AMD Ryzen 7 5700X Review: A Price Cut Disguised as a New Chip

AMD Ryzen 7 5700X Application Benchmarks — The TLDR

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We can boil down productivity application performance into two broad categories: single- and multi-threaded. These slides show the geometric mean of performance in several of our most important tests in each category, but be sure to look at the expanded results below.

The Ryzen 7 5800X is 4.4% faster in our cumulative measurement of single-threaded work, which is within expectations given its slightly higher boost clock rate. The Ryzen 5 5600X also offers nearly the same performance as the 5700X. As expected, engaging PBO doesn't change much in this metric, as it doesn't boost the peak clock rates. Rather, PBO improves performance in multi-core workloads, as we see in the threaded tests. 

The Ryzen processors simply can't keep pace with the Alder Lake chips in single-threaded work: The Core i5-12400 is 9.7% faster than the Ryzen 7 5700X in single-threaded work, while the Core i5-12600K is a whopping 21% faster at stock settings, and 26% faster after overclocking. 

The multi-threaded results reveal that the Ryzen 7 5800X is 12% faster than the stock Ryzen 7 5700X, but engaging PBO shrinks the delta between the chips to less than one percent. But, again, the 5700X and 5800X are remarkably similar after tuning. 

In threaded work, the Ryzen 7 5700X is 11.5% faster than the Core i5-12400 at stock settings and 19% faster after tuning, showing that its only real advantage over the 12400 resides in multi-threaded applications. The Core i5-12600K puts its e-cores to good use, though, carving out a 21% lead at stock settings and an 18.7% lead after tuning. That's impressive given its lower price point, not to mention that it beats the 5700X by convincing margins in single-threaded work and gaming, too. 

Rendering Benchmarks on AMD Ryzen 7 5700X

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The same general trends we saw in the cumulative multi-threaded performance measurements are clearly at play in this series of tests. After overclocking, the Ryzen 7 5700X is essentially the same processor as the Ryzen 7 5800X, but the Core i5-12600K still takes the lead across the board. The Core i5-12400 can't match the more generously endowed chips but is surprisingly performant given its price, particularly in single-threaded tasks. 

Encoding Benchmarks on AMD Ryzen 7 5700X

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It's easy to spot the lightly-threaded encoders in this lineup — the Intel chips lead the chart for each of them.

Web Browsing, Office and Productivity on AMD Ryzen 7 5700X

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The ubiquitous web browser is one of the most frequently used applications. These tests tend to be lightly threaded, so a snappy response time is critical. 

Adobe Premiere Pro, Photoshop, and Lightroom on AMD Ryzen 7 5700X

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We've integrated the UL Benchmarks Procyon tests into our suite to replace the aging PCMark 10. This new benchmark runs complex Adobe Premiere Pro, Photoshop, and Lightroom workflows with the actual software, making for a great real-world test suite. 

Compilation, Compression, AVX Benchmarks on AMD Ryzen 7 5700X

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This grab bag of various tests finds the Ryzen 7 5700X exhibiting much the same performance trend as we've seen throughout this round of testing — after tuning, it is essentially the same as the Ryzen 7 5800X. That would be a bit more encouraging if, outside of decompression/compression and cryptography, the Core i5-12600K didn't outperform both Ryzen 7 models in the majority of these workloads. 

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