Ryzen 5 9600X & Ryzen 7 9700X Review: Low Power AMD Zen 5 Impresses
When the Windows installation was complete, we installed all of the drivers necessary for our components, disabled auto-updating and OneDrive, and installed all of our benchmarking software. When that process was done, we performed a disk clean-up, cleared any temp and prefetch data, processed idle tasks, and optimized all of the SSDs using Windows' built-in tools. Finally, we enabled Windows Focus Assist to minimize any potential interruptions and let the systems reach an idle state before invoking any tests.
We should also note that we've completely revamped our test beds for this launch and all of this data is fresh. All systems were as up-to-date as possible with the latest BIOS/UEFI firmware, drivers, software and updates as of the last week of July 2024.
HotHardware's Test Systems:
SiSoft SANDRA 2023 Benchmarks
We began our testing with the latest version of SiSoftware's SANDRA 2021, the System ANalyzer, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant. We ran four of the built-in sub-system tests that partially comprise the suite with the new Ryzen 7000 series processors (CPU Arithmetic, Multimedia, Memory Bandwidth, and Cache and Memory Latency). All of the scores reported below were taken with the CPUs running at their default settings, with 32GB of DDR5 RAM running at an effective 5,600MHz, in dual-channel mode, on the Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Hero motherboard (with BIOS 2204).
SANDRA's CPU Arithmetic test puts the Ryzen 7 9700X just north of 482GOp/s with the 6-core Ryzen 5 9600X topping 342GOp/s. The Multimedia test has the Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X finishing at 3.42Gpix/s and 2.63Gpix/s, respectively, with the higher-end 8-core chip obviously pulling ahead. These scores are much higher than their Ryzen 7000 series counterparts. Aggregate memory bandwidth with the two processors hovers around 52GB/s and memory latency, with the particular G.SKILL kit we used, is approximately 63ns. Despite the use of slightly faster memory (DDR5-5600 vs. DDR5-5200), bandwidth is mostly unchanged versus the Ryzen 7000 series.
| Ryzen 7 9700X Processor Arithmetic |
Ryzen 7 9700X Multi-Media |
| Ryzen 7 9700X Memory Bandwidth |
Ryzen 7 9700X Cache & Memory |
| Ryzen 5 9600X Processor Arithmetic |
Ryzen 5 9600X Multi-Media |
| Ryzen 5 9600X Memory Bandwidth |
Ryzen 5 9600X Cache & Memory |
SANDRA's CPU Arithmetic test puts the Ryzen 7 9700X just north of 482GOp/s with the 6-core Ryzen 5 9600X topping 342GOp/s. The Multimedia test has the Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X finishing at 3.42Gpix/s and 2.63Gpix/s, respectively, with the higher-end 8-core chip obviously pulling ahead. These scores are much higher than their Ryzen 7000 series counterparts. Aggregate memory bandwidth with the two processors hovers around 52GB/s and memory latency, with the particular G.SKILL kit we used, is approximately 63ns. Despite the use of slightly faster memory (DDR5-5600 vs. DDR5-5200), bandwidth is mostly unchanged versus the Ryzen 7000 series.
AIDA64 Memory Bandwidth, Memory Latency & Cache Latency
AIDA64's CPU Cache and Memory benchmarks measure memory bandwidth during read, write and copy operations, in addition to memory latency, and cache bandwidth and latency.
Although Ryzen 9000 series processors officially support slightly faster memory, copy bandwidth is actually a bit lower than their 7000-series counterparts. Write bandwidth is measurably higher, however, and memory read bandwidth is slightly improved as well.
Although all of the AMD systems used the exact same memory kit, configured with the exact same timings, the Ryzen 9000 series processors higher memory clock afford them somewhat better latency, with the Ryzen 7 9700X coming out on top here.
L1 and L2 cache latency is roughly the same between the Ryzen 9000 and 7000 series, though our Ryzen 5 9600X showed significantly higher latency with its L3.
One of Zen 5's claims to fame is "double the cache data bandwidth" between the L1 and L2, according the AMD. AIDA didn't quite report 2X higher L1 bandwidth, but the Ryzen 9000 series is significantly improved. If we look specifically at the full 8-core CCD comparison between the Ryzen 7 9700X and 7700X, effective L2 and L3 bandwidth is also improved significantly, save for the L2 write test.
Although all of the AMD systems used the exact same memory kit, configured with the exact same timings, the Ryzen 9000 series processors higher memory clock afford them somewhat better latency, with the Ryzen 7 9700X coming out on top here.
One of Zen 5's claims to fame is "double the cache data bandwidth" between the L1 and L2, according the AMD. AIDA didn't quite report 2X higher L1 bandwidth, but the Ryzen 9000 series is significantly improved. If we look specifically at the full 8-core CCD comparison between the Ryzen 7 9700X and 7700X, effective L2 and L3 bandwidth is also improved significantly, save for the L2 write test.
Geekbench v6.3 CPU Benchmark
The GeekBench CPU tests stress only the processor cores in a system (not the graphics card/GPU), with both single and multi-threaded workloads. The tests are comprised of encryption processing, image compression, HTML5 parsing, physics calculations and other general purpose compute processing workloads.
The Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X both put up significantly better numbers than their Ryzen 7000 series counterparts in Geekbench. Their respective multi-thread scores are about 10% better, but the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X's single-thread scores are the best we've seen yet, and even overtake the much higher clocked Core i9-14900K.
UL PCMark 10 Applications Benchmarks
Next, up we have some full-system testing with PCMark. We're reporting all test results from the PCMark 10 Applications benchmark suite, which uses actual Microsoft Office applications, in addition to the Microsoft Edge browser. The workloads are specific to each Office application (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint), and the Edge tests simulates real-world web browsing.
The Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X both performed very well here. Despite having distinct core and thread count disadvantages versus the higher end chips represented here, the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X hung right alongside Intel's and AMD's current top-of-the-line processors. The Ryzen 7 9700X was even able to overtake the Ryzen 9 7950X here.
Bapco Crossmark Benchmark
Crossmark is a cross-platform benchmark from Bapco that's available for Windows, Android, iOS and MacOS. Like PCMark, Crossmark measures overall system performance and using real-world applications. It provides an overall score based on the results of its Creativity and Productivity benchmarks and system responsiveness tests.
Crossmark also had the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X punching above their weight class. The 6-core Ryzen 5 9600X clearly outran the 8-core Ryzen 7 7800X3D while the Ryzen 7 9700X edged past the Core i5-14600K and nearly caught the Ryzen 9 7950X with twice as many cores.
Browser & Web App Benchmarks: Jetstream 2.2 And Speedometer 3
Next up, we have some numbers from the Speedometer 2.0 and Jetstream 2 tests available at browserbench.org. The Speedometer Benchmark Suite uses a wide array of latency and throughput benchmarks to evaluate web application performance, while Jetstream evaluates Javascript and WebAssembly performance; both tests take all of their individual results and tabulate them into a final score.
These benchmarks measure performance of an array of browser-based technologies used on modern, rich web applications. Scores in these benchmark are an indicator of the performance users would see when browsing the web and running advanced web apps. All of the systems were tested using the latest version of Microsoft's Edge browser, with default browser settings, on a clean, fully-updated install of Windows 11.
The super-high single-thread performance we saw in Geekbench gives the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X a boost in the latest Speedometer and Jetstream benchmarks as well. In these two tests, the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X top the charts, besting every other x86-based desktop processor we've tested.
These benchmarks measure performance of an array of browser-based technologies used on modern, rich web applications. Scores in these benchmark are an indicator of the performance users would see when browsing the web and running advanced web apps. All of the systems were tested using the latest version of Microsoft's Edge browser, with default browser settings, on a clean, fully-updated install of Windows 11.
7-Zip Data Compression / Decompression Tests
The 7-Zip benchmark measures compression and decompression performance using the LZMA method, which leverages the Lempel–Ziv–Markov chain algorithm to perform lossless data compression. The benchmark produces a final rating in GIPS (giga instructions per second).
AMD's Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X offer marginally better performance than their predecessors in 7-Zip's compression and decompression benchmarks. Zen 5 puts up highly competitive single-thread performance here, and multi-thread performance scales accordingly, but there's no catching the higher core count chips with these highly threaded workloads.
AMD's Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X offer marginally better performance than their predecessors in 7-Zip's compression and decompression benchmarks. Zen 5 puts up highly competitive single-thread performance here, and multi-thread performance scales accordingly, but there's no catching the higher core count chips with these highly threaded workloads.
