techspot Ryzen 9000 reviews out, not much faster than last gen

[UltraMega]

 

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AMD seems a bit lost with this release. They made a big deal out of Zen 5 during the Computex launch, despite having very little to show for it. We had hoped for more, given the IPC claims. But when it came to gaming, very little was revealed, and now we know why.

 

This past week has been very frustrating for us, trying to determine if what we were seeing from the 9700X was accurate. Did we have a defective chip, or was there something wrong with our test system? AMD gave no guidance on how the 9700X should compare relative to the 7700X, and despite asking them directly several times, we only received vague answers. As best as we can tell after speaking with AMD, our results relative to the 7700X are accurate, maybe 1-2% down on what AMD was seeing, but thereabouts.

https://www.techspot.com/review/2877-amd-ryzen-7-9700x/

 

I'd guess this is why the release was delayed. Something definitely went wrong here. 

 

The 9000 series are a lot more efficient, and produce a lot less heat, but that's the main difference it would seem. 

Edited August 7 by UltraMega

[neurotix]

Hmm, this might cause me to change my mind on getting a 9950x.

[Slaughtahouse]

Very odd results, there are some outliers where a game like CS:2 or Assetto Corsa has some significant gains. Maybe due to specific architecture optimizations that those specific games leverage? I'm not sure because nearly every other game shows no difference or performs worse than the 7700X.

 

Weird when the weeks prior to launch, it sounded like Zen 5 CPUs could potentially trade blows or come close to 7800X3D. Clearly something doesn't add up and now provides more context into the launch delay. 

AMD Says Zen 5 9700X CPU Is 2% Faster Than the 7800X3D in Gaming | Extremetech

WWW.EXTREMETECH.COM

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Previously, the company had only compared it with Zen 3's 5800X3D.

 

Edited August 7 by Slaughtahouse

[ENTERPRISE]

Single generational changes do not tend to lead the meaningful real world gains anyway. I wasn't looking to upgrade as I reckon the next generation after the 9000 series will make more sense.

[UltraMega]

1 hour ago, ENTERPRISE said:

Single generational changes do not tend to lead the meaningful real world gains anyway. I wasn't looking to upgrade as I reckon the next generation after the 9000 series will make more sense.

True, but the difference here is basically nothing. Some of the benchmarks even show the 9700x behind the 7700x. 

[Slaughtahouse]

I skimmed through the bar graphs from DF, published on Eurogamer, and they're reporting ~10% increase when comparing 7700X to 9700X (1080p) in their suite of games. Seems more or less what was expected. 

 

Page 4 | AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X review: Zen 5 impresses, but 7800X3D still reigns for gaming

WWW.EUROGAMER.NET

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The Digital Foundry review of the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X from Will Judd. Is Ryzen 9000 a worthwhile evolution over Ryzen 7000's 7800X3D for gaming?

 

[UltraMega]

41 minutes ago, Slaughtahouse said:

I skimmed through the bar graphs from DF, published on Eurogamer, and they're reporting ~10% increase when comparing 7700X to 9700X (1080p) in their suite of games. Seems more or less what was expected. 

 

Page 4 | AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X review: Zen 5 impresses, but 7800X3D still reigns for gaming

WWW.EUROGAMER.NET

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The Digital Foundry review of the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X from Will Judd. Is Ryzen 9000 a worthwhile evolution over Ryzen 7000's 7800X3D for gaming?

 

Some odd variations for sure. Even still though, DF is noting the same performance oddities. 

 

Quote

What surprised me is the relative lack of movement in content creation. Our transcoding test, for instance, showed basically no improvement for the 9600X over the 7600X, while the 9700X was actually fractionally slower than the 7700X in H264 encoding - though the HEVC test did favour the 9700X.

 

[UltraMega]

 

 

Skimmed through the GN video. Interesting results for sure. the 9700X has some clear wins in certain productivity tasks, but it often gets beat by the 5700X3D in gaming, which is about half the price of a 9700X. 

 

Then power and thermal differences vs the 7700X are kinda insane though, and a clear win there. GN had it running at 50c under full load vs 95c for the 7700X. I wonder if AMD might release some 9000XT-esk models later on with higher power and thermal limits. I also wonder if these low power 9000 CPUs will have more OC headroom. 

[Memmento Mori]

10 hours ago, UltraMega said:

 

 

Skimmed through the GN video. Interesting results for sure. the 9700X has some clear wins in certain productivity tasks, but it often gets beat by the 5700X3D in gaming, which is about half the price of a 9700X. 

 

Then power and thermal differences vs the 7700X are kinda insane though, and a clear win there. GN had it running at 50c under full load vs 95c for the 7700X. I wonder if AMD might release some 9000XT-esk models later on with higher power and thermal limits. I also wonder if these low power 9000 CPUs will have more OC headroom. 

 

The new 9k lineup of AMD is probably their contribution to fight the Global warming? But finaly wer comming down with the temps...  Having a furnance near to you in summer is not funn.. 

[ENTERPRISE]

14 hours ago, UltraMega said:

 

 

Skimmed through the GN video. Interesting results for sure. the 9700X has some clear wins in certain productivity tasks, but it often gets beat by the 5700X3D in gaming, which is about half the price of a 9700X. 

 

Then power and thermal differences vs the 7700X are kinda insane though, and a clear win there. GN had it running at 50c under full load vs 95c for the 7700X. I wonder if AMD might release some 9000XT-esk models later on with higher power and thermal limits. I also wonder if these low power 9000 CPUs will have more OC headroom. 

 

I watched GN and LTT review coverage and while I knew I would not be blown away by performance, I was pleasantly surprised to see the Power/Thermal savings on this new generation, very impressive. I wonder what the refresh would like or what the X3D variants will look like. Still likely to skip this gen unless the X3D is particularly exciting.

[Sir Beregond]

Seems like the 9700X is hampered a lot by the 65W TDP and power limits.

 

Baffling release by AMD. I was considering upgrading to X3D this gen, but I might just wait out for Zen 6 and see what that looks like. Zen 5 looks very iterative again with no real bump in clock speeds over Zen 4. Biggest thing seems to be the power/temp drops.

Edited August 8 by Sir Beregond

[Slaughtahouse]

40 minutes ago, Sir Beregond said:

Seems like the 9700X is hampered a lot by the 65W TDP and power limits.

 

Baffling release by AMD. I was considering upgrading to X3D this gen, but I might just wait out for Zen 6 and see what that looks like. Zen 5 looks very iterative again with no real bump in clock speeds over Zen 4. Biggest thing seems to be the power/temp drops.

 

Even then, you have to question what the gain really is. Zen 4 was set to boost and run to 95C. This seems more like a re-release of Zen 4 with a different tuning. Of course there are some efficiency gains on the smaller node but it's surprising that the perf increase isn't close to 10-15% across the board from some reviewers. 

[UltraMega]

Personally, there is a zero percent chance I would have ever bought one of the full power 95c 7000 CPUs. I hated that design logic, running up to max temp and then throttling down, having giant liquid coolers that give you the same temps but maybe a tiny bit more performance... it just felt wrong. 

 

It's disappointing that there isn't a more tangible performance increase, but this is still a great step in the right direction, and arguably these CPUs are cheaper than the 7000 series for a new build because they'll work with a standard hyper 212 style cooler and don't need a big $100+ liquid cooler. 

[Kaz]

Supposedly with PBO unlocked and a bit of tweaking, these processors are really nice.  9700X is preforming about the same as 7900X.  Same performance from 8 cores as they were getting out of 12.  Is it a good idea to pump that much power into them?  Who knows...  If it's the same architecture as the previous generation, it stands to reason it can run at previous gen temps/voltage. 

[Slaughtahouse]

7 minutes ago, Kaz said:

Supposedly with PBO unlocked and a bit of tweaking, these processors are really nice.  9700X is preforming about the same as 7900X.  Same performance from 8 cores as they were getting out of 12.  Is it a good idea to pump that much power into them?  Who knows...  If it's the same architecture as the previous generation, it stands to reason it can run at previous gen temps/voltage. 

One might argue that you could simply buy the 7900X, considering you can find it at the same cost. And if you want to save power on the Zen 4 chip, turn on Eco mode. The caveat is that in single threaded workloads, the Zen 5 chip would beat it. 

[neurotix]

I have a 7900X3D currently that has some glitch or defect that makes it not boost on the 2nd CCD for games that need frequency, or for enthusiast benchmarking on hwbot.org

 

I *might* still get a 9950x. Reasons why.

 

- 12 core to 16 core.

- It would boost up to 5.7GHz for games that like frequency over L3 cache. The only game I really play is Forza Horizon 4 and 5 and I think they benefit from clock speed

- It would boost to 5.7GHz for 3dmark which doesn't use 3D V-Cache or benefit from that at all and afaik in my experience none of the 3dmark benches ever made benefit from V-Cache.

- I would also be able to run all the hwbot processor benchmarks on it.

- If it runs cooler and is more energy efficient I would probably see higher boosts in the applications I mentioned with lower temps.

- it might have a better IMC and allow me to OC my ram to 8000+. My current config is only stable with ram at 7600MHz, I can run 8000MHz for benching though.

 

If my 2nd CCD didn't have this boost glitch where in Hwinfo64 on the desktop I see it boosting to 5650MHz but in any benchmark or under any single-thread load the 2nd CCD is stuck around 5150MHz, I wouldn't consider the 9950x.

 

 

Edited August 8 by neurotix

[Sir Beregond]

3 hours ago, UltraMega said:

Personally, there is a zero percent chance I would have ever bought one of the full power 95c 7000 CPUs. I hated that design logic, running up to max temp and then throttling down, having giant liquid coolers that give you the same temps but maybe a tiny bit more performance... it just felt wrong. 

 

It's disappointing that there isn't a more tangible performance increase, but this is still a great step in the right direction, and arguably these CPUs are cheaper than the 7000 series for a new build because they'll work with a standard hyper 212 style cooler and don't need a big $100+ liquid cooler. 

None of them actually needed a $100+ liquid cooler. The 95C was just part of the boosting algorithm. How fast you hit it was the difference between the cheap cooler and the expensive cooler. You're hitting it either way.

[Snakecharmed]

9950X reviews are out today. One thing of note that I am very displeased with is the stupid requirement for Microsoft Game Bar on the 9950X and 9900X. Why the heck is core parking for gaming necessary with this CPU when it wasn't with the 7950X and 7900X?

 

I have IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021 partly because I don't want that extra garbage in my Windows installation. It can stay out. Looks like the only upgrade path for me on AM5 if I don't want to keep yelling at a cloud is a used 7950X. The 7800X3D isn't viable because I haven't had the time to play a real game in the last year and a half that I've had this AM5 build, but I have done a fair amount of production work.

 

 

And from Hardware Unboxed, to illustrate what a pathetic generational uplift the 9950X is over the 7950X, this is a reminder of what the 7950X accomplished over the 5950X:

 

Edited August 14 by Snakecharmed

[Slaughtahouse]

3 hours ago, Snakecharmed said:

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

Thanks for sharing the review link. I forgot today was the day; I haven't watched it yet.

 

RE: Image shared above, does that data somehow factor out the platform upgrade? AM5, and Zen 4, also brought DDR5. 

 

I still agree with the overall sentiment of Zen 5. Performance uplift / efficiency gains don't align with a generation change, let alone a gen change AND a node change. Maybe my mind is still stuck in Tick / Tock but I expected 15% across the board. 

 

GN released a video recently, deep diving into the efficiency, or lack thereof, of Zen 5. Their results reinforced their recommendation to avoid Zen 5, even if you're coming up from a few gens back. Zen 4 is much better value and just as efficient / performant at stock power levels. 

 

Edit: Link added 

 

Edited August 14 by Slaughtahouse

[Snakecharmed]

I think the 5950X and 7950X comparison is a total system comparison which favors the 7950X disproportionately, but even when thinking of other generational changes within the same platform such as Zen 2 to Zen 3, or even Zen to Zen+, they all represent a bigger uplift than Zen 4 to Zen 5.

 

As it is now, Zen 5 is as meaningful in performance as the Raptor Lake refresh. That's not where AMD needs to be right now considering they still haven't overtaken the Intel 14th gen counterparts in all workloads with Zen 5. Intel handed this generation to AMD on a silver platter with their operational negligence and perhaps unsurprisingly, AMD completely fumbled it.

 

I've seen speculation that something is very wrong with scheduling in Windows because Zen 5 does seem to be consistently stronger than Zen 4 by double-digit percentages in Linux.

[ENTERPRISE]

17 hours ago, Slaughtahouse said:

 

Thanks for sharing the review link. I forgot today was the day; I haven't watched it yet.

 

RE: Image shared above, does that data somehow factor out the platform upgrade? AM5, and Zen 4, also brought DDR5. 

 

I still agree with the overall sentiment of Zen 5. Performance uplift / efficiency gains don't align with a generation change, let alone a gen change AND a node change. Maybe my mind is still stuck in Tick / Tock but I expected 15% across the board. 

 

GN released a video recently, deep diving into the efficiency, or lack thereof, of Zen 5. Their results reinforced their recommendation to avoid Zen 5, even if you're coming up from a few gens back. Zen 4 is much better value and just as efficient / performant at stock power levels. 

 

Edit: Link added 

 

 

This was great coverage and confirmed my suspicions as well. ZEN 5 is nothing more than a ZEN 4 refresh and certainly not worth upgrading to if you are on Zen 4 already. I had not planned an upgrade for my 7950X 3D anyway as it still chugs very nicely. Fingers crossed ZEN 6 will offer something more meaningful. AMD sort of bungled this one. If Zen 5 was as good as the other generational uplifts/better then they really would have put the hurt on Intel. Intel actually caught a break with AMD's fumble.

[UltraMega]

AMD Rumored to Increase TDP of 65W Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X to 105W

WWW.GURU3D.COM

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AMD is expected to increase the thermal design power (TDP) of its Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X processors...

 

 

 

[neurotix]

I'm going to have to be the detractor here, and say I just bought a 9950x, mainly for all the reasons I stated earlier in the thread in my last post. (Being unhappy with my 7900X3D that hasn't worked properly since last April)

 

P.S THANK YOU @bridgypoo

Edited August 15 by neurotix

[neurotix]

I found something interesting:

 

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X & Ryzen 9 9900X Deliver Excellent Linux Performance Review

WWW.PHORONIX.COM

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Last Wednesday was the review embargo for the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X Zen 5 desktop...

 

Check out the last page. In over 400 Linux benchmarks, they're saying the 9950x is 17% faster than the 7950x. Also saying the 9950x is 33% faster than the 14900k. Good news for me as Linux is my main OS.

Edited August 15 by neurotix

[Sir Beregond]

7 hours ago, neurotix said:

I found something interesting:

 

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X & Ryzen 9 9900X Deliver Excellent Linux Performance Review

WWW.PHORONIX.COM

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Last Wednesday was the review embargo for the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X Zen 5 desktop...

 

Check out the last page. In over 400 Linux benchmarks, they're saying the 9950x is 17% faster than the 7950x. Also saying the 9950x is 33% faster than the 14900k. Good news for me as Linux is my main OS.

Yeah seems like Windows is having issues while Linux is showing some good gains.