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The Ryzen 7 7700X3D puts to bed any notion that clock speed is irrelevant in a modern gaming PC. The chip is sandwiched between two other X3D chips: the coveted Ryzen 7 7800X3D and the less-considered Ryzen 5 7600X3D. The 7700X3D shares its DNA with the 7800X3D, both sporting eight Zen 4 cores and 104 MB of combined L2/L3 cache. The 7700X3D just shaves 200 MHz off the base clock and 500 MHz off the boost clock.
As usual, we tested a suite of modern games at 1080p with a mixture of High and Ultra settings, and without upscaling or frame generation enabled. We use the RTX 5090 on our CPU test bench to remove any GPU bottlenecks and isolate CPU performance as much as possible.
Given that we have eight cores to play with, I expected the 7700X3D’s gaming performance to land closer to the 7800X3D, not the 7600X3D. That’s not the case. The 7800X3D is 4% faster than the 7700X3D on average in games, while the 7700X3D is just 2% faster than the 7600X3D. You don’t give up much performance with the 7700X3D compared to the 7800X3D, but on the other hand, you don’t gain much performance compared to the 7600X3D, despite a $90 to $100 difference in price.
The Ryzen 7 9800X3D remains the fastest gaming CPU on the market, outside of the better-binned Ryzen 7 9850X3D, and it’s 19% ahead of the 7700X3D. Looking backwards a generation, the re-released Ryzen 7 5800X3D at $350 is in a tough spot. The 7700X3D is nearly 20% faster despite arriving on the market for $20 less. The impact of memory shortages has created some bizarre value comparisons, especially for CPUs.
Breaking out of the X3D bubble, Intel’s latest Core Ultra 7 270K Plus remains potent competition. The 7700X3D is ahead by 5%, and slightly less compared to the Core i7-14700K, which isn’t as wide of a margin as we’re used to seeing with new X3D chips. Particularly when bringing application performance into the mix, which we’ll get to next, the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus justifies a single-digit drop in gaming performance for how much it gains elsewhere; that’s assuming, of course, that you aren’t going for a pure gaming rig.
With Raptor Lake Refresh and Alder Lake chips, we tested with DDR5 memory (you can read more about our testing procedure later in this review). We tested DDR4 memory recently on these chips in our Ryzen 7 5800X3D re-review. That data is excluded here to keep the charts readable, but you shouldn’t expect miracles with DDR4. Based on our results, Raptor Lake Refresh chips with DDR4 are in the low single digits behind the Ryzen 7 5800X3D.
Outside of frame rate, you can see that the Ryzen 7 7700X3D landed squarely on 4.5 GHz in our gaming tests. Interestingly, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D locked in the same average as the 7600X3D at 4.7 GHz, despite the former boosting up to 5 GHz. The Ryzen 7 7700X3D also arrived at the lowest average power consumption, despite carrying a 120W TDP, clocking in just 0.1 W behind the 7600X3D.
The power consumption figures are interesting. The 7700X3D carries the same TDP as 7800X3D, but real-world power consumption is closer to the 7600X3D, which has a 65W TDP. And that lowered power consumption helps temperatures, with the 7700X3D clocking a cozy 55-degree Celsius average.
There’s headroom here in temperatures and power consumption for AMD’s Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) to close the gap with the 7800X3D (but, then again, that chip has access to PBO, as well). We manually disable PBO in our testing, as it can push the chip outside of AMD’s default specifications, and in turn, void your warranty. If the warranty isn’t a concern for you, however, the 7700X3D should take nicely to a PBO bump.
007 First Light Benchmarks
007 First Light is the newest game in our test suite, and despite IO Interactive’s Glacier engine taking particularly well to X3D CPUs in Hitman 3, we see a shift toward Intel here. The 270K Plus is 7.6% faster than the 7700X3D, and that’s without optimization for Intel’s new iBOT feature. We can also see slightly weaker 1% lows on the 7700X3D compared to the other Zen 4 X3D chips, though nothing that completely changes the perceived smoothness.
Baldur’s Gate 3 Benchmarks
Baldur’s Gate 3, on the other hand, sees a nice boost with 3D V-Cache, as evidenced by the fact that the 5800X3D nearly matches the much newer 9700X (though with worse 1% low performance). The 7700X3D is in lockstep with the 7600X3D, and just shy of 6% behind the 7800X3D. Compared to the 270K Plus, the 7700X3D handily earns a victory with a 16.7% lead in average performance.
Looking at clock speeds, you can see Baldur’s Gate 3 gets much more out of these chips than First Light, all without an increase in power consumption. That leads to some exceptional efficiency results, with the 7700X3D offering two and a half frames for every watt consumed.
Crimson Desert Benchmarks AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D
Crimson Desert is another recent addition to our test suite, and it shows remarkable CPU scaling in our benchmark of the dense city streets in the Hernand town center. Breaking from our other results, the 7700X3D is 6.9% ahead of the 7600X3D here, and just 1.3% behind the 7800X3D. The efficiency here is second to none at nearly three frames per watt. The 7700X3D is offering 7800X3D-like performance at 7600X3D-like power, which is the best-case scenario for this CPU.
Counter-Strike 2 Benchmarks
Counter-Strike 2 offers a closer look at the importance of 1% low performance, with our averages exceeding 600 FPS across most of the test pool. The 7700X3D is just 1.1% faster than the Core i7-14700K on average, but we can see a 24.7% jump in 1% low performance. That’s a common theme among all the X3D chips we tested in this game. That smoothness is important here. With such high average frame rates, swinging 100 FPS (or more) in either direction isn’t uncommon.
Cyberpunk 2077 Benchmarks
Cyberpunk 2077 shows a much tighter contest in average performance. Here, the 7700X3D is in lockstep with the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and 14700K. Interestingly, the 7600X3D is a little faster here, though by less than a frame compared to the 7700X3D. Flipping over to our clock speed geomean, we can see what’s going on. Most of the chips in our test pool pushed up toward their maximum boost clock in this game, leaving the tame boost clock of the 7700X3D behind.
We’re looking at very tame power usage here, with an average of just 67 watts, and plenty of thermal headroom. PBO would help the 7700X3D push out a small lead over the Intel competition.
Doom: The Dark Ages Benchmarks
Doom: The Dark Ages is the only game in our suite using the Vulkan API, and it features always-on ray tracing. However, we still see CPU scaling even with such a GPU-focused pipeline. The 270K Plus squeezes out a marginal lead over the 7700X3D, but AMD’s chip is a bit more consistent in 1% low performance. The 250K Plus is especially impressive here, offering average performance on the level of $300+ CPUs for just $220.
As we can see from our clock speed results, the CPUs we tested ran comfortably below maximum boost clocks, suggesting the game is heavily threaded. As a result, the 7700X3D claims a clean 5% lead over the 7600X3D, nearly matching the 7800X3D.
F1 2024 Benchmarks
F1 2024 is an interesting benchmark because it provides yet another example of the 7600X3D outclassing the 7700X3D. The performance is close enough to call it identical, but I ran five passes on this game on both the 7600X3D and 7700X3D, and came away with the same results. Regardless, F1 2024 shows a massive advantage toward X3D chips, with even the lowly Ryzen 7 5800X3D beating every non-X3D chip in our test pool.
Far Cry 6 Benchmarks
Far Cry 6 mirrors what we saw in Doom, with the 7700X3D, 7600X3D, and 270K Plus all arriving around the same average frame rate. We don’t see an upper ceiling like in Doom, however, allowing the 7800X3D to claim a lead of 6.9%, and the 9800X3D shooting ahead to a 30% lead.
The power use for the 7700X3D here is especially low, falling behind the 7600X3D by about 6%. There’s probably some small, untapped optimization here that would help the 7700X3D close the gap with the 7800X3D.
Final Fantasy XIV Benchmarks
Final Fantasy XIV is another title that loves 3D V-Cache, and even among X3D CPUs, the game shows big jumps for newer architectures. The 7700X3D is 21% ahead of the 270K Plus here, but all of the Zen 4 X3D chips are tightly grouped between 175 and 180 FPS. In a blind shootout, it’d be impossible to tell between them.
Once again, the efficiency of the 7700X3D is remarkable at over three frames per watt consumed. The chip drew just 55.7 watts on average during our test, 32% lower than the 270K Plus and in line with the 7600X3D.
Flight Simulator 2024 Benchmarks
The Ryzen 7 7700X3D slips in the rankings in Flight Simulator 24, clocking in a frame behind the 250K Plus and 4.6% behind the 270K Plus. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D enjoys a comfortable lead, but there’s very little difference between AMD’s Zen 4 X3D offerings. They remain the most efficient of the bunch, however, with average power consumption below 60W.
Hogwarts Legacy Benchmarks
The 7700X3D once again trails Intel in Hogwarts Legacy, with the 270K Plus offering a 9% bump in average performance. The 7700X3D is a marginal 1.5% faster than the 7600X3D in this game, and it trails the 7800X3D by 3.8%. The 9800X3D, meanwhile, is a staggering 29% faster than the 7700X3D.
Marvel Rivals Benchmarks
The Unreal Engine 5-based Marvel Rivals remains the most popular hero shooter on Steam, but despite its technical backbone, the game shows clear CPU scaling at 1080p. As expected, the 7700X3D is marginally faster than the 7600X3D, and 5.1% behind the 7800X3D. Similar to Hogwarts Legacy, Intel holds an advantage with Arrow Lake refresh, though at significantly higher power draw and worse efficiency as a result.
Minecraft RTX Benchmarks
Minecraft is easily the most difficult benchmark for Intel. We’ve seen consistently low performance out of Arrow Lake CPUs in this test. Note that our Minecraft test uses a render chunk distance of 96, specifically stressing the CPU and memory chain to it.
Spider-Man 2 Benchmarks
Spider-Man 2 shows the 270K Plus once again besting the 7700X3D, this time by 4.9%. The 7800X3D also offers around a 5% jump. We can again see clock speed acting as a big influence in this test, but that extra clock speed comes at the cost of increased power draw, with the 270K Plus nearly doubling the average wattage of the 7700X3D in this test.
Starfield Benchmarks
Starfield is one of the few examples where we can see a clear benefit of the 7700X3D over the 7600X3D, with the former posting a 6% lead. The 270K Plus is slightly ahead of the 7700X3D, with a 3.6% lead, while the 7800X3D pushes further with a 6.7% jump in average performance.
The Last of Us Part One Benchmarks
Rounding out our game suite is The Last of Us Part One, where both the 270K Plus and 7800X3D are around 6% faster than the 7700X3D. AMD’s latest CPU is 5% faster than the base Ryzen 7 7700X, and 4% faster than the 7600X3D. You can see AMD’s non-X3D chips running into a performance wall, with the 7700X and 9700X posting virtually identical results.
This is one of the few games where the 7700X3D consumed more power than the 7600X3D, though only with a 5% bump to average wattage. Still, that’s enough for the 7600X3D to steal the top slot in efficiency away from the 7700X3D, which sits at the top of the efficiency rankings in most other titles.
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