AMD Ryzen 5 7600X Review

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600X sits at the bottom of the Zen 4 family tree, but this CPU offers more gaming performance than you might expect. In fact, it’s got all the power your gaming PC is likely to need for the foreseeable future, but I do have a few concerns about that that prevent us from recommending this processor to anyone outright.

The competition between AMD and Intel for the best gaming CPU has intensified in recent years, with both chipmakers finally offering developers compelling options for the next CPU upgrade. So the Ryzen 5 7600X has a lot going for it compared to offerings from Team Blue and its predecessors.

Fortunately, it has many performance benefits along with the advanced features that the AM5 platform offers. Most people who pick up the Ryzen 5 7600X will be happy with their purchase (as they should be), but it’s worth remembering that there are other Ryzen 700-series processors that might be a better fit for your budget or needs.

Features and specifications

With six cores built on the new Zen 4 architecture, the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X specs contain several improvements over the previous generation equivalent. Neither the number of cores nor the number of threads have increased, but the performance of each has certainly increased.

First of all, the Ryzen 5 7600X has a higher base clock and maximum clock speed than its 5600X predecessor. While the official chip specs top out at 5.30 GHz, in single-threaded workloads like gaming it often runs slightly above that, with my sample running consistently at around 5.45. GHz.

You can get your hands on the improved behavior and clock speed since the Ryzen 5 7600X is unlocked for overclocking, but that’s not necessarily something we consider a selling point, as the gain performance will generally be minimal. With that in mind, the non-X AMD Ryzen 5 7600 might be the better buy, but we’ll have to test it before we can be sure.

One thing that hurts with the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X is the lack of an included cooling solution. This can be partly explained by this chip’s relatively higher TDP at 105 W, but be prepared to buy a better CPU cooler if you like this model for your next CPU upgrade.

Fortunately, those looking to save some money will be happy to know that many AM4 cooling solutions are compatible with the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X and its siblings. Don’t expect to pack a motherboard or DDR4 RAM, as the new socket AM5 only supports DDR5.

While it’s unfortunate that the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X costs a bit more when you add the cost of its ancillary components, there are some benefits to having a new platform. Key among these is support for DDR5 RAM and PCIe 5.0, the latter giving Team Red an edge over Intel in supporting the best SSD models (at least for now).

The value of these features isn’t particularly high right now, but it’s safe to say that their usefulness in terms of gaming performance will only increase in the years to come. Just keep in mind that these standards are still in their infancy and understandably expensive to buy.

References

Our AMD Ryzen 5 7600X benchmarks focus primarily on gaming performance. However, we’ve also included synthetic benchmarks that should help illustrate the capabilities and limitations of the processor for creative and production workloads.

These are the characteristics of our test system:

• Operating system: Windows 11 Pro (22621.1105)
• Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 7600X
• Cooler: Corsair H100i Pro
• Motherboard: Asus TUF Gaming X670E-Plus
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5 6000MHz
• Graphics processor: AMD Radeon RX 7900XT
• SSD: SK Hynix Platinum P41 2TB
• Power supply: Corsair HX1200i

Show

Pairing an AMD Ryzen 5 7600X with a Radeon RX 7900 XT seems like a mismatch, since the GPU costs three times the cost of the CPU. Either way, the Zen 4 chip fared more than well against a blinding wave of triple-digit frame rates.

The thing is, bottlenecking the CPU in many modern games, even at 1080p, is really, really hard. It’s hard to believe, but even when our test rig hit a frankly absurd average frame rate of 337 fps in F1 22, yet mainly related to the GPU.

Looking at the minimum frame rates at the two resolutions we tested, the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X did not shake under pressure or produce any stutters. In theory, this should work in the chip’s favor over its more expensive counterparts, as I can’t imagine they’d offer much improvement here. However, I’ll wait until I’ve had a chance to work with other processors before drawing any firm conclusions.

As you may have heard, the AMD Ryzen 7000 series gets quite hot and the 7600X is no exception. I regularly saw the temperature in the 80 to 96 range°C, especially in multicore workloads like Cinebench despite having a 240mm radiator.

This is not a flaw, but rather a deliberate move by AMD. Long story short, Team Red has tuned their latest processors to push themselves to the limit, temperature be damned, until the cooling gives up. It goes without saying that you’ll need a powerful cooler to get the most out of the 7600X’s performance, and even then you’ll have to get used to this processor running a bit higher than usual.

Verdict

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600X is a powerhouse processor that is more than capable of handling the sky-high frame rates offered by the best graphics cards. In fact, however, it will appeal more to those looking to build a budget or mid-range system, and it will shine there as well.

In the end, it is not the performance, but the price that subtracts one or two points from the performance of a processor. At $299 / £299, the AM5 platform’s lack of a free cooler and higher costs ultimately make upgrading to the Ryzen 5 7600X more expensive than its custom price tag allows. Still, there’s a lot to like here, even if the non-X model is potentially a smarter buy.