5 and PCIe 5.0

  • +

    iGPU

Cons

  • -

    No bundled cooler

  • -

    Pricey DDR5 only

  • -

    Requires pricey AM5 motherboard

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AMD’s 12-core Ryzen 9 7900X carries a $549 price tag that slots in between Intel's flagship Core i9 and Core i7 chips, but its performance defies the middle ground placement. Given its price point and gaming performance that matches or exceeds Intel's finest, paired with strong performance in desktop PC applications, the Ryzen 9 7900X appears to be a contender for our list of Best CPUs and our CPU Benchmark hierarchy. But there's a lot more at play than just chip pricing. 

Like the other Ryzen 7000 'Raphael' processors, the 7900X comes armed with the new Zen 4 architecture, which increases IPC by ~13%, etched on the TSMC 5nm process. That combo delivers incredible peak clocks of 5.6 GHz — a mere 100 MHz shy of the 5.7 GHz you'll get with the 16-core flagship Ryzen 9 7950X. It’s also surprisingly a higher clock speed than we see with even Intel’s fastest chips, at least until the company’s 6 GHz Raptor Lake chips come to market.

Swipe to scroll horizontally
AMD Ryzen 7000 Zen 4 Specifications
Row 0 - Cell 0 PriceCores / Threads (P+E)Base / Boost Clock (GHz)Cache (L2+L3)TDP / MaxMemory
Ryzen 9 7950X$69916 / 324.5 / 5.780MB170W / 230WDDR5-5200
Ryzen 9 7900X$54912 / 244.7 / 5.676MB170W / 230WDDR5-5200
Ryzen 7 7700X$3998 / 164.5 / 5.440MB105W / 142WDDR5-5200
Ryzen 5 7600X$2996 / 124.7 / 5.338MB105W / 142WDDR5-5200

Other advances make the Ryzen 7000 chips compelling. AMD has even developed its own EXPO DDR5 memory profiles for overclocking, rivaling Intel’s XMP standard. The Ryzen 7000 chips also come loaded with other new tech, like a new Radeon RDNA 2 iGPU for basic display output and support for AVX-512 and AI instructions. 

Paired with vastly improved power delivery, courtesy of a new platform, AMD’s process and architecture advances deliver truly explosive performance gains — but there are a few gotchas.

AMD’s Zen 4 chips drop into the new AM5 socket on 600-series motherboards. The platform supports the latest interfaces, like DDR5 and PCIe 5.0, largely matching Intel’s connectivity options. However, in contrast to Intel's platform, which supports either pricey DDR5 or more affordable DDR4, the AM5 platform only supports DDR5 memory. That adds cost to your build.  

AMD's initial launch includes AM5 motherboards with the X670 and X670E chipsets, but they carry heavy premiums compared to similar Intel boards — and that's with direct comparisons of DDR5 motherboards. The picture becomes even more lopsided when we compare DDR4 options. And it doesn't look like the B-series motherboards will be as affordable as we've seen in the past, adding another layer of additional cost over similar Intel-powered systems.

Despite its impressive performance in a wide range of apps, these pricing factors conspire to make the Ryzen 9 7900X less appealing than the sticker price suggests — this chip is certainly ripe for a big price reduction. 

Ryzen 9 7900X Specifications and Pricing

Swipe to scroll horizontally
AMD Ryzen 7000 Zen 4 vs Intel 13th-Gen Raptor Lake
Row 0 - Cell 0 PriceCores / Threads (P+E)P-Core Base / Boost Clock (GHz)E-Core Base / Boost Clock (GHz)Cache (L2/L3)TDP / PBP / MTPMemory
Core i9-13900K / KF$589 (K) - $564 (KF)24 / 32 (8+16)3.0 / 5.82.2 / 4.368MB (32+36)125W / 253WDDR4-3200 / DDR5-5600
Ryzen 9 7950X$69916 / 324.5 / 5.7-80MB (16+64)170W / 230WDDR5-5200
Core i9-12900K / KF$589 (K) - $564 (KF)16 / 24 (8+8)3.2 / 5.22.4 / 3.944MB (14+30)125W / 241WDDR4-3200 / DDR5-4800
Ryzen 9 7900X$54912 / 244.7 / 5.6-76MB (12+64)170W / 230WDDR5-5200
Ryzen 9 5900X$398 ($549)12 / 243.7 / 4.8-70MB (6+64)105WDDR5-5200
Core i7-13700K / KF$409 (K) - $384 (KF)16 / 24 (8+8) 3.4 / 5.42.5 / 4.254MB (24+30)125W / 253WDDR4-3200 / DDR5-5600
Core i7-12700K / KF$409 (K) - $384 (KF)12 / 20 (8+4)3.6 / 5.02.7 / 3.837MB (12+25)125W / 190WDDR4-3200 / DDR5-4800
Ryzen 7 7700X$3998 / 164.5 / 5.4-40MB (8+32)105W / 142WDDR5-5200
Ryzen 5 7600X$2996 / 124.7 / 5.3-38MB (6+32)105W / 142WDDR5-5200
Core i5-13600K / KF$319 (K) - $294 (KF)14 / 20 (6+8)3.5 / 5.12.6 / 3.944MB (20+24)125W / 181WDDR4-3200 / DDR5-5600
Core i5-12600K / KF$289 (K) - $264 (KF)10 / 16 (6+4)3.7 / 4.92.8 / 3.629.5MB (9.5+20)125W / 150WDDR4-3200 / DDR5-4800

The 12-core 24-thread Ryzen 9 7900X lands at $549, the same launch price as its predecessor, positioning it to compete with both the $589 Core i9-12900K and the $409 Core i7-12700K that are already on the market. Intel has surprisingly kept its pricing for its new Raptor Lake Core i9 and i7 similar to the existing models, so the 7900X will also eventually compete with the Core i9-13900K and Core i7-13700K when they arrive this month.

The 7900X comes with four fewer cores than the 16-core Ryzen 9 7950X flagship, but has a 4.7 GHz base clock and a 5.6 GHz boost. It also has 64MB of L3 cache, like the flagship model, and an identical 170W/230W TDP/peak power rating. That's a 65W increase over the previous-gen Ryzen 9 5900X and a record for AMD's Ryzen family. This increased power consumption is partially due to AMD's drastically improved power delivery with the AM5 socket — it delivers much more power to keep the cores fully powered during heavy load — but it results in higher chip temperatures.

The Ryzen 9 7900X doesn’t come with a bundled cooler; instead, AMD recommends a 240-280mm liquid cooler or equivalent. Even if you use a powerful cooler, you should expect the highest-end Ryzen processors to run at higher temperatures than we're accustomed to. Loaded temperatures regularly reach 90C to 95C, even with a powerful cooler. AMD says this is expected behavior — the chip is designed to consume all available thermal headroom to provide faster performance. The 95C thermal threshold is within safe operating limits, so it won’t result in degradation. If you're concerned about chip temperatures, AMD has an easily-activated ECO mode that reduces the TDP of any given processor to its most efficient point on the voltage/frequency curve. That significantly reduces temperatures, but it does reduce performance.

The Raphael processors drop into a new AM5 socket that supports the PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 interfaces, matching Alder Lake on the connectivity front. The Socket AM5 motherboards can expose up to 24 lanes of PCIe 5.0 to the user. We have an extensive roundup of twenty 600-series motherboards here.

Ryzen 7000 supports DDR5-5200 if you install one DIMM per channel (1DPC), but that drops to DDR5-3600 for 2DPC. AMD also introduced the new EXPO memory overclocking spec to compete with Intel’s XMP. EXPO profiles are designed for AMD processors to allow one-click memory overclocking to predefined speeds. You can find EXPO kits with speeds reaching up to DDR5-6400.

The Ryzen 7000 processors come with the N5 TSMC 5nm process node for the core compute die (CCD) and the TSMC 6nm process for the I/O Die (IOD). The Ryzen 9 7900X has two active CCDs, but AMD disables four cores to create the 12-core design. You can learn more about this design in our Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 all we know article.

The RDNA 2 iGPU is designed to provide basic display output capabilities only. The RDNA 2 iGPU comes with two compute units, 4 ACE, and 1 HWS, so gaming is off the table. You can see the iGPU gaming results in our Ryzen 9 7950X review, but the short version is that they're the slowest integrated graphics on a modern processor that we're aware of, but they work great for regular display duties.

The integrated graphics are appealling for troubleshooting and OEM systems, though, and it has other redeeming qualities. For example, the iGPU supports AV1 and VP9 decode, H.264 and HVEC encode and decode, USB Type-C with DisplayPort Alt Mode, DisplayPort 2.0, and HDMI 2.1. You also get support for 4K60 and hybrid graphics.

Paul Alcorn
Managing Editor: News and Emerging Tech

Paul Alcorn is the Managing Editor: News and Emerging Tech for Tom's Hardware US. He also writes news and reviews on CPUs, storage, and enterprise hardware.

  • chalabam
    The charts are hard to read. The fonts are too small, and the lines and dashes are very difficult to tell apart.
    Reply
  • ddcservices
    Yet more nonsense in a supposedly unbiased review. Motherboards aren't really all that much more expensive than what came out for previous generations, outside of the boards that have far too many features or just add things that will cost a lot. PCI Express 5.0 support for example...a single PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot would be normal, and you will get it from all of the AM5 motherboards. Add a x16 slot with PCIe 5.0, and that adds to the prices.

    So, beyond this, boards like the Asus x670e Hero for $700...three M.2 slots with PCIe 5.0 speeds, the number of ports, this and that...yep, excessive, but the number of PCIe 5.0 slots are going to do that, along with Asus just charging a lot. The ASRock boards are NOT overpriced, and many of the other motherboards aren't overpriced really. So, no reason to complain about prices.

    DDR5...$70 more than good DDR4 memory, compare the price of DDR4-3600 to DDR5-6000, yea, a bit of a price premium for DDR5, but it's new, and DDR5 prices are NOT really horrible. So, "pricing problem" seems to be more about an Intel bias, because other than, "it's new and hasn't been discounted". The pure gaming performance people will be happy with older AM4 for this generation and the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, but for those who do more than play games, honestly, motherboard+CPU+RAM all at the same time, CPU prices are NOT at a premium compared to previous generations, motherboards are generally at a comparable price, outside of a lack of cheap/low end boards that have no features, and B650 will cover that for the most part. RAM, don't compare DDR4-3000 to DDR5-6000 for price, because that's not a fair comparison. As I said, G.skill Trident Z5 Neo 6000CL30 vs. DDR4-3600CL14, what's the real price difference? Not really enough to complain about.

    I may be biased, but not pointing out how Intel boards with similar features and on DDR5(not the cheaper DDR4 versions) are only cheaper because Intel is willing to give away chipsets at this point.
    Reply
  • TechieTwo
    According to reviews from those building AM5 systems the performance and value is fine from those not buying the extortion model mobos.
    Reply
  • PlaneInTheSky
    Yet more nonsense in a supposedly unbiased review. Motherboards aren't really all that much more expensive than what came out for previous generations

    uhm, yes they are

    The motherboards are a lot more expensive in nominal terms. Add in the depreciation of many currencies, and these AMD motherboards are extremely expensive. Add in the cost of DDR5.

    The result is an outrageously expensive Zen 4 platform that doesn't even perform that well in games.

    Zen 4 is going to need a massive price cut when Raptor lake arrives in a few days. Price / performance, Zen 4 is a disaster. The review is spot on.
    Reply
  • PlaneInTheSky
    DDR5 prices are NOT really horrible

    Yes they are. Regardless, you have to buy new memory. It's not just about how much more DDR5 costs compared to DDR4, it's about needing to throw away DDR4 because AMD had the bright idea that dropping DDR4 compatbility was a smart move. This foolish decision is going to cost them a lot in sales.
    Reply
  • fybyfyby
    ddcservices said:
    Yet more nonsense in a supposedly unbiased review. Motherboards aren't really all that much more expensive than what came out for previous generations, outside of the boards that have far too many features or just add things that will cost a lot. PCI Express 5.0 support for example...a single PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot would be normal, and you will get it from all of the AM5 motherboards. Add a x16 slot with PCIe 5.0, and that adds to the prices.

    So, beyond this, boards like the Asus x670e Hero for $700...three M.2 slots with PCIe 5.0 speeds, the number of ports, this and that...yep, excessive, but the number of PCIe 5.0 slots are going to do that, along with Asus just charging a lot. The ASRock boards are NOT overpriced, and many of the other motherboards aren't overpriced really. So, no reason to complain about prices.

    DDR5...$70 more than good DDR4 memory, compare the price of DDR4-3600 to DDR5-6000, yea, a bit of a price premium for DDR5, but it's new, and DDR5 prices are NOT really horrible. So, "pricing problem" seems to be more about an Intel bias, because other than, "it's new and hasn't been discounted". The pure gaming performance people will be happy with older AM4 for this generation and the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, but for those who do more than play games, honestly, motherboard+CPU+RAM all at the same time, CPU prices are NOT at a premium compared to previous generations, motherboards are generally at a comparable price, outside of a lack of cheap/low end boards that have no features, and B650 will cover that for the most part. RAM, don't compare DDR4-3000 to DDR5-6000 for price, because that's not a fair comparison. As I said, G.skill Trident Z5 Neo 6000CL30 vs. DDR4-3600CL14, what's the real price difference? Not really enough to complain about.

    I may be biased, but not pointing out how Intel boards with similar features and on DDR5(not the cheaper DDR4 versions) are only cheaper because Intel is willing to give away chipsets at this point.
    I agree with some of your statements. I bought new platform and it was worth it. But if I compare prices, DDR5 6000 EXPO costs nearly double the DDR4. Motherboard - ASUS B650 - E costs 9500 CZK and AM4 version (B550 - E) cost me 6500 CZK - but I didnt buy it at the start of the chipset. It was during the chipset lifetime. anyway, its more expensive. It may be due to PCIex5 added cost, I dont know. Also, DDR5 are new. Every gen, new DDR memories are "expensive".

    So nothing to whine about. CPUs are great and if for someone AM5 is expensive, he or she can buy AM4 and it will last several years without a problem.
    Reply
  • somebassplayer
    The "pricing problem" is early adopter tax. People who want to be the first on their block to get onto 7xxxx series should expect to pay high(er) prices. The rest of us will wait until prices come down before
    upgrading.
    Reply
  • ikernelpro4
    somebassplayer said:
    The "pricing problem" is early adopter tax. People who want to be the first on their block to get onto 7xxxx series should expect to pay high(er) prices. The rest of us will wait until prices come down before
    upgrading.
    I don't know about you but AM4 compatibility would've been clever to at least get more people / "early adopters".

    PlaneInTheSky said:
    Yes they are. Regardless, you have to buy new memory. It's not just about how much more DDR5 costs compared to DDR4, it's about needing to throw away DDR4 because AMD had the bright idea that dropping DDR4 compatbility was a smart move. This foolish decision is going to cost them a lot in sales.
    100%. A lot of folks bought fast, perhaps even premium, DDR4 RAM in the past year or two, especially during the crazy-price pandemic.
    I bought DDR4 3200 RAM and I do not plan to upgrade any time soon regardless what chip manufacturers present.

    AMD simply bet on the wrong horse.
    This is not a new platform that people who want to build complete new systems will fall onto, the price is not allowing that.

    DDR5 is fast but you know what's also BLAZING fast? DDR4. Especially +3200 MHz. This is not a noticeble, jump like you PC unfreezes or suddenly memory intensive operations run like a night-day difference.

    We have reached a point where "old" aka current hardware is so fast, that even many(!) years from now, they'll be fast and viable enough to substain.
    This is not a jump from 5MB of DDR2 RAM to 16GB DDR4, this isn't a completely new platform. There's no incentive.
    Reply
  • Pyrostemplar
    PlaneInTheSky said:
    uhm, yes they are

    The motherboards are a lot more expensive in nominal terms. Add in the depreciation of many currencies, and these AMD motherboards are extremely expensive. Add in the cost of DDR5.

    The result is an outrageously expensive Zen 4 platform that doesn't even perform that well in games.

    Zen 4 is going to need a massive price cut when Raptor lake arrives in a few days. Price / performance, Zen 4 is a disaster. The review is spot on.

    No, it is a rather poor review, as it bases most (if not all) of its conclusion on the price of other components. In itself it wouldn't unreasonable if there was anything structurally definitive about the price of those said components: e.g. 4 channel server class motherboards. But no, AM5 mobos and DDR5 are the mainstream solutions going forward, so this review - and its conclusion - will age really badly.

    AM5 X670E motherboards are already available under 300USD, and DDR5 is dropping price by the day. They won't go under DDR4 solutions pricing, but with inflation as it is, that is not really surprising, is it?

    Zen 4 itself doesn't need a price cut unless Raptor outperforms its price/performance. If it does, then price cuts will be forthcoming - all the better for me :)
    Reply
  • cirdecus
    This is really not a good review. You don't knock off two stars for a product that is an excellent performer, priced well and uses the latest platform and technology. If you're upset that DD5 and AM5 costs a lot of money, that's a completely different article.

    Also, every new technology has come with a cost premium. Right now, you're intersecting a new socket, with new RAM technology and new PCI 5.0 tech all into one upgrade cycle. I don't care whether you go with an Intel platform or AMD platform, you're paying a lot for DD5, regardless. If you downgrade to DDR4, great, you can go with intel.


    Complaining that DDR 5200 (6000 is actually what AMD recommends) is only supported by one channel and filling out the banks with 4 sticks drops the speed, is a relatively decent complaint. However, it's half a star at best. You're not going to win an argument that people need more than 64GB of highspeed memory in a system like this. If you need more, then this isn't the right platform. Users should be steered towards AMD's HEDT Thread-rippers. Mainstream processors simply don't need more than 64GB of memory. That's the equivalent of knocking an automobile manufacturer for not offering a 15000lbs towing capacity for their mid-sized trucks.
    Reply