On the surface, the Ryzen 7 7700X may not be the most exciting of the new Zen 4 processors AMD has released; the Ryzen 9 7950X (open in new tab) has the advantage of being cheaper and faster than its predecessor and has more threads than any chip more threads. The Ryzen 5 7600X is also the highest clocked mainstream CPU and costs only $299.

But an 8-core, 16-thread CPU at $399 in 2022 seems a bit dated.

That's why AMD made such a big deal earlier this year of packing an unusual amount of additional L3 cache into the Ryzen 7 5800X3D (open in new tab); with the addition of 3D V-cache, its Zen 3 CPU has the same mandatory as the standard Ryzen 7 5800X (open in new tab) cores and core count, it was still the fastest gaming CPU in AMD's history. But now, just five months later, the Ryzen 7 7700X outperforms the Ryzen 7 7700X almost across the board in most games.

In some games, it rivals and sometimes even surpasses the Ryzen 7000 series, the top-end $700 CPUs. This is definitely something that should not be ignored when looking for a new chip.

What we have here is essentially a direct replacement for the previous generation Ryzen 7 5800X. However, it is called the 7700X because the name 7800X is likely reserved for the Zen 4 3D V-cache gaming chip. At least, if AMD can assemble this chip in its factory and ship it to stand up to Intel's Raptor Lake (open in new tab) announcement.

That means eight Zen 4 cores and 16 threads of computing power with simultaneous multi-threading. The new Zen 4 architecture (open in new tab) is detailed in our review of the Ryzen 9 7950X, not to mention its derivation from Zen 3 technology.

And higher clock speeds. The clock speeds are significantly higher. Of course, the Ryzen 7 7700X can't match the 5.9GHz of its 16-core contemporaries, but with an all-core frequency of 5.15GHz right out of the box, it is very impressive. Under single-core loads, such as most game engines, it has been found to run at 5.55 GHz

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This would have been an overclocked frequency just a few months ago, but we are getting this frequency with stock-clocked AMD chips; Jacob recently went to Intel's Haifa lab and found that Intel also has a 6GHz figure (open in new tab ), and there are rumors that they are on the same track.

The Ryzen 7 7700X has the same 105W TDP as the Ryzen 7 5800X and 5800X3D, but the 5nm compute die and 6nm I/O die improve efficiency and the Eco mode feature makes performance per watt outstanding. I'm a big fan of Eco mode in the Zen 4 generation of chips, and perhaps in this more middle-order processor as well.

Eco mode gives you the option to run the powerful Zen 4 silicon on less power. Given the state of the economy and the rising energy prices around the world, this is something we are all a little more aware of now: lowering the TDP from 105W to 65W will result in very little performance loss. This is because performance and input power operate on a curve, so in order to continue to increase performance, you have to keep putting more power into the system.

So even when power usage drops significantly, actual real-world performance may not drop by a surprising amount; in the case of the Ryzen 7 7700X, gaming in particular does not suffer. At worst, you can get 95% performance with less power, less heat, and quieter gaming.

On the Ryzen 9 7950X with a TDP of 170W, a drop in power consumption to 65W results in a significant drop in multi-threaded performance, down to 77% of total performance, which does not happen on the Ryzen 7 7700X. Cinebench performance at 65W is 95% of what the chip manages at 105W, and sometimes game frame rates actually improve.

In 65W mode, temperatures and game wattage do not drop as much, but the cores are never maxed out at game loads. Still, it reaches almost 5 GHz at 65W all-core load, which is seriously impressive.

One might wonder why AMD didn't make this chip 65W in the first place, and why the Ryzen 5 7600X was changed from the Zen 3's 65W TDP to the Zen 4's 105W TDP.

It's all well and good to talk about the efficiency of new architectures, lower power demands, and performance per watt, but that doesn't sell chips; AMD knew that putting more power into the 5nm core complex would result in higher clocks and more attention-grabbing numbers.

Gaming performance

Compute and system performance

In any case, the Ryzen 7 7700X is definitely one of the best gaming chips. As for gaming frame rates, it keeps pace with the Ryzen 9 7950X and significantly outperforms the old Ryzen 9 5950X. 5.55GHz single-core clock speed really works well.

It is also an example of how efficient the 5nm CCD of the Zen 4 generation is compared to that of the Zen 3 generation. The performance per watt difference is quite staggering, with the Ryzen 7 7700X delivering more than twice the performance of the Ryzen 9 5950X.

It also maintains performance close to the top Alder Lake chips. However, this close touch distance with Intel's processors is likely to be short-lived once the upcoming 13th generation Raptor Lake CPUs arrive on the scene.

Still, I was impressed with the efficient gaming power of this AMD chip. I wouldn't mind running the Zen 4 chip in eco mode 24/7.

Frankly, it rarely happens; at 1440p or 4K, you are more likely to be limited by the GPU than you are by the processor. Also, if you're rendering content or asking AI painters for weird pictures, the graphics card becomes a core component.

Therein lies the problem. Now that the computing power of graphics silicon is being used in a wider range of areas than ever before, the CPU plays an increasingly smaller role. However, in all areas of the creative world, processors are being relegated to facilitators of graphics cards.

Therefore, the idea of the best gaming CPU (open in new tab) has a certain anachronistic flavor these days. So the idea of spending $699 on a Ryzen 9 7950X is a bit much if your PC is primarily a gaming machine. But spending $399 for an 8-core CPU is also a stretch, as even a modest $200 chip will no doubt perform equally well on titles that require a GPU at 1080p or higher resolution.

Aside from these substantive questions about the CPU, there is one Ryzen chip as a whole to consider: Raptor Lake. Intel's forthcoming update to Alder Lake promises higher clock speeds, better multi-threaded performance, as Zen 4 has achieved, and thanks to what the engineers did in designing Golden Cove (now Raptor Cove), there is already a gaming Advantage is built in.

Once both Raptor Lake and Zen 4's 3D V-cache Ryzen appear, there will be no pretense that they are high-end gaming CPUs.

However, the Ryzen 7 7700X remains an excellent example of the generational improvements of the Zen 4 architecture, especially in terms of efficiency. This third chip outperforms the previous generation's cache-intensive special edition CPUs quite regularly, and it was the best gaming processor AMD had made until just five months ago. The chip is efficient, extremely fast, and performs well on the gaming side of things.

No chip is more unattractive than this one.